of
these towers. The second is an account not only of what he thinks their
real origin, but of every kind of early ecclesiastical structure in
Ireland. The third part will contain a historical and descriptive
account of every ecclesiastical building in Ireland of a date prior to
the Anglo-Norman invasion of which remains now exist. The work is
crowded with illustrations drawn with wonderful accuracy, and engraved
in a style which proves that Mr. O'Hanlon, the engraver, has become so
proficient as hardly to have a superior in wood-cutting.

We shall for the present limit ourselves to the first part of the work
on the

"ERRONEOUS THEORIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE ROUND
TOWERS."

The first refutation is of the

"THEORY OF THE DANISH ORIGIN OF THE TOWERS."

John Lynch, in his _Cambrensis Eversus_, says that the Danes are
reported (_dicuntur_) to have first erected the Round Towers as
_watch_-towers, but that the Christian Irish changed them into _clock_
or bell-towers. Peter Walsh[37] repeated and exaggerated the statement;
and Ledwich, the West British antiquary of last century, combined it
with lies enough to settle his character, though not that of the
towers. The only person, at once explicit and honest, who supported
this Danish theory was Dr. Molyneux. His arguments are that all stone
buildings, and, indeed, all evidences of mechanical civilisation, in
Ireland were Danish; that some traditions attributed the Round Towers
to them; that they had fit models in the monuments of their own
country; and that the word by which he says the native Irish call them,
viz., "Clogachd," comes from the Teutonic root, clugga, a bell. These
arguments are easily answered.

The Danes, so far from introducing stone architecture, found it
flourishing in Ireland, and burned and ruined our finest buildings, and
destroyed mechanical and every kind of civilisation wherever their
ravages extended--doing thus in Ireland precisely as they did in France
and England, as all annals (their own included) testify. Tradition does
not describe the towers as Danish watch-towers, but as Christian
belfries. The upright stones and the little barrows, not twelve feet
high, of Denmark, could neither give models nor skill to the Danes.
They had much ampler possession of England and Scotland, and permanent
possession of Normandy, but never a Round Tower did they erect there;
and, finally, the native Irish name for a Round Tower is _cl