186 



represented to have accumulated at some places of peculiar sanc- 

 tity ? It has been said that one appellation of the round tower was 

 Clogh-Ancoire, the stone of the anchorite; and some weight has 

 been attributed to the word ancoire, as meaning anchorite ; and 

 Dr. Smith even goes so far as to derive the word cloghad, a name 

 often given to the towers, from Clogh-ancoire ;* but the Irish dictiona- 

 ries contain no such word as ancoire ; it seems to be evidently bor- 

 rowed from the Latin ; and the circumstance affords an additional 

 evidence that they were not built for anchorites, since there was no 

 word in the native language to designate that profession, and to 

 express it they were obliged to have recourse to a foreign word 

 Incised. ' 



Again they have been conceived to have been Penitentiaries — 

 " Areti inclusorii ergastula," the prison of a narrow enclosure — 

 where culprits were placed in confinement; that first, restrained to 

 the topmost floor, they were allowed to descend story by story, 

 according to their progress in amendment; a sort of purgatory 

 upon earth. Dr. Smith derives this opinion from an Irish MS. Life 

 of Dunchad O'Braoin, Abbot of Clonmacnoise,-!- but he gives no 

 date, nor any account of its authenticity. From this idea of peni- 

 tential towers Dr. Smith draws a theory, that the Latin word turris 

 was adopted to signify penitence in Irish ; but no such word is to 

 be found in the Irish Dictionaries. ;|: As the situations of several of 



» Smith's History of Waterford, p. 357. 



X Smith's History of the county of Cork, II. p. 4-15 Dr. S. had changed his opinion be- 

 tween the publishing of Waterford and Cork The towers of Cashel and Devenish had no 



floors— were the penitents suspended from the top ? 

 J Tor and Tur, — a tower, a heap, a pile. 

 Tor — a body of men, a congregation. 

 Tur, a tower. Turran, a furnace. 



I O'Reilly's Dictionary. 



C O'Drian's Dictionary. 

 Tarras, a pilgrimage. Turrasan, a pilgrim, j 



