241 



lime, instead of being slaked with water, was ground in a quern- 

 mill, and these two ingredients thoroughly incorporated before the 

 mortar was made. An uncommonly large quantity of this cement 

 was used, the stones being deeply bedded in it, and every course 

 well grouted. This mortar is much harder than the stones it united, 

 requiring much greater force to break it than to break them. When 

 compared with the cement of some of the finest Anglo-Norman 

 castles, the castle of Carrick for example, it was found to be far 

 superior.* t 



The earliest British military structure is said to be the castle of 

 Carrick, which was built by Robert Fitz-Stephen in 1 1 70, two 

 years before the arrival of Earl Strongbow. A square tower of this 

 castle yet stands, and is remarkable for the great strength of its 

 walls, the smallness of the windows, and the extreme lowness of the 

 door.-f- 



Hook tower, in the same county, is of great antiquity ; it has 

 been regarded as an Ostman building. There appears however 

 much probability in a recent suggestion,§ that the original name 

 was Hongue tower, so called after Florence la Hongue, an Anglo- 

 Norman knight, who came to Ireland with Henry the Second. 

 Henry effected his landing about three miles from Hook tower, at a 

 spot in Waterford harbour, where his entrenchments are still pointed 

 out by the people. The tower is a circular building of great 

 strength, which has in modern times been raised to the height of an 

 hundred feet, and made to answer as a lighthouse. 



* Parochial Surveys, III, p, 406. 



f Montmorency on the Pillar Tower, p. 18. 



j. Grose's Antiquities. 



§ Montmorency in Brewer's Beauties of Ireland, I. p. 371, 



VOL. XV. II 



