Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 449 



Urdoim, or the gate of the Urdom ; or, as Colgan translates it, Porta, Dorus 

 Urdhoim appdlata, is referred to in the Annals of the Four Masters, at the 

 year 1157. 



SUBSECTION VIII. 

 WELL COVERINGS, TOMBS, AND MILLS. 



IN addition to the several classes of buildings treated of in the preceding 

 subsections, and to which references occur in the Irish authorities, it appears 

 that the Irish ecclesiastics also employed stone architecture, at least occasionally, 

 in the erection of Mills, the Tombs of the founders of Churches, and as co- 

 verings to their sacred Wells, though but few historical references to such 

 structures have been hitherto found. There appears, however, to have been 

 no uniformity of plan in such structures, as their remains sufficiently evince. 

 Thus, in some instances, the wells were simply enclosed with a circular wall of 

 large masonry, as at St. Mac Duach's well at Kill Mac Duach, St. Mochua's 

 wells at Balla, in the County of Mayo, &c. ; and it is worthy of remark that we 

 are told in the life of this latter Saint, as published by Colgan, at the 30th March, 

 that the place, which had previously been known by the name of Ros Darb- 

 reach, or, as it is latinized, Nemus Darbrecum, received its new name, Balla, 

 from the walls or enclosures with which the saint enclosed the fountains 

 " non procul esse fontem, nunquam ibi antea visum cinctum balla, id est 

 lorica. Vnde oppidum, nouum nomen Balla, & etiam Mochua cognomen 

 Ballensis accepit" This St. Mochua, according to the Irish Annalists, died 

 in 637. It is also worthy of remark that we find from the same Life of the 

 Saint, that he was eminent himself as an architect, and was the builder, not 

 only of his own church, and, as we may well conclude, its decidedly cotem- 

 poraneous Round Tower, but also of the celebrated mill of St. Fechin at 

 Fore. And yet this name Balla has beerf" such an ignis fatuus to mo- 

 dern Irish antiquaries, that they have almost unanimously adopted General 

 Vallancey's etymology of the word, " Ballagh, i. e. Beilagh, the Fire of 

 Fires," and considered it as a proof demonstrative of the pagan origin of the 

 Towers, though they had the authority of the Author of the Mayo Survey, 

 himself a disciple of their school, that " in the walls of the small plain church 

 (of Ballagh), the stones and workmanship are the same as those of the Tower." 



VOL. xx. 3 M 



