190 



stone ; clogh-teach, may therefore simply express the stone-house, 

 erected probably at a time when dwelling-houses were seldom con- 

 structed of that material.* 



There is still another derivation deserving of some notice : the 

 word clogad, signifying a cone, or pyramid.-f This appears to 

 agree so well with the character of the towers, which may be 

 described as lofty cone-shaped towers, that possibly it is tlie most to 

 be relied on. 



, Tlie period at which they were built is also a doubtful point, and 

 has been as much canvassed as their purpose. They have by some 

 antiquarians been ascribed to Saint Fidechan, St. Columba, and 

 others of our early confessors ; some conceive the Danes to have 

 been their authors ; and a few give them a more remote date, being 

 of opinion that they were reared, even before the conversion of 

 Ireland to Christianity. 



All the buildings, referable to the times of our first teachers, 

 Declan, Kieran, Coleman, &c., that still exist, are constructed in 

 a very inferior manner to the towers; the appearance and the mode 

 of workmanship bear so different a character, that the most inex- 

 perienced eye may distinguish them. Those ancient churches are 

 coarsely put together, and in every respect ill finished, and most of 

 them are in a state of great ruin, while the towers exhibit the ex- 

 cellence of their construction, many of them being still perfect; they 

 could scarcely therefore have been the work of the same artificers, 

 or the production of the same age. 



* As the Chipdshack Tartars call the residence of their chiefs " The stone houses;" 

 and Madshari, the name of their ruined capital, simply means " the stone buildings." — Kla- 

 proth's Travels, p. 239. 



f O'Reilly's Dictionary. — Clogad is also the common terra for helmet ; perhaps the Irish 

 helmet was of the conical shape of the Phrygian cap, and thence derived this name. , 



