B1BLFA8.T 



NATURAL HISTORY & PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, 



SESSION 1886—87. 



2nd November, 1886. 



The President, William H. Patterson, Esq., M.R.I.A., 



gave an Address on 



SOME LATER VIEWS RESPECTING THE IRISH 



ROUND TOWERS. 



The President traced briefly the position of the round tower 

 controversy up to the period at which Dr. Petrie published his 

 essay. Dr. Petrie's arguments were then reviewed, as were the 

 subsequent writings on the same subject of Sir William Wilde, 

 Mr. Marcus Keane, and Mr. Henry O'Neill. Having referred 

 to the magnificent volumes of Lord Dunraven dealing with the 

 subject, the President directed attention to the more recent 

 writings of Miss Margaret Stokes. He proceeded — In 1878 

 Miss Margaret Stokes published her " Early Christian Archi- 

 tecture in Ireland." With this work was incorporated some of 

 the matter which Miss Stokes had already given to the world 

 in the concluding portion of Lord Dunraven's book. Miss 

 Stokes holds that the first round towers were erected in Ireland 

 soon after the first invasions of the Northmen for the protec- 

 tion of the religious communities against these Pagan invaders, 

 and that the erection of these church keeps or castles continued 

 for about three centuries — that is, from a little before the year 

 a.d. 900 to about a.d. 1200. In speaking of the state of archi- 

 tecture in Ireland at the close of the ninth century, Miss Stokes 

 says that, although the use of cement and the hammer was 

 known to Irish builders, the horizontal lintel had not yet been 

 superseded by the arch, and at this point we arrive at a class of 



