Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, Sfc. 239 



nations. There is not a single authenticated monument of the Danes in 

 Ireland, or in their own country, which would support such a conclusion ; and 

 any knowledge of the Christian arts, which the Danes possessed, must have 

 been derived from the people from whom they received the doctrines of Chris- 

 tianity. Neither could I easily believe that the architectural remains, of which I 

 shall presently adduce examples, any more than the two I have just noticed, 

 were erected during the sway of that people in Ireland. Their domination in 

 this country was a reign of terror, and, as the oldest of our annalists says, " se- 

 cond only to the tyranny of hell." No place was so sacred as to afford a refuge 

 from their sacrilegious fury. They carried fire and devastation into the Chris- 

 tian communities, Beated in the most secluded valleys, and on the most remote 

 islands ; and it could hardly have been during such a period of calamity that 

 the ecclesiastics would have employed themselves in the erection of buildings 

 of a more costly character, and requiring more time to complete them, than those 

 already existing in the country. I do not deny, however, that some buildings, 

 and these too of an ornamented character, may have been erected by the Irish, 

 during those intervals of repose which followed the defeats of the Danes by 

 Malachy I. in the ninth century, and by Brian and Malachy II. in the tenth ; 

 and particularly in such districts as were under the immediate protection 

 of those vigorous and warlike monarchs. Of the erection of buildings in 

 such places our annalists record a few instances ; but the remains of these 

 edifices, whenever they are to be found, are, as I shall hereafter show, different 

 in character from those of whose erection we have no direct evidence, and which 

 I am disposed to refer to earlier times. 



But if we are without absolutely conclusive historical evidences to prove the 

 age of such churches, exhibiting ornamented architecture, as are presumed to be 

 anterior to the Danish devastations, there is, at least, no want of such historical 

 evidences as will strongly support such a conclusion ; and the early antiquity 

 which I have ventured to assign to the ornamented doorways of the Towers of 

 Kildare and Timahoe, will derive much probability from a comparison of their 

 details with those of the ancient ornamented church at Rathain, or Eahin, near 

 Tullamore, in the King's County, details, which would appear to be of the 

 same age, and which, from historical evidence, there is every reason to believe 

 to be of the eighth century. 



