122 Mr. PETRIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



stone and mortar until the twelfth century? The words in which this learned 

 writer despatches this subject, as translated by his laborious editor, Harris, are 

 as follows : 



" Malachy 0-Morgair, Archbishop of Armagh, [who died in 1148] was the first Irishman, or at 

 least one of the first, who began to build with Stone and Mortar, of which his contemporary Sir 

 [St.] Bernard gives this Account, ' Malachy thought it incumbent on him to build a Chappel of 

 Stone at Bangor, like those he had seen in other Countries : and when he began to lay the Foun- 

 dation of it, some of the Natives were astonished at the Novelty ; because such Buildings were never 

 seen before in that Country.' And a few Words after he introduces an ill-natured Fellow, and puts 

 this Speech in his Mouth. ' What has come over you, good Man, that you should undertake to in- 

 troduce such a Novelty into our Country ? We are Scots [i. e. Irishmen^ not Gauls. What Levity 

 is this ? What Need is there of such a proud and unnecessary Work ? How will you, who are but a 

 poor Man, find Means to finish it ? And who will live to see it brought to Perfection ?' Sfc. We find 

 also an Account given by the same Bernard, that this Malachy had some Years before built a Chap- 

 pel in the same Place, ' made indeed of planed Timber, but well jointed and compactly put together, 

 and for a Scottish [i. e. an IrisK] Work, elegant enough." Antiquities of Ireland, pp. 181, 182. 



It is true that Harris elsewhere, in his edition of Sir James Ware's works, 

 timidly combats this conclusion of the great antiquary on the authority of the 

 passage in Cambrensis, which would imply, in the opinion of that writer, that 

 the Towers were of great antiquity in his time : but, by connecting this conclu- 

 sion with a theory of his own which he could not substantiate, he only involved 

 the subject in greater mystery than before, and predisposed the unguidedmind 

 to wander in a region of more unbounded speculation. 



Nearly cotemporaneous with Sir James Ware, and following in his track, Sir 

 William Petty goes even farther, thus : 



" There is at this Day no Monument or real Argument, that when the Irish were first invaded, 

 they had any Stone-Housing at all, any Money, any Foreign Trade, nor any Learning but the Legend 

 of the Saints, Psalters, Missals, Kituals, &c. ; vie. nor Geometry, Astronomy, Anatomy, Architec- 

 ture, Engineery, Painting, Carving, nor any kind of Manufacture, nor the least use of Navigation ; 

 or the Art Military." Political Anatomy of Ireland, (second edition), chap. v. p. 25. 



The next writer who investigated our antiquities, and treated of the origin 

 of the Round Towers in particular, was the celebrated Dr. Thomas Molyneux ; 

 but his feeble efforts to remove the mystery of the existence of such remains 

 among a people supposed to have been so uncivilized as the Irish, by ascribing 

 them to their oppressors, the pagan Danes, added nothing to the knowledge 

 already extant on the subject. 



