The Round Towers. 27 



dalough, Timahoe, and Ardmore are taken as types of this 

 gradation in the towers, we see such signs of progress as lead to 

 the belief that a certain interval of time had intervened between 

 the first and last mentioned of those erections." Miss Stokes 

 concludes one portion of her work in the following words : — 

 " There is, perhaps, no question of early Christian archaeology," 

 writes Mr. Fergusson, " involved in such obscurity as that of 

 the introduction and use of towers." The difficulty of clearing 

 away such obscurities has arisen chiefly from the want of 

 monuments remaining on the Continent to show what were the 

 earliest types in Western Europe. The light that Ireland 

 might cast upon the subject has not yet made itself felt, because 

 of the uncertainty that has too long lingered about the history 

 of her towers. Dr. Petrie, by his investigations, brought their 

 date down from a pre-Christian time to a period ranging from 

 the sixth to the thirteenth century, and firmly established their 

 ecclesiastical character. Lord Dunraven traced the type from 

 Ireland, through France to Ravenna, thereby proving it analo- 

 gous to that of buildings belonging to an historic period else- 

 where. But he felt that the area was far too wide over which 

 Dr. Petrie had extended the practice of erecting these struc- 

 tures, and was gradually arriving at the conclusion that such 

 masonry as they exhibit was not to be found in Ireland before 

 the ninth or tenth century, and that her decorated Romanesque 

 churches belong to the eleventh and twelfth. Starting from 

 the standpoint of these two archaeologists, we may arrive at 

 conclusions which give to these towers their true place in his- 

 tory. From these noble monuments the historian of Christian 

 art and architecture may learn something of the work of a time 

 the remains of which have been swept away elsewhere, and it 

 may yet be seen, as in the case of her institutions, customs, 

 faith, and forms in art, so in architecture, Ireland points to 

 origins of noble things. 



