398 



IRISH ANTIQUITIES. 



THE round towers of Ireland have engaged the attention of the 

 antiquarian and the scholar for ages. The labours of the learned 

 have been devoted to their explanation in vain. Many ingenious 

 theories have been started, that would not stand the test of rigid 

 inquiry, and until the present time the " Round Towers" have re- 

 mained equally the objects of curiosity and doubt. In order to elu- 

 cidate these mysteries, the Royal Iris,h Academy advertised that a 

 prize of some consideration would be given to any one who might 

 afford a satisfactory essay explanatory of the subject. Mr. O'Brien 

 was among the candidates, and, from what we can understand, has 

 been treated with much unfairness. The committee, however, 

 allowed the extreme ingenuity of Mr. O'Brien's theory, and awarded 

 him a secondary prize, but the principal reward was given to another. 

 Now we have looked at the subject rather attentively, and it ap- 

 pears to us that Mr. O'Brien has one trifling advantage on his side, 

 and however little it may weigh with a Royal Academy, the great 

 mass of humanity are not insensible to its claims we mean truth. 

 It has been the great object with Irish antiquarians to reconcile the 

 appearance and formation of the " Round Towers" with the rites of 

 early Christianity, which would wonderfully smooth the difficulty. 

 The attempt is absurd ; the early Christians were glad to perform 

 their rites of worship in truly primitive churches and the remains 

 of many which have been found adjoining or attached to the " Round 

 Towers," offer a singular contrast by the poverty of their construc- 

 tion to the elaborate finish of these monuments of controversy the 

 very perfection of the masonic art. The time they must have taken, 

 together with the expense of their erection, would ill have assorted 

 with the means of the earlier Christians, and had they been built 

 when the churches acquired her temporalities, history would have 

 told us of them and their uses, and antiquaries need not have puz- 

 zled their brains to little purpose. Mr. O'Brien has startled them 

 all and demolished their theories with a stroke of his pen. He seeks 

 truth in the remoteness of ages, and brings her forth triumphantly. 

 He ascribes the erection of the " Round Towers" to the Bhuddists, 

 who colonized Ireland from the east, long before Christianity had 

 shed its influence upon the world, and remain there the almost impe- 

 rishable monuments of the symbols of their worship, while every 

 other record of them has yielded to the influence of time. 



We do not intend to follow Mr. O'Brien through the almost end- 

 less variety of corroboration, whereby he establishes the accuracy of 



* The Round Towers of Ireland ; or, the Mysteries of Freemasonry, of Sa- 

 baism, and of Budhism, for the first time unveiled. Being a " Prize Essay" 

 of the Royal Irish Academy Enlarged and Embellished with numerous illus- 

 trations. By Henry O'Brien, Esq., A. B. Published by Whittaker and Co., 

 London; and J. CummiMg, Dublin ; 1 vol. 8vo p. 524. 



