140 



where he speaks of the consequences of the alleged inundation of 

 Lough Neagh. "It is no improbable evidence of this event, that the 

 fishermen of that sheet of water at times plainly behold the religious 

 towers, which, according to the custom of the country, are narrow, 

 lofty, and round, immersed under the waters; and they frequently 

 shew them to strangers passing over them, and wondering at the 

 causes of the phenomenon."* It is quite immaterial to the present 

 purpose, whether or not such an inundation did actually happen. It 

 was the opinion in Ireland at that time that it did ; it was matter of. 

 history in the country, for the annals of Tigernach, which relate it, 

 were then extant upwards of a century; and these annals, with which 

 Giraldus must have been well acquainted, fix its date to A. D. 62, 

 a time when he knew Christianity had not dawned in Ireland ; yet 

 he, believing the report, expressly says that these towers, denominat- 

 ing them " religious," were of such antiquity, that some of them 

 might have been overwhelmed in that visitation ; that the fishermen 

 of that lake actually distinguish them under the water, ("sub undis 

 conspiciunt,") and repeatedly shew them to strangers, (" extraneis 

 frequenter ostendunt,") that they were towers for ecclesiastical uses, 

 necessarily meaning for the uses of a religion general at that retrospec- 

 tive date, as sun-worship was, though he uses a term which in its 

 more ordinary application is confined to Christianity, (" ecclesiasticas 

 turres,") while he adds that they were built agreeably with the cus- 

 tom of Ireland, "more patriae." Were they belfries he would natu- 

 rally have termed them " campanilia," were they for any other then 

 known Christian purpose, he would have been sure to name it ; but 



* " Hujus autem eventus argumentum est non improbabile, quod piscatores aquae illius 

 turres ecclesiasticas, quae more patriae arctae sunt et altae necnon et rotundoe, sub undis mani- 

 feste tempore conspiciunt, et extraneis transeuntibus reique causas admirantibus frequenter 

 ostendunt."— Top. Hib. Dist. 2. c. 9. 



