Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry Part 11

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 _cloic-theach_, from _teach_, a house, and _cloc_, the Irish word used for a bell in Irish works before "the Germans or Saxons had churches or bells," and before the Danes had ever sent a war-ship into our seas.

We pa.s.s readily from this ridiculous hypothesis with the remark that the gossip which attributes to the Danes our lofty monumental pyramids and cairns, our Druid altars, our dry stone caisils or keeps, and our raths or fortified enclosures for the homes or cattle of our chiefs, is equally and utterly unfounded; and is partly to be accounted for from the name of power and terror which these barbarians left behind, and partly from ignorant persons confounding them with the most ill.u.s.trous and civilised of the Irish races--the Danaans.

--------------------------------------------------------------- [36] _The Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. xx.

Dublin: Hodges & Smith, Grafton Street.

[37] A turbulent and learned Franciscan friar who figured in the Confederation of Kilkenny.--C.P.M.

THEORY OF THE EASTERN ORIGIN OF THE ROUND TOWERS.

Among the middle and upper cla.s.ses in Ireland the Round Towers are regarded as one of the results of an intimate connection between Ireland and the East, and are spoken of as either--1, Fire Temples; 2, Stations from whence Druid festivals were announced; 3, Sun-dials (gnomons) and astronomical observatories; 4, Buddhist or Phallic temples, or two or more of these uses are attributed to them at the same time.

Mr. Petrie states that the theory of the Phoenician or Indo-Scythic origin of these towers was stated for the first time so recently as 1772 by General Vallancey, in his "Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language," and was re-a.s.serted by him in many different and contradictory forms in his _Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis_, published at intervals in the following years.

It may be well to premise who

GENERAL CHARLES VALLANCEY

was. His family were from Berry, in France; their name Le Brun, called De Valencia, from their estate of that name. General Vallancey was born in Flanders, but was educated at Eton College. When a captain in the 12th Royal Infantry he was attached to the engineer department in Ireland, published a book on Field Engineering in 1756, and commenced a survey of Ireland. During this he picked up something of the Irish language, and is said to have studied it under Morris O'Gorman, clerk of Mary's Lane Chapel. He died in his house, Lower Mount Street, 18th August, 1812, aged 82 years.

His _Collectanea_, and his discourses in the Royal Irish Academy, of which he was an original member, spread far and wide his oriental theories. He was an amiable and plausible man, but of little learning, little industry, great boldness, and no scruples; and while he certainly stimulated men's feelings towards Irish antiquities, he has left us a reproducing swarm of falsehood, of which Mr. Petrie has happily begun the destruction. Perhaps nothing gave Vallancey's follies more popularity than the opposition of the Rev. Edward Ledwich, whose _Antiquities of Ireland_ is a ma.s.s of falsehoods, disparaging to the people and the country.

FIRE TEMPLES.

Vallancey's first a.n.a.logy is plausible. The Irish Druids honoured the elements and kept up sacred fires, and at a particular day in the year all the fires in the kingdom were put out, and had to be re-lighted from the Arch-Druid's fire. A similar creed and custom existed among the Pa.r.s.ees or Guebres of Persia, and he takes the resemblance to prove connection and ident.i.ty of creed and civilisation. From this he immediately concludes the Round Towers to be Fire Temples. Now there is no evidence that the Irish Pagans had sacred fires, except in open s.p.a.ces (on the hilltops), and, therefore, none of course that they had them in towers round or square; but Vallancey falls back on the _alleged existence of Round Towers in the East similar to ours, and on etymology_.

Here is a specimen of his etymologies. The Hebrew word _gadul_ signifies _great_, and thence a tower; the Irish name for a round tower, _cloghad_, is from this _gadul_ or _gad_, and _clogh_, a _stone_: and the Druids called every place of worship _cloghad_. To which it is answered--_gadul_ is not _gad_--_clogh_, a _stone_, is not _cloch_, a _bell_. The Irish word for a Round Tower is _cloich-theach_, or bell-house, and there is no proof that the Druids called _any_ place of worship _cloghad_.

Vallancey's guesses are numerous, and nearly all childish, and we shall quote some finishing specimens, with Mr. Petrie's answers:--

"This is another characteristic example of Vallancey's mode of quoting authorities: he first makes...o...b..ien say that _Cuilceach_ becomes corruptly _Claiceach_, and then that the word _seems_ to be corrupted _Clogtheach_. But O'Brien does not say that _Cuilceach_ is corruptly _Claiceach_, nor has he the word _Culkak_ or _Claiceach_ in his book; neither does he say that _Cuilceach seems_ to be a corruption of _Clog-theach_, but states positively that it is so. The following are the pa.s.sages which Vallancey has so misquoted and garbled--

"'CUILCEACH, a steeple, cuilceach Cluan-umba, Cloyne steeple--this word _is_ a corruption of Clog-theach.

"'CLOIG-THEACH, a steeple, a belfry; _corrupte_ Cuilg-theach.'

"Our author next tells us that another name for the Round Towers is _Sibheit_, _Sithbeit_, and _Sithbein_, and for this he refers us to O'Brien's and Shaw's Lexicons; but this quotation is equally false with those I have already exposed, for the words _Sibheit_ and _Sithbeit_ are not to be found in either of the works referred to.

The word _Sithbhe_ is indeed given in both Lexicons, but explained a city, not a round tower. The word _Sithbhein_ is also given in both, but explained a fort, a turret, and the real meaning of the word as still understood in many parts of Ireland is a fairy-hill, or hill of the fairies, and is applied to a green round hill crowned by a small sepulchral mound.

"He next tells us that _Caiceach_, the last name he finds for the Round Towers, is supposed by the Glossarists to be compounded of _cai_, a house, and _teach_, a house, an explanation which, he playfully adds, is tautology with a witness. But where did he find authority for the word _Caiceach_? I answer, nowhere; and the tautology he speaks of was either a creation or a blunder of his own. It is evident to me that the Glossarist to whom he refers is no other than his favourite Cormac; but the latter makes no such blunder, as will appear from the pa.s.sage which our author obviously refers to--

"'_Cai i. teach unde dicitur ceard cha i. teach cearda; creas cha i. teach c.u.mang._'

"'_Cai, i.e._, a house; _unde dicitur ceard-cha, i.e._, the house of the artificer; _creas-cha, i.e._, a narrow house.'"

The reader has probably now had enough of Vallancey's etymology, but it is right to add that Mr. Petrie goes through every hint of such proof given by the General, and disposes of them with greater facility.

The next person disposed of is Mr. Beauford, who derives the name of our Round Towers from _Tlacht--earth_; a.s.serts that the foundations of temples for Vestal fire exist in Rath-na-Emhain, and other places (poor devil!)--that the Persian Magi overran the world in the time of the great Constantine, introducing Round Towers in place of the Vestal mounds into Ireland, combining their fire-worship with our Druidism--and that the present towers were built in imitation of the Magian Towers. This is all, as Mr. Petrie says, pure fallacy, without a particle of authority; but we should think "_twelfth_" is a misprint for "_seventh_" in the early part of Beauford's pa.s.sage, and, therefore, that the last clause of Mr. Petrie's censure is undeserved.

This Beauford is not to be confounded with Miss Beaufort. She, too, paganises the towers by aggravating some misstatements of Mason's _Parochial Survey_; but her errors are not worth notice, except the a.s.sertion that the Psalters of Tara and Cashel allege that the towers were for keeping the sacred fire. These Psalters are believed to have perished, and any mention of sacred fires in the glossary of Cormac M'Cullenan, the supposed compiler of the Psalter of Cashel, is adverse to their being in towers. He says:--

"_Belltane, i.e., bil tene, i.e., tene bil, i.e._, the goodly fire, _i.e._, two goodly fires, which the Druids were used to make, with great incantations on them, and they used to bring the cattle between them against the diseases of each year."

Another MS. says:--

"_Beltaine, i.e., Bel-dine; Bel_ was the name of an idol; it was on it (_i.e._, the festival) that a couple of the young of every cattle were exhibited as in the possession of _Bel; unde Beldine_.

Or, _Beltine, i.e., Bil-tine, i.e._, the goodly fire, _i.e._, two goodly fires, which the Druids were used to make with great incantations, and they were used to drive the cattle between them against the diseases of each year."

Mr. Petrie continues:--

"It may be remarked that remnants of this ancient custom, in perhaps a modified form, still exist in the May-fires lighted in the streets and suburbs of Dublin, and also in the fires lighted on St. John's Eve in all other parts of Ireland. The _Tinne Eigin_ of the Highlands, of which Dr. Martin gives the following account, is probably a remnant of it also, but there is no instance of such fires being lighted in towers or houses of any description:--

"'The inhabitants here (Isle of Skye) did also make use of a fire called _Tin Egin_ (_i.e._), a forced Fire, or Fire of necessity, which they used as an Antidote against the _Plague_ or _Murrain_ in cattle; and it was performed thus: All the fires in the Parish were extinguish'd, and eighty-one marry'd men, being thought the necessary number for effecting this Design, took two great Planks of Wood, and nine of 'em were employed by turns, who by their repeated Efforts rubb'd one of the Planks against the other until the Heat thereof produced Fire; and from this forc'd Fire each Family is supplied with new Fire, which is no sooner kindled than a pot full of water is quickly set on it, and afterwards sprinkled upon the people infected with the Plague, or upon cattle that have the Murrain. And this, they all say, they find successful by experience.'--_Description of the Western Islands of Scotland_ (second edition), p. 113.

"As authority for Miss Beaufort's second a.s.sertion, relative to the Tower of Thlachtga, etc., we are referred to the _Psalter of Tara_, by Comerford (p. 41), cited in the _Parochial Survey_ (vol. iii., p. 320); and certainly in the latter work we do find a pa.s.sage in nearly the same words which Miss Beaufort uses. But if the lady had herself referred to Comerford's little work, she would have discovered that the author of the article in the _Parochial Survey_ had in reality no authority for his a.s.sertions, and had attempted a gross imposition on the credulity of his readers."

Mr. D'Alton relies much on a pa.s.sage in _Cambrensis_, wherein he says that the fishermen on Lough Neagh (a lake certainly formed by an inundation in the first century, A.D. 62) point to such towers under the lake; but this only shows they were considered old in Cambrensis's time (King John's), for Cambrensis calls them _turres ecclesiasticas_ (a Christian appellation); and the fishermen of every lake have such idle traditions from the tall objects they are familiar with; and the steeples of Antrim, etc., were handy to the Loch n-Eathac men.

One of the authorities quoted by all the Paganists is from the _Ulster Annals_ at the year 448. It is--"Kl. Jenair. Anno Domini cccc.xl.viii.

ingenti terrae motu per loca varia imminente, plurimi urbis auguste muri recenti adhuc reaedificatione constructi, c.u.m l.vii. turribus conruerunt." This was made to mean that part of the wall of Armagh, with fifty-seven Round Towers, fell in an earthquake in 448, whereas the pa.s.sage turns out to be a quotation from "Marcellinus"[38] of the fall of part of the defences of Constantinople--"Urbis Augustae!"

References to towers in Irish annals are quoted by Mr. D'Alton; but they turn out to be written about the Cyclopean Forts, or low stone raths, such as we find at Aileach, etc.

--------------------------------------------------------------- [38] Author of the _Life of Thucydides_.--C.P.M.

CELESTIAL INDEXES.

Dr. Charles O'Connor, of Stowe, is the chief supporter of the astronomical theory. One of his arguments is founded on the mistaken reading of the word "_turaghun_" (which he derives from _tur_, a tower, and _aghan_, or _adhan_, the kindling of flame), instead of "_truaghan_," an ascetic. The only other authority of his which we have not noticed is the pa.s.sage in the _Ulster Annals_, at the year 995, in which it is said that certain Fidhnemead were burned by lightning at Armagh. He translates the word celestial indexes, and paraphrases it Round Towers, and all because _fiadh_ means witness, and _neimhedh_, heavenly or sacred, the real meaning being holy wood, or wood of the sanctuary, from _fidh_, a wood, and _neimhedh_, holy, as is proved by a pile of _exact_ authorities.

Dr. Lanigan, in his ecclesiastical history, and Moore, in his general history, repeat the arguments which we have mentioned. They also bring objections against the alleged Christian origin, which we hold over; but it is plain that nothing prevailed more with them than the alleged resemblance of these towers to certain oriental buildings. a.s.suredly if there were a close likeness between the Irish Round Towers and oriental fire temples of proved antiquity, it would be an argument for ident.i.ty of use; and though direct testimony from our annals would come in and show that the present towers were built as Christian belfries from the sixth to the tenth centuries, the resemblance would at least indicate that the belfries had been built after the model of Pagan fire towers previously existing here. But "rotundos of above thirty feet in diameter" in Persia, Turkish minarets of the tenth or fourteenth centuries, and undated turrets in India, which Lord Valentia thought like our Round Towers, give no _such_ resemblance. We shall look anxiously for exact measurements and datas of oriental buildings resembling Round Towers, and weigh the evidence which may be offered to show that there were any Pagan models for the latter in Ireland or in Asia.

Mr. Windele, of Cork, besides using all the previously-mentioned arguments for the Paganism of these towers, finds another in the supposed resemblance to THE NURRAGGIS OF SARDINIA, which are tombs or temples formed in that island, and attributed to the Phoenicians. But, alas, for the theory, they have turned out to be "as broad as they're long." A square building, 57 feet in each side, with bee-hive towers at each angle, and a centre bee-hive tower reaching to 45 or 65 feet high, with stone stairs, is sadly unlike a Round Tower!

The most recent theory is that the Round Towers are

HERO-MONUMENTS.

Mr. Windele and the South Munster Antiquarian Society started this, Sir William Betham sanctioned it, and several rash gentlemen dug under towers to prove it. At Cashel, Kinsale, etc., they satisfied themselves that there were no sepulchres or bones ever under the towers, but in some other places they took the rubbish bones casually thrown into the towers, and in two cases the chance underlying of ancient burying-grounds, as proofs of this notion. But Mr. Petrie settles for this idea by showing that there is no such use of the Round Towers mentioned in our annals, and also by the following most interesting account of the cemeteries and monuments of all the races of Pagan Irish:--

HISTORY OF THE CEMETERIES.

"A great king of great judgments a.s.sumed the sovereignty of Erin, _i.e._, Cormac, son of Art, son of Conn of the Hundred Battles.

Erin was prosperous in his time, because just judgments were distributed throughout it by him; so that no one durst attempt to wound a man in Erin during the short jubilee of seven years; for Cormac had the faith of the one true G.o.d, according to the law; for he said that he would not adore stones, or trees, but that he would adore Him who had made them, and who had power over all the elements, _i.e._, the one powerful G.o.d who created the elements; in Him he would believe. And he was the third person who had believed in Erin before the arrival of St. Patrick. Conchobor MacNessa, to whom Altus had told concerning the crucifixion of Christ, _was the first_; Morann, the son of Cairbre Cinncait (who was surnamed Mac Main), was the second person; and Cormac was the third; and it is probable that others followed on their track in this belief.