Chapter III: (pp. 33-47)

Continuing his attack upon Montmorency, the author points out that the towers erected elsewhere by Cœnobite associations are always square, not round, and that any argument based upon the elevated position of the entrances to both classes of edifices would apply equally to the pyramids. He shows that the round towers could not have been intended as places of refuge, or as depositories of ecclesiastical treasures, and adduces historical proof that the structures known as “belfries” were wholly different. Alluding to the supposed band of voluntary Cœnobite workmen under _Saint Abban_, he points out that their building operations must necessarily have been carried on in the midst of a raging war; that although they must have availed themselves of native assistance in the work, yet the Irish of the early Christian period betray not the slightest knowledge of the art of building; that the building of round towers ceased quite suddenly, almost immediately after the introduction of Christianity; that the native Irish have never attributed these towers to such an origin; that, so far from being, as Montmorency alleges, assisted by the munificence of native princes, the Cœnobite monks must have had to deal with absolute pagans, who would regard their labour with anything but approval; and that the fact of “kills,” or remains of Christian churches, being found in the vicinity of Cromleachs, Mithratic caves, and round towers is simply the result of the reverence felt by the pagan converts for the scenes and associations of their old belief, and affords no ground for supposing that the churches were coeval with the latter. Subsequently (at p. 514) he cites the instance of a round tower without any church near it.