Chapter IV: (pp. 48-62)

In tracing the origin and purpose of the round towers, our author is led to consider the names given them in ancient records and Irish folk-lore. The stunted ruin of Bally-Carbery Round Tower, near his own birthplace, was, he found, known to the peasantry as the “Cathoir ghall,” _i.e._ “the temple of brightness or delight,” whilst both in the _Annals of the Four Masters_, the _Ulster Annals_, and the _Annals of Innisfallen_ these towers are included in the generic name _Fiadh-Neimhedh_, as contrasted with the names _Cloic teacha_ and _Erdam_ applied to “belfries,” thus showing that the two kinds of structures are perfectly distinct. He finds that _Fiadh-Nemeadth_ in all preceding writers on the subject is held to apply specifically to the round towers, though some of these writers (_e.g._ Colgan and O’Connor) have wrested its meaning to support their own particular views, and the true import of this term he subsequently explains to be “consecrated Lingams” (p. 105), or _phallic temples_. The “belfry” and the _gnomon_, or “celestial index,” theories are thus exploded. From historical evidence he is further led to assume that Ireland is identical with the _Insula Hyperboreorum_ of the ancients, and that the legendary mission of the Boreadan _Abaris_[27] to Delos took place during the _Scythian_ occupation of Ireland. This friendly communication between the ancient Irish and the Greeks he attributes to their having sprung from a common stock--the _Pelasgi_ and the _Tuath-de-danaans_ belonging to “the same time as the Indo-Scythæ, or Chaldean Magi.” He traces briefly the relations between the _Tuath-de-danaan_ settlers in Ireland and their Scythian (or Milesian) conquerors, and shows that to the former is due the high state of civilisation and learning for which ancient Ireland was distinguished, and which degenerated under Scythian rule; and concludes with a general statement as to the prevalence of _Sabaic_ worship therein, and the phallic configuration of the round towers.