184 



frequently are in valleys, their view must have been too limited for 

 either of these purposes, more especially if surrounded by thick 

 woods; and though they usually stand near churches, and those 

 some of our most ancient, yet they do not often appear to have been 

 situated in the near neighbourhood of abbeys or monasteries ; nei- 

 ther have they in any instance been found in the vicinity of castles 

 or strongholds, situations which might have given probability to 

 such conjectures ; and they are still farther resisted by the circum- 

 stance of more than one occurring at the same place, for it can 

 hardly be supposed that two such laborious works should be erected, 

 where it would seem that one would have answered. 



It has been suggested that they were places of security ;* but the 

 space they could afford for the stowage of goods is so extremely 

 small, as to render them nearly useless in that view ; and if the 

 design was for personal safety, the occupiers might have easily been 

 starved into surrender; indeed those wiio could build such costly 

 towers must have possessed far better means of defence. 



Some antiquarians consider the tower to have been a sort of suc- 

 cessor to the sepulchral pillar stone, a monument like the stele of the 

 Greeks, erected either upon the grave cS" some great personage, or 

 to his honour in some remarkable spot — such as the pillar of Dio- 

 clesian at Alexandria. That these towers may therefore have been 

 raised in commemoration of the venerated founders of Christianity 

 in Ireland, calculating that the popular enthusiasm in those days 

 was such as may well account for the magnitude of these testimo- 

 nials, their great altitude and costliness. 't- 

 were this theory however founded in truth, it is scarcely possible 



* Montmorency on the Pillar Tower. 



f Dr. Shea on the Cathedral of Kilkenny, p. 25. 



