The Round Towers of Ireland

he character of these antique remains, I take leave, evermore, to discard the misnomer, and draw a

from any external daubing with which modern Vandalism may have thought proper to incrust it,-as happened to that at Swords,-but in eviden

istant from the old castle of Bally Carbery, in the barony of Iveragh, and county of Kerry; a place where one would hope that the true designation of such phenomena would be preserved m

bowers of inno

h, when ev'ry sp

e I loiter'd

ppiness endear

e I paused on

cot, the cul

illage train, f

ts beneath the sp

e patri?, arct? sunt et alt?, nec non et rotund?." This definition, vague as it may seem, affords ample illumination, when compared with the epithet which I have above adduced, to penetrate the darkness of this literary nebula. The word "turres" points out their constructional symm

nto a degenerate race. The noble spirit of their heroic ancestors, which had called forth those pyramids, for the twofold and mingled purpose of religion and science, had already evaporated; and all the historian could glean, in prosecuting h

ound Towers in the general catastrophe. Here is the passage at full length, as given by O'Connor-"Ardmaeha do lose do tene saighnein, ettir tighib, 7[65] Domhuliacc, 7 Cl

caibh Dertach, na Damliacc, na h Erdam, na Fidh-Nemead ann cen loscadh"; that is, Lightning seized upon Armagh,

e what this latter word conveys; and though I do not mean, for a while, to develop its true interpretation,-of which I am the sole and exclusive depositary,-yet must I make it apparent, that by it-whatever way it must be rendered-all before me have underst

ng been gnomons, while ignorant of its proper force, indulges in a conjecture of

'Connor, equally at a loss for its proper meaning, has ventured to promulgate, yet is it indisputable that it stood as the representative of those e

each or erdam-which shared their disaster; and, thirdly, because that, even admitting of O'Connor's mistranslation, it gives us an insight into their character more fortuitous than he had anticipated. Celestial indexes![67] Could any one be so

etely established in an ensuing chapter,-the bungling of natives and the claims of externs no

distant from the earth, and seems to present on its disk certain projections like the mountains of our world. Likewise that the God Apollo in person visits this island once in n

d celestial indexes mean but such as were appropriated to the contemplation of the heavenly bodies?-just as the name of "Zoroaster"-which, in the Persian language, signifies "c

an insult to go about to prove it; but when it is said that "it presents on its disk certain projections like the mountains of our world," it not only puts that questio

me," says Strabo, "to Athens, not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with a bow in his hand, a quiver hanging on his shoulders, a plaid wrapt about his body, a gilded belt encircling his loins, and trousers reaching from the waist down to the soles of his feet. He was easy in his address, agreeable in his conversation, active in his despatch, and secret in his management of great affairs; quick in judging of present occurrence

of the Hyperboreans"-coupled with the circumstance of the orator Himerius having called this individual a Scy

lies an isle o

sed, and Scoti

h-exhaustless

lver and of

elds with milk

eeces vie wit

rows float wit

Arts her envi

imilar import, to show that Scotia or Scythia was one, and the last, of the ancient names of this country;[70] while the name of "Hyperborean"

same people who had settled in this country, and imported the mysteries of their magic priesthood, being akin to the first settlers on the coasts of Greece, which they impregnated with similar initiation. I am anticipated, of course, to have meant the Pelasgi, who, under another name, belonged to the same hive as the Indo-Scyth?, or Chaldean Magi, or Tuath-de-danaan,-as the head tribe thereof were called,-who, having

clad like a Scythian." How, then, shall I cut this knot? Thus. Abaris, as his name implies, was one of the Boreades, or priests of Boreas, belonging to the Tuath-de-danaan colony in this island,

liged to conform to the rules and the fashions of the ascendant dynasty. In a short time, however, the Scythian Druids superseded the Danaan Boreades, by the influence of their own instruction; and the consequence was that of that graceful garb, in the folds of which our ancient high priests officiated at the altar, or exhibited in the senate, not a single vestige is now to be traced e

all other bodies of the same denomination all over the world. Originally, the Druids were an humble set of men, without science, without letters, without pretensions to refinement; but having succeeded here to the fraternity of the accomplished Danaan Bo

, also confirming the fact, says: "Hi terr? mundique magnitudinem ac forman, motus c?li ac siderum, ac quid Dii velint scire, profitentur."-De Situ Orbis, lib. 3, c. ii. These two latter authorities, I admit, were more immediately directed to the Druids of Britain; but as it is agreed on all hands that th

nvincing proof of the ground which I have assumed. In that language-and the writer of this essay ought to know something of it-there is scarcely a single term appertaining to time, from la a day, derived from liladh, to turn round,-in allusion to the diurnal revolution,-up to bleain, a year,

alects than what appears in those branches of the Celtic that were matured in the west of Europe. Those who used this language consisted partly of Titans, of Celto-Scythians, or of those Iapetid? who assisted in building the city of Babel, and must have been habituated, after the dispersion, to the dialects of the nations through which they

for the diversified range of their literary acquirements, and the moral sublimity of their ideas and conceptions.[72] Speaking of a production belonging to one of these worthies, Ledwich remarks: "In this tract we can discover Cumman's acquaintance with the doctrine of time, and the chronological characters. He is no stranger to th

h missionaries, but to the more elevated genius of their native institutions. This it was that enabled them to make those astronomical observations which our annals commemorate; and who can say, amidst the decay of time, the ravages of persecution, and the fury of fanat

e c?lo frequentes deciderunt"; while it cannot be too diligently noted, "that, when the rest of Europe, as Vallancey so justly remarked, through ignorance or forgetfulness, had no knowledge o

ssage of Diodorus, to which I have already referred, we find the following appropriate characteristic:-"It is affirmed that Latona was born there, and that, therefore, the worship of Apollo is preferred to that of any other God; and as the

stood by the ancients only essentially to typify that powerful planet, "which animates and imparts fecundity to the universe, whose divinity h

ssed of the mysteries of the solar system; and that near converse which we have been alre

the Round Towers of Ireland were specifically constructed for the two-fold purpose of worshipping the Sun and Moon-as the authors of generation and vegetative heat-and, from the nearer converse which their elevation afforded, of studyin

ou, O Spirit! t

les th' upright

thou know'st; t

nd, with mighty

st brooding on

pregnant. What

t is low, rai

eight of this

rt eternal

he ways of Go