Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 



427 



are so similar, in most respects, to each other, are of a very early antiquity, can 

 scarcely admit of doubt, indeed I see no reason to question their being of the 

 times of the celebrated ecclesiastics whose names they bear ; and, as they may 

 be said to form a distinct class among our ecclesiastical structures, a notice of 

 them, will not, I think, be out of place here, even though the fact as to their 

 having been abbots' houses, may not, in the absence of historical evidence, be 

 satisfactorily proved. I shall first notice St. Columb's House at Kells, of which 

 I annex an illustration : 



This remarkable building is situated immediately outside the boundary 

 wall of the cemetery, on the north side, and is, in its ground-plan, of a simple 

 oblong form, measuring, externally, twenty-three feet nine inches in length, and 

 twenty-one feet in breadth, and the walls are three feet ten inches in thick- 

 ness. It is roofed with stone, and measures in height, from its base to the ver- 

 tex of the gable, thirty-eight feet; and, as the height of the roof and width of the 

 side walls are nearly equal, the gables form very nearly equilateral triangles. 

 The lower part of the building is arched semicircularly with stone, and has, 



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