211 



various other changes which must have occurred, may well have 

 obliterated any paved or other platform which might have served to 

 receive the shadow. 



It is also very possible that they may have been used in calling 

 the people to worship by the sound of the sonorous Irish trumpet ; a 

 practice observed by Bishop Pocock, in Egypt, where he was much 

 struck by the conformity existing between the Egyptians and the 

 Irish. And the conjecture is corroborated by the circumstance 

 which he records of trumpets having been found in the ground 

 around some of these buildings, and an iron one even in the floor 

 of one of the towers.* Brazen trumpets have been discovered in 

 the counties of Cork, Limerick, Down and Armagh ; one of them 

 is six feet long ; another, although deficient of the centre division, 

 forms an almost semicircular sweep of eight feet four inches. When 

 blown its prodigious sound, somewhat like that of a gong, was heard 

 over the surrounding country. -f- »h\ 



A minute description of buildings, which are so well known, 

 would be useless ; it will be sufficient to point out some of their 

 peculiarities. .mi;>; 



The towers appear to have been built at different times, and by 

 different workmen. Those of Clondalkin, Aughterard, DrumclifFe, 

 Swords, Teghadoe and Turlogh, are considered among the plainest. 



The masonry at the tower of Glandalough, and St. Kevin's 

 kitchen, which is much alike, is coarser than that of many others. 



Trumery tower is remarkable for being cylindrical from bottom 

 to top ; part of the wall has fallen out of one side, and shews that 



■ • Archeologia, II. p. 82. 



t History of Armagh, p. 608 Transactions R. I. A. VIII. p. 12— Walker's Irish Bards^ 



p. 109. 



E e2 



