139 



a group of humble voluntary recluses. Why would the windows be 

 so curiously adjusted to the cardinal points for such an intention ? 

 Need we allude to another singular notion of Mr. Morris, that these 

 towers were erected for the better exposing of the sacrament and 

 preaching to the people, and that with this object the windows at the 

 summit were constructed. This theory is overruled by the great height 

 and formation of these orifices, equally beyond the ordinary capacity 

 of eye or ear. The last opinion worth notice is, that they served as 

 prisons for penitents, who used to be placed first upon the uppermost 

 floor, and after spending there a certain space of time in proportion to 

 their crimes, were allowed to descend to the next floor, and so gra- 

 dually until they came down to the door and received absolution.* 

 Smith advances this hypothesis-f on the faith of some Irish MS., but 

 to which he neither gives a name or reference. 



It is not intended to deny that such of them, as were by situation 

 suitable for watch towers or beacons, might have been so appropriated ; 

 and that others might have been, in the days of Christianity, aptly 

 consecrated to the purposes of that faith either for anchorets or peni 

 tents, or as belfries, like that at Ardmore,:}: and thence called Cloc- 

 teach, or the house of the bell, after their first destination was long- 

 obsolete; but that they were originally the shrines of that heathen 

 hierarchy, which, it has been sought to prove, governed the mind of 

 Ireland at this period, the author of this Essay entertains not the 

 smallest doubt. The Psalter of Cashel expressly declares§ that they 

 were used for the preservation of the sacred fire; and the brief but 

 emphatic mention of them by Giraldus Cambrensis, which Dr. Led- 

 wich has so misquoted, does fully confirm this opinion. It occurs 



* Lanigan's Eccl. Hist. v. 4. p. 395. f History of Cork, vol. 2. p. 408. 



X See Smith's Waterford, p. 48. 



§ See Miss Beaufort's Essay, Trans. R. T. A. vol. 1-5. p. 206. •■"■*^* -^^ * " "• ' " 



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