135 



they exhibit such durability, that one at Kilmacduagh, in the County 

 Galway, though it leans seventeen feet and an half from the per- 

 pendicular, still remains entire ; while another at Maghera, in the 

 County Down, when it fell lay upon the ground like a huge gun un- 

 broken. -- : 



That they were erected by the ancient Irish should be apparent to 

 any unprejudiced inquirer; they are not to be found in any other 

 European country but one,* and that the very one which Ireland 

 colonized to the extent before mentioned ; and even there but two 

 solitary specimens occur, at Abernethy and Brechin, as if marking 

 the fact of that colonization having taken place, when the rites, for 

 which the round towers were erected in the mother country, were on 

 the decline. Tha tthe latter were not Pictish, (as some have thought- 

 lessly advanced, because Abernethy was the ancient seat of that 

 nation,) is confuted by the manner and simplicity of the only buildings 

 of that people, which still appear in Ross-shire, Caithness, and the 

 Hebrides, while it would be running against the stream of history 

 to attribute those in Ireland to the Picts, who, according to the most 

 accurate records, never regularly settled in that country, and are by 

 none asserted to have even for a time inhabited beyond the sea coast 

 of the present County Down.-f" That they were not Danish is equally 

 intelligible, as in no part of Denmark do such edifices appear; and if it 



* I am aware that remains of round towers are said to be traced in some few other parts of 

 Europe, and one is particularly noted in the " Voyage pittoresque de Sicile," where it is 

 designated as a " monument triomphal appelle I'Aiguille." At the first glance, it certainly 

 suggests a striking similarity with those of Ireland ; on examination, however, it has neither 

 door nor windows, in fact, it is a solid pillar, erected according to all opinions on the occa- 

 sion of a victory, and not associated with any notions of religion. Unkindred as this is with 

 the nature of the Irish structures, I do not think any greater affinity can be discovered in 

 the towers alleged to exist elsewhere in Europe. 



t See O'Conor's Rer. Hib. Script, vol. 2. p. 33. 



