Chapter VI

Now if there be any one point of Irish antiquity which our historians insist upon more than another, it is that of our ancestral connection with the Egyptian kings. In all their legends Egypt is mixed up--in all their romances Egypt stands prominent, which certainly could not have been so universal without _something_ at least like foundation, and must, therefore, remove anything like surprise at the affinity our ancient religion bore, in many respects, to theirs, since they were both derived from the same common origin.

I have already intimated my decided belief of the application of the Egyptian pyramids to the combined purposes of religion and science. The department of science to which I particularly referred was astronomy, the cultivation of which was inseparably involved in all their religious rites; for despite of the reverence which the Egyptians seemed to pay to crocodiles, bulls, and others of the brute creation, in those they only figured forth the several attributes, all infinite, in the divinity; as their worship, like that of the ancient Irish, was purely planetary, or Sabian.

The Indians too have images of the elephant, horse, and other such animals, chiselled out with the most studious care, and to all intents and purposes appear to pay them homage; but, if questioned on the subject, they will tell you that in the sagacity of the former, and the strength and swiftness of the latter, they only recognise the superior wisdom and might of the All-good and All-great One, and the rapidity with which his decrees are executed by his messengers.

If questioned more closely, they will tell you that the Brahmin is but reminded by the image of the inscrutable Original, whose pavilion is clouds and darkness; to him he offers the secret prayer of the heart; and if he neglects from inadvertence the external services required, it is because his mind is so fully occupied with the contemplation of uncreated excellence, that he overlooks the grosser object by which his impressions were communicated. Then with respect to their subterranean temples or Mithratic caves, of which we have so many specimens throughout this island, they affirm that the mysterious temple of the caverns is dedicated to services which soar as much above the worship of the plain and uninstructed Hindoo, as Brahma the invisible Creator is above the good and evil genii who inhabit the region of the sky. The world, whose ideas are base and grovelling as the dust upon which they tread, must be led by objects perceptible to the senses to perform the ceremonial of their worship; the chosen offspring of Brahma are destined to nobler and sublimer hopes; their views are bounded alone by the ages of eternity.

These specimens, though brief, will prove that the spirit of the religion of ancient India and Egypt was not that farrago of mental prostration which some have imagined. No, the stars, as the abode, or immediate signal of the Deity, were their primary study; and even to this day, depressed and humiliated as the Indians are, and aliens in their own country, they are not without some attention to their favourite pursuit, or something like an observatory to perpetuate its cultivation. In May, 1777, a letter from Sir Robert Baker to the President of the Royal Society of London was read before that body, which details a complete astronomical apparatus found at Benares, belonging to the Brahmins.

Such is the remnant of that once enlightened nation, the favourite retreat of civilisation and the arts, which sent forth its professors into the most distant quarters of the world, and disseminated knowledge wherever they had arrived. “With the first accounts we have of Hindostan,” says Crawford, “a mighty empire opens to our view, which in extent, riches, and the number of its inhabitants, has not yet been equalled by any one nation on the globe. We find salutary laws, and an ingenious and refined system of religion established; sciences and arts known and practised; and all of these evidently brought to perfection by the accumulated experience of many preceding ages. We see a country abounding in fair and opulent cities; magnificent temples and palaces; useful and ingenious artists employing the precious stones and metals in curious workmanship; manufacturers fabricating cloths, which in the fineness of their texture, and the beauty and duration of some of their dyes, have even yet been but barely imitated by other nations.

“The traveller was enabled to journey through this immense country with ease and safety; the public roads were shaded with trees to defend him from its scorching sun; at convenient distances buildings were erected for him to repose in, a friendly Brahmin attended to supply his wants; and _hospitality_ and the _laws_ held out assistance and protection to _all alike_, without prejudice or partiality.... We afterwards see the empire overrun by a fierce race of men, who in the beginning of their furious conquests endeavoured, with their country, to subdue the minds of the Hindoos. They massacred the people, tortured the priests, threw down many of the temples, and, what was still more afflicting, converted some of them into places of worship for their prophet, till at length, tired with the exertion of cruelties which they found to be without effect, and guided by their interest, which led them to wish for tranquillity, they were constrained to let a religion and customs subsist which they found it impossible to destroy. But during these scenes of devastation and bloodshed, the sciences, being in the sole possession of the priests, who had more pressing cares to attend to, were neglected, and are now almost forgotten.”

I have dwelt thus long upon the article of India, from my persuasion of the intimate connection that existed at one time as to religion, language, customs, and mode of life between some of its inhabitants and those of _this_ western island. I have had an additional motive, and that was to show that the same cause which effected the _mystification_ that overhangs _our_ antiquities, has operated similarly with respect to _theirs_, and this brings me back to the subject of the Round Towers, in the _history_, or rather the _mystery_, of which, in both countries, this result is most exemplified.

As to their appropriation, then, to the _sacred_ fire, though I do not deny that _some_ of them _may_ have been connected with it, yet unquestionably _too much importance_ has been attached to the _vitrified_ appearance of Drumboe tower as if necessarily enforcing our acquiescence in the universality of that doctrine. “At some former time,” says the surveyor, “_very strong fires have been burned_ within this building, and the inside surface towards the bottom has the appearance of vitrification.”

I do not at all dispute the _accident_, but while the vitrified aspect which _this tower_ exhibits is proof irresistible that _no fire ever entered_ those in which _no such_ vitrification appears, I cannot but _here too_ express more than a surmise that it was not the “_sacred fire_,” which, when religiously preserved, was not allowed to break forth in those _volcanoes_ insinuated; but in a _lambent, gentle flame_, emblematic of that emanation of the spirit of the Divinity infused, as _light from light_, into the soul of man.

“Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born!
Or of th’ Eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear’st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.”[87]

But to prove that they were not appropriated to the ritual of fire-worship, _nay, that their history and occupation had been altogether forgotten when that ritual now prevailed_, I turn to the glossary of Cormac, first bishop of Cashel, who, after his conversion to Christianity, in the fifth century, by St. Patrick, thus declares his faith:--

“Adhram do righ na duile
Do dagh bhar din ar n’ daone
Lies gach dream, leis gach dine
Leis gach ceall, leis gach caoimhe.”

That is--

“I worship the King of the Elements,
Whose fire from the mountain top ascends,
In whose hands are all mankind,
All punishment and remuneration.”

No allusion here to “_towers_” as connected with that _fire_ so pointedly adverted to. And lest there should be any doubt as to the _identity_ of this fire with the religious element so frequently referred to, we find the same high authority thus critically explain himself in another place: “dha teinne soinmech do gintis na draoithe con tincet laib moraib foraib, agus do bordis, na ceatra or teamandaib cacha bliadhna”--that is, the Druids used to kindle two immense fires, with great incantation, and towards them used to drive the cattle, which they forced to pass between them every year.

Nay, when St. Bridget, who was originally a _pagan vestal_, and consequently well versed in all the solemnities of the sacred fire, wished, upon her conversion to Christianity, A.D. 467, to retain this favourite usage, now sublimated in its nature, and streaming in a more hallowed current, it was not in a “tower” that we find she preserved it, but in a cell or low building “like a vault,” “which,” says Holinshed, whose curiosity, excited by Cambrensis’s report,[88] had induced him to go and visit the spot, “to this day they call the fire-house.” It was a stone-roofed edifice about twenty feet square, the ruins of which are still visible, and recognised by all around as once the preservative of the sacred element. When Cambrensis made mention of this miraculous fire of St. Bridget, why did he not connect it with the _Round Towers_, which he mentions elsewhere? He knew they had no connection, and should not be associated.

But, forsooth, the Venerable Bede has distinctly mentioned in the _Life of St. Cuthbert_ that there were numerous _fire receptacles_, remnants of ancient paganism, still remaining in this island!--Admitted. But does it necessarily follow that they were the _Round Towers_?[89] No: here is the enigma solved--they were those _low stone-roofed structures_, similar to what the Persians call the “Atash-gah,” to be met with so commonly throughout all parts of this country, such as at Ardmore, Killaloe, Down, Kerry, Kells, etc. etc. The circumstance of St Columbe having for a time taken up his abode in this last-mentioned one, gave rise to the idea that he must have been its founder: but the delusion is dispelled by comparing its architecture with that of the churches which this distinguished champion of the early Christian Irish Church had erected in Iona,[90] whose ruins are still to be seen, and bear no sort of analogy with those ancient receptacles. Struck, no doubt, with some apprehensions like the foregoing, it is manifest that Miss Beaufort herself, while combating most strenuously for the Round Towers as _fire receptacles_, had no small misgiving, nay, was evidently divided as to the security of her position. “From the foregoing statements,” she observes, “a well-grounded conclusion may be drawn that these _low fabrics_ are seldom found but in connection with the towers, and were designed for the preservation of the sacred fire; in some cases the lofty tower may have served for both purposes.”[91] The lofty tower, I emphatically say, was a distinct edifice.

Again, when St. Patrick in person went round the different provinces to attend the pagan solemnities at the respective periods of their celebration, we find no mention made of any such thing as a “tower” occupying any part in the ritual of their religious exercises. When he first presented himself near the Court of Laogaire, not far from the hill of Tara, on the eve of the vernal equinox, and lit up a fire before his tent in defiance of the legal prohibition, the appeal which we are told his Druids addressed to the monarch on that occasion was couched in the following words:--“This fire which has to-night been kindled in our presence, before the flame was lit up in your _palace_, unless extinguished this very night, shall never be extinguished at all, but shall triumph over all the fires of our ancient rites, and the lighter of it shall scatter your kingdom.” In this notification, as I translate it from O’Connor’s _Prolegomena_, i. c. 35, there occur two terms to which I would fain bespeak the reader’s regard; one is the word _kindled_, which implies the lighting up of a fire where there was none before; the second is the word _palace_, which is more applicable to a kingly residence or private abode, than to a _columnar structure_, which would seem to demand a characteristic denomination.

Another objection more imposing in its character, and to the _local_ antiquary offering no small difficulty to surmount, is that those above-mentioned low structures must have been erected by our first Roman missionaries, because that they bear the strongest possible affinity to the finish and perfection of the early Roman cloacæ or vaults. This difficulty, however, I thus remove: no one in this enlightened age can suppose that these stupendous specimens of massive and costly workmanship, which we read of as being constructed by the Romans in the very infancy of their State, could have been the erection of a rude people, unacquainted with the arts. The story of the wolf, the vestal, and the shepherd is no longer credited; Rome was a flourishing and thriving city long before the son of Rhea was born, and the only credit that he deserves, as connected with its history, is that of uniting together under one common yoke the several neighbouring communities, many of whom, particularly the Etrurians, were advanced in scientific and social civilisation, conversant not only with the researches of letters, and the arcana of astronomy, but particularly masters of all manual trades, and with none more profoundly than that of architecture.

But who, let me ask, were those Etrurians? none others, most undoubtedly, than the Pelasgi or Tyrseni, another branch of our Tuath-de-danaan ancestors, who, as Myrsilus informs us, had erected the ancient wall around the Acropolis of Athens, which is therefore styled, by Callimachus, as quoted in the Scholia to the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, “the Pelasgic Wall of the Tyrseni.” It is now a point well ascertained by historians that what are termed by ancient writers _Cyclopean walls_--as if intimating the work of a race of giants, while the true exposition of the name is to be found in the fact of their having been constructed by a caste of miners, otherwise called arimaspi, whose lamp, which perhaps they had fastened to their foreheads, may be considered as their _only eye_--were actually the creation of those ancient Pelasgi, and, as will shortly appear, should properly be called Irish.[92] Mycenæ, Argos, and Tiryns, in Greece, as well as Etruria and other places in Italy, the early residences of this lettered tribe, abound in relics of this ancient masonry. In all respects, in all points, and in all particulars it corresponds with that of those above-mentioned _low_, stone-roofed, fire-receptacles, so common in this island; which must satisfactorily and for ever do away with the doubt as to why such features of similarity should be observed to exist between our antiquities and those of _ancient Greece_ and _Rome_; not less perceptible in the circumstance of those edificial remains than in the collateral evidences of language and manners.

The sacred fire, once observed with such religious awe by every class, and in every quarter of this island, was imported from Greece into Italy by the same people who had introduced it here. Let me not be supposed to insinuate that the people of the latter country, _modernly considered_, adopted the usage from those of the former country, moderns also; no, there was no intercourse between these parties for many years after the foundation of the western capital. Indeed it was not until the time of Pyrrhus that they knew anything of their respective existences, whereas we find that the vestal fire was instituted by Numa, A.U.C. 41. What I meant therefore to say was, that the same early people, viz. the Pelasgi, who had introduced it into Greece, had, upon their expulsion from Thessaly by the Hellenes, betaken themselves to Latium, afterwards so called, and there disseminated their doctrines not less prosperously than their dominion.

Numa was in his day profoundly skilled in all the mysteries of those religious philosophers; and his proffered elevation to the Roman throne was but the merited recompense of his venerable character. His whole reign was accordingly one continued scene of devotion and piety, in which pre-eminently outshone his regard to Vesta,[93] in whose sanctuary was preserved the Palladium, “the fated pledge of Roman authority,” and which too, by the way, ever connected as we see it was with the _worship of fire_, would seem to make the belief respecting it also to be of Oriental origin. This eastern extraction additionally accounts for that dexterous State contrivance of client and patron established in the early ages of the Roman government, corresponding to our ancient clanship--both evidently borrowed from the same Indian castes.

I now address myself to another obstacle which has been advanced by an Irish _lady_, and of the most deserved antiquarian repute, whose classic and elaborate treatise on this identical subject, though somewhat differently moulded, has already won her the applause of that society whose discriminating verdict I now respectfully await. But as my object is _truth_, divested as much as possible of worldly considerations, and unshackled by systems or literary codes, I conceive that object will be more effectually attained by setting inquiry on foot, than by tamely acquiescing in dubious asservations or abiding by verbal ambiguities.

What elicited this sentiment was Miss Beaufort’s remark on the enactment at Tara, A.D. 79, for the _erection of a palace_ in each of the four proportions subtracted by order of Tuathal Teachmar, from each of the four provinces to form the present county of Meath. Her words are as follow:--“Taking the landing of Julius Cæsar in Britain, in the year 55 before Christ, as a fixed point of time, and counting back fifty years from that, we shall be brought to about one hundred years before the Christian era, at which time the introduction of the improvements and innovations of Zoroaster, and that also of fire towers, may, without straining probability, be supposed to have fully taken place. _That it was_ not much earlier may be inferred from the before-mentioned ordinance of the year 79 A.D., to increase the number of towers in the different provinces.”

With great submission I conceive that the _error_ here incurred originated on the lady’s part, from mistaking as authority the comment in the _Statistical Survey_, vol. iii. p. 320, which runs thus:--“It is quite evident from sundry authentic records, that these round towers were appropriated to the preservation of the Baal-thinne, or sacred fire of Baal: first at the solemn convention at Tara, in the year of Christ 79, in the reign of Tuathal Teachmar, it was enacted, that on the 31st of October annually, the sacred fire should be publicly exhibited from the stately tower of Tlactga, in Munster, from whence all the other repositories of the Baal-thinne were to be rekindled, in case they were by any accident allowed to go out. It was also enacted, that a particular tower should be erected for that purpose in each of the other four provinces, Meath being then a distinct province. For this purpose the tax called Scraball, of threepence per head on all adults, was imposed.”

Well, for this is quoted _Psalter of Tara_, by Comerford, p. 51; on referring to which I find the text as thus: “He (Tuathal) also erected a stately palace in each of these proportions, viz. in that of Munster, the palace of Tlactga, where the fire of Tlactga was ordained to be kindled on the 31st of October, to summon the priests and augurs to consume the sacrifices offered to their gods; and it was also ordained that no other fire should be kindled in the kingdom that night, so that the fire to be used in the country was to be derived from this fire; for which privilege the people were to pay a scraball, which amounts to threepence every year, as _an acknowledgment to the King of Munster_. The second palace was in that of Connaught, where the inhabitants assembled once a year, upon the 1st of May, to offer sacrifices to the principal deity of the island under the name of Beul, which was called the Convocation of Usneagh; and on account of this meeting the King of Connaught had from every lord of a manor, or chieftain of lands, a horse and arms. The third was at Tailtean, in the portion of Ulster, where the inhabitants of the kingdom brought their children when of age, and treated with one another about their marriage. From this custom the King of Ulster demanded an ounce of silver from every couple married here. The fourth was the palace of Teamor or Tara, which originally belonged to the province of Leinster, and where the States of the kingdom met in a parliamentary way.”

I now leave the reader to decide whether the word “palace” can be well used to represent an “ecclesiastical tower,” or indeed any tower at all; or whether it is not rather a royal residence for the several provincial princes, that is meant to be conveyed; as is evident to the most superficial, from the closing allusion to the _palace_ of Tara, “where the States of the kingdom met in a parliamentary way.” The impost of the scraball, I must not omit to observe, has been equally misstated in the survey; for it was not for the purpose of erecting _any_ structures, but as an acknowledgment of homage and a medium of revenue that it was enforced, as will appear most clearly on reverting to the original, and comparing it with the other means of revenue, which the other provincial kings were entitled to exact. But what gives the complete overthrow to the doctrine which would identify those _palaces_ with columnar edifices, is the fact that there are no vestiges to be found of _Round Towers_ in any, certainly not in all of those four localities specially notified. Wells and Donaghmore are the only Round Towers now in the county Meath, and these are not included among the places above designated.