Chapter II: (pp. 16-32)

Following up this line of argument, he attacks Montmorency, who had maintained that the founders of the round towers were “primitive Cœnobites and bishops, munificently supported in the undertaking by the newly-converted kings and toparchs; the builders and architects being those monks and pilgrims who, from Greece and Rome, either preceded or accompanied the early missionaries of the fifth and sixth centuries.” Reserving a detailed refutation of this theory for subsequent chapters, he contents himself for the present with showing that it rests upon mere assumption, which is not borne out by the evidence adduced in corroboration thereof; and exposes the fallacy of Montmorency’s argument, that pre-Christian Ireland was in a state of barbarism which precluded the possibility of such structures as the round towers being erected by its inhabitants. He further deals with the objections, that the bards do not allude to these towers as existent in their time, that those undoubtedly ancient excavations, the Mithratic caves, are never found in the vicinity of round towers, and that the limited nature of their accommodation made them serviceable only for some such purpose as that of a belfry or dungeon. With Vallancey’s views he finds himself more in sympathy, but is unable to adopt them unreservedly--preferring, as he puts it, to chalk out his own road.