Round Towers of Ireland. 349 
the door fromthe ground presents, we think, 
an almost unanswerable argument against the 
Round Towers having been built for the con- 
finement of penitents. In those which have 
the door 24 feet from the gronnd, two, if not 
three stages,are completely lost, —whichw ould 
never have been suffered, had the object been, 
by raising the tower so high, to increase the 
number of the stories. Neither do we sce 
any reason why the seventh story of the pe- 
nitent’s house, which he was to inhabit during 
his deepest state of guilt, should have four 
large windows, and the others be provided 
with only a narrow niche, barely sufficient to 
admit the light. Mr. Harrisand Dean Rich- 
ardson suppose the Round Towers to have 
been the residence of Anchorite Monks, or 
a kind of Pillar Saints, like those we read of 
in the Kast.(1) And to complete the cata- 
logue of amusing conjectures, the author of 
the Collectanea,(K)determined to surpass 
every competitor in the novelty of his theory, 
derives the model of the Round Towers from 
the Persian Fire-temples, and supposes them 
(1) History of Simeon Stylites. 
(«) General Vallancey. He says. “‘ The pyramidal flame seems to 
have given the idea of the Round Towers, which were conical and 
ended in a point at the top both in Hindostan and in Treland. 
Collectanea, Vol. vi, p. 123--158. 
