110 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



sible to show what other purpose they were calculated for." But I indulge the 

 pleasing hope, that the reader who will accompany me through the succeeding 

 parts of this Inquiry will be of a contrary opinion. 



2. PENITENTIAL PRISONS. This theory was first promulgated by Dr. Smith, 

 the industrious author of some of our County Histories, on the authority, as 

 he states, of Irish MSS., which, however, were nameless, and have never yet seen 

 the light. These evidences are thus stated : 



" I was formerly of opinion that they [the Round Towers] were built for the residence of An- 

 chorites, and this conjecture was founded from such kind of pillars, having been erected in the 

 eastern countries for the reception of Monks, who lived on the top of them, as is mentioned by 

 Evagrius in the life of St. Symeon the Stylite, so called from his living in a pillar 40 years, as 

 Petrus Galesinius reports. And it seemed probable, that our Irish Asceticks had the models of these 

 buildings originally from Asia, which they early visited, as appears from several lives of the Irish 

 saints ; but the use to which our ancient Irish MSS. put these towers, was to imprison penitents. 

 Some of our writers have named them Inclusoria, and Arcti Indvsorii Ergastida, The prisons of a 

 narrow indositre. Particularly in the life of Dunchad 0-Braoin, Abbot of Clonmacnois, into which 

 prison it is said he betook himself, where he died in 987. The Irish name for a penance is Turris, 

 i. e. the Latin name for a tower, derived from penitents being imprisoned in them. And 'tis no 

 less certain that all the Irish ecclesiastical words are directly taken from the Latin, as Temple, 

 Afflisk, Ashbeg, &c. from Templum, Ecclesia, Episcopus, &c. The MSS. add, that these penitents 

 were placed on the top of the tower, and having made a probation of a particular number of days 

 according to their crimes, they were admitted to descend to the next floor, and so on, till they came 

 to the door which always faced the entrance of the church, where they stood and received the abso- 

 lution of the Clergy, and blessings of the people, as some of our Irish MSS. particularly relate." 

 Antient and Present State of the County and City of Cork, vol. ii. pp. 408, 409. 



In the preceding passage, which contains the whole of what Dr. Smith has 

 written in support of this theory, there is but one assertion that has any foun- 

 dation in truth, namely, that all the Irish ecclesiastical words are directly taken 

 from the Latin ; and even this is only partially true, for there are some Irish 

 ecclesiastical words not so derived; nor is the Irish word tur, or, as it is more 

 usually written, tor, though cognate with the Latin, derived from it, but from a 

 common source. Moreover, the Irish never adopted the Latin word turris into 

 their own language; and it would have been as difficult for Dr. Smith to produce 

 an authority for the application of this word either to a tower, or penance, in the 

 Irish language, as to have produced the Irish MSS. from which he drew his 

 erroneous, if not fabricated, account of the use of the Round Towers. The 



