196 



its four windows face the four cardinal points. Its height is eleven 

 metres seventy centimetres." 



He adds : — I could also mention several towers, pointed out by dif- 

 ferent authors, which ought to be assigned to this class of structure 

 which I have pointed out." 



This description, it must be allowed, bears a very striking resem- 

 blance to everything that is characteristic of the Eound Towers. They 

 are almost all placed unsymmetrically at some little distance from the 

 churches, in the centre of a burial-ground. In much frequented places, 

 such as Clonmacnoise and Glendalough, they have been even used for 

 sepulchral purposes, as skeletons have been found beneath the floors of 

 several Round Towers, as at Ardmore, Cloyne, Drumbo, and other places; 

 their windows face the east, west, north, and south ; and, further, there 

 is a tradition that they were used for beacons. Their doors are at some 

 distance from the ground, which was evidently for the purpose of raising 

 a ladder through the door, into the tower. They are also of nearly the 

 same period, none being later than the thirteenth century. 



De^Caumont adds further : — Sometimes the Fanaux have been re- 

 placed by sepulchral chapels, surmounted by a hollow tower and a 

 beacon. Sepulchral chapels were evidently for the same purpose as the 

 towers ; for they, too, had beacons at their summit. They could be also 

 used for the purpose of exposing the bodies of the 

 deceased before burial, of celebrating mass, and 

 for other purposes, the memory of which has 

 passed away. I know but one in a state of pre- 

 servation, that of the ancient cemetery of the nans 

 of Fontevrault. It is square ; from the summit 

 of the stone roof of the building arises a hollow 

 tower, of four or five metres high, bearing a lan- 

 tern at its summit ; each face is pierced with an 

 opening ; a conical roof covers the whole. In the 

 interior, the chapel is vaulted. The date is 1223." 



St. Kevin's Kitchen would seem to answer 

 this description ; and thus, if the analogy which 

 I have suggested between the two be correct, St. 

 Kevin's Kitchen would be a stone-roofed sepul- 

 chral chapel, surmounted by a tower, which was 

 used as a beacon, for the same purpose as the 

 Fanaux de Cimitiere, or Lanterns of the Dead. 

 I give here an engraving from De Caumont of a 

 round Fanal. 



Crosses of Cemeteeies. — In De Caumont's work I remark a further 

 analogy to Irish antiquities, in his description of Crosses of Cemeteries, 

 which would lead one to think that there was some connecting link 

 between France and Irelpnd with regard to these towers and crosses. 

 There was certainly an intercommunication between France and Ireland 

 in the early periods, particularly with regard to religious dogmas and 



