Chapter 21: , forbidding the importation of foreign coals, was designed (2)

"It is much to be regretted that the society lately established in
England, having for its object the preservation of British
antiquities, did not extend its design over those of the sister
island, which are daily becoming fewer and fewer in number. That
the gold ornaments which are so frequently found in various parts
of Ireland should be melted down for the sake of the very pure gold
of which they are composed, is scarcely surprising; but that carved
stones and even immense druidical remains should be destroyed is,
indeed, greatly to be lamented. At one of the late meetings of the
Royal Irish Academy a communication was made of the intention of
the proprietor of the estate at New Grange to destroy that most
gigantic relic of druidical times, which has justly been termed the
Irish pyramid, merely because its vast size 'cumbereth the ground.'
At Mellifont a modern cornmill of large size has been built out of
the stones of the beautiful monastic buildings, some of which still
adorn that charming spot. At Monasterboice, the churchyard of which
contains one of the finest of the round towers, are the ruins of
two of the little ancient stone Irish churches, and three most
elaborately carved stone crosses, eighteen or twenty feet high. The
churchyard itself is overrun with weeds, the sanctity of the place
being its only safeguard. At Clonmacnoise, where, some forty years
ago, several hundred inscriptions in the ancient Irish character
were to be seen upon the gravestones, scarcely a dozen (and they
the least interesting) are now to be found--the large flat stones
on which they were carved forming excellent slabs for doorways, the
copings of walls, etc.! It was the discovery of some of these
carved stones in such a situation which had the effect of directing
the attention of Mr. Petrie (then an artist in search of the
picturesque, but now one of the most enlightened and conscientious
of the Irish antiquaries) to the study of antiquities; and it is
upon the careful series of drawings made by him that future
antiquarians must rely for very much of ancient architectural
detail now destroyed. As to Glendalough, it is so much a holiday
place for the Dubliners that it is no wonder everything portable
has disappeared. Two or three of the seven churches are levelled to
the ground--all the characteristic carvings described by Ledwich,
and which were '_quite unique in Ireland_,' are gone. Some were
removed and used as keystones for the arches of Derrybawn bridge.
Part of the churchyard has been cleared of its gravestones, and
forms a famous place, where the villagers play at ball against the
old walls of the church. The little church, called 'St. Kevin's
Kitchen,' is given up to the sheep, and the font lies in one
corner, and is used for the vilest purposes. The abbey church is
choked up with trees and brambles, and being a little out of the
way a very few of the carved stones still remain there, two of the
most interesting of which I found used as coping-stones to the wall
which surrounds it. The connection between the ancient churches of
Ireland and the North of England renders the preservation of the
Irish antiquities especially interesting to the English
antiquarian; and it is with the hope of drawing attention to the
destruction of those ancient Irish monuments that I have written
these few lines. The Irish themselves are, unfortunately, so
engrossed with political and religious controversies, that it can
scarcely be hoped that single-handed they will be roused to the
rescue even of these evidences of their former national greatness.
Besides, a great obstacle exists against any interference with the
religious antiquities of the country, from the strong feelings
entertained by the people on the subject, although _practically_,
as we have seen, of so little weight. Let us hope that the public
attention directed to these objects will have a beneficial result
and ensure a greater share of 'justice to Ireland'; for will it be
believed that the only establishment in Ireland for the propagation
and diffusion of scientific and antiquarian knowledge--the Royal
Irish Academy--receives annually the munificent sum of L300 from
the Government! And yet, notwithstanding this pittance, the members
of that society have made a step in the right direction by the
purchase of the late Dean of St. Patrick's Irish Archaeological
Collection, of which a fine series of drawings is now being made at
the expense of the Academy, and of which they would, doubtless,
allow copies to be made, so as to obtain a return of a portion of
the expense to which they are now subjected. Small, moreover, as
the collection is, it forms a striking contrast with our own
_National_ Museum, which, rich in foreign antiquities, is almost
without a single object of native archaeological interest, if we
except the series of English and Anglo-Saxon coins and MSS."

The Catholic clergy were long and naturally the guardians of our antiquities, and many of their archaeological works testify their prodigious learning. Of late, too, the honourable and wise reverence brought back to England has reached the Irish Protestant clergy, and they no longer make antiquity a reproach, or make the maxims of the iconoclast part of their creed.

Is it extravagant to speculate on the possibility of the Episcopalian, Catholic, and Presbyterian clergy joining in an Antiquarian Society to preserve our ecclesiastical remains--our churches, our abbeys, our crosses, and our fathers' tombs, from fellows like the Meath road-makers? It would be a politic and a noble emulation of the sects, restoring the temples wherein their sires worshipped for their children to pray in. There's hardly a barony wherein we could not find an old parish or abbey church, capable of being restored to its former beauty and convenience at a less expense than some beastly barn is run up, as if to prove and confirm the fact that we have little art, learning, or imagination.

Nor do we see why some of these hundreds of half-spoiled buildings might not be used for civil purposes--as almshouses, schools, lecture-rooms, town-halls. It would always add another grace to an institution to have its home venerable with age and restored to beauty. We have seen men of all creeds join the Archaeological Society to preserve and revive our ancient literature. Why may we not see, even without waiting for the aid of an Irish Parliament, an Antiquarian Society, equally embracing the chief civilians and divines, and charging itself with the duties performed in France by the Commission of Antiquities and Monuments?

The Irish antiquarians of the last century did much good. They called attention to the history and manners of our predecessors which we had forgotten. They gave a pedigree to nationhood, and created a faith that Ireland could and should be great again by magnifying what she had been. They excited the noblest passions--veneration, love of glory, beauty, and virtue. They awoke men's fancy by their gorgeous pictures of the past, and imagination strove to surpass them by its creations. They believed what they wrote, and thus their wildest stories sank into men's minds. To the exertions of Walker, O'Halloran, Vallancey, and a few other Irish academicians in the last century, we owe almost all the Irish knowledge possessed by our upper classes till very lately. It was small, but it was enough to give a dreamy renown to ancient Ireland; and if it did nothing else, it smoothed the reception of Bunting's music, and identified Moore's poetry with his native country.

While, therefore, we at once concede that Vallancey was a bad scholar, O'Halloran a credulous historian, and Walker a shallow antiquarian, we claim for them gratitude and attachment, and protest, once for all, against the indiscriminate abuse of them now going in our educated circles.

But no one should lie down under the belief that these were the deep and exact men their contemporaries thought them. They were not patient nor laborious. They were very graceful, very fanciful, and often very wrong in their statements and their guesses. How often they avoided painful research by gay guessing we are only now learning. O'Halloran and Keatinge have told us bardic romances with the same tone as true chronicles. Vallancey twisted language, towers, and traditions into his wicker-work theory of Pagan Ireland; and Walker built great facts and great blunders, granite blocks and rotten wood, into his antiquarian edifices. One of the commonest errors, attributing immense antiquity, oriental origin, and everything noble in Ireland to the Milesians, originated with these men; or, rather, was transferred from the adulatory songs of clan-bards to grave stories. Now, it is quite certain that several races flourished here before the Milesians, and that everything oriental, and much that was famous in Ireland, belonged to some of these elder races, and not to the Scoti or Milesians.

Premising this much of warning and defence as to the men who first made anything of ancient Ireland known to the mixed nation of modern Ireland, we turn with pure pleasure to their successors, the antiquarians and historians of our own time.

We liked for awhile bounding from tussuck to tussuck, or resting on a green esker in the domain of the old academicians of Grattan's time; but 'tis pleasanter, after all, to tread the firm ground of our own archaeologists.

---------------------------------------------------------------
[35] The reader who wishes to know what modern archaeology has to
say of this great tumulus may be referred to Mr. George Coffey's
"Newgrange," published by Hodges, Figgis & Co., 1912. It dates from
about 1,000 years earlier than Davis supposed.

THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND.[36]

Accustomed from boyhood to regard these towers as revelations of a gorgeous but otherwise undefined antiquity--dazzled by oriental analogies--finding a refuge in their primeval greatness from the meanness or the misfortunes of our middle ages, we clung to the belief of their Pagan origin.

In fancy we had seen the white-robed Druid tend the holy fire in their lower chambers--had measured with the Tyrian-taught astronomer the length of their shadows--and had almost knelt to the elemental worship with nobles whose robes had the dye of the Levant, and sailors whose cheeks were brown with an Egyptian sun, and soldiers whose bronze arms clashed as the trumpets from the tower-top said that the sun had risen. What wonder that we had resented the attempt to cure us of so sweet a frenzy?

We plead guilty to having opened Mr. Petrie's work strongly bigoted against his conclusion.

On the other hand, we could not forget the authority of the book. Its author we knew was familiar beyond almost any other with the country--had not left one glen unsearched, not one island untrod; had brought with him the information of a life of antiquarian study, a graceful and exact pencil, and feelings equally national and lofty. We knew also that he had the aid of the best Celtic scholars alive in the progress of his work. The long time taken in its preparation ensured maturity; and the honest men who had criticised it, and the adventurers who had stolen from it enough to make false reputations, equally testified to its merits.

Yet, we repeat, we jealously watched for flaws in Mr. Petrie's reasoning; exulted as he set down the extracts from his opponents, in the hope that he would fail in answering them, and at last surrendered with a sullen despair.

Looking now more calmly at the discussion, we are grateful to Mr. Petrie for having driven away an idle fancy. In its stead he has given us new and unlooked-for trophies, and more solid information on Irish antiquities than any of his predecessors. We may be well content to hand over the Round Towers to Christians of the sixth or the tenth century, when we find that these Christians were really eminent in knowledge as well as piety, had arched churches by the side of these _campanilia_, gave an alphabet to the Saxons, and hospitality and learning to the students of all western Europe--and the more readily, as we got in exchange _proofs_ of a Pagan race having a Pelasgic architecture, and the arms and ornaments of a powerful and cultivated people.

The volume before us contains two parts of Mr. Petrie's essay. The first part is an examination of the false theories of the origin of these towers. The second is an account not only of what he thinks their real origin, but of every kind of early ecclesiastical structure in Ireland. The third part will contain a historical and descriptive account of every ecclesiastical building in Ireland of a date prior to the Anglo-Norman invasion of which remains now exist. The work is crowded with illustrations drawn with wonderful accuracy, and engraved in a style which proves that Mr. O'Hanlon, the engraver, has become so proficient as hardly to have a superior in wood-cutting.

We shall for the present limit ourselves to the first part of the work on the

"ERRONEOUS THEORIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ORIGIN AND USES OF THE ROUND TOWERS."

The first refutation is of the

"THEORY OF THE DANISH ORIGIN OF THE TOWERS."

John Lynch, in his _Cambrensis Eversus_, says that the Danes are reported (_dicuntur_) to have first erected the Round Towers as _watch_-towers, but that the Christian Irish changed them into _clock_ or bell-towers. Peter Walsh[37] repeated and exaggerated the statement; and Ledwich, the West British antiquary of last century, combined it with lies enough to settle his character, though not that of the towers. The only person, at once explicit and honest, who supported this Danish theory was Dr. Molyneux. His arguments are that all stone buildings, and, indeed, all evidences of mechanical civilisation, in Ireland were Danish; that some traditions attributed the Round Towers to them; that they had fit models in the monuments of their own country; and that the word by which he says the native Irish call them, viz., "Clogachd," comes from the Teutonic root, clugga, a bell. These arguments are easily answered.

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 pass 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 illustrous 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 classes 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-asserted 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 mass of falsehoods, disparaging to the people and the country.

FIRE TEMPLES.

Vallancey's first analogy 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 Parsees or Guebres of Persia, and he takes the resemblance to prove connection and identity 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 spaces (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'Brien 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 passages 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 passage which our author obviously
refers to--

"'_Cai i. teach unde dicitur ceard cha i. teach cearda; creas cha
i. teach cumang._'

"'_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_; asserts 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 passage, 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 assertion 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 assertion, 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 passage 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 assertions, and had attempted a
gross imposition on the credulity of his readers."

Mr. D'Alton relies much on a passage 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.xlº.viiiº. ingenti terrae motu per loca varia imminente, plurimi urbis auguste muri recenti adhuc reaedificatione constructi, cum 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 passage 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 passage 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. Assuredly if there were a close likeness between the Irish Round Towers and oriental fire temples of proved antiquity, it would be an argument for identity 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 assumed 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 God, 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 God 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.

"Where Cormac held his court was at Tara, in imitation of the kings
who preceded him, until his eye was destroyed by Engus
Gaibhuaiphnech, the son of Eochaidh Finn Futhairt: but afterwards
he resided at Acaill (the hill on which Serin Colaim Cille is at
this day), and at Cenannas (Kells), and at the house of Cletech;
for it was not lawful that a king with a _personal_ blemish
should reside at Tara. In the second year after the injuring of his
eye he came by his death at the house of Cletech, the bone of a
salmon having stuck in his throat. And he (Cormac) told his people
not to bury him at Brugh (because it was a cemetery of Idolaters),
for he did not worship the same God as any of those interred at
Brugh; but to bury him at Ros-na-righ, with his face to the east.
He afterwards died, and his servants of trust held a council, and
came to the resolution of burying him at Brugh, the place where the
kings of Tara, his predecessors, were buried. The body of the king
was afterwards thrice raised to be carried to Brugh, but the Boyne
swelled up thrice, so that they could not come; so that they
observed that it was 'violating the judgment of a prince' to break
through this testament of the king, and they afterwards dug his
grave at Ros-na-righ, as he himself had ordered.

"These were the chief cemeteries of Erin before the Faith (_i.e._,
before the introduction of Christianity), viz., Cruachu, Brugh,
Tailltin, Luachair, Ailbe, Oenach Ailbe, Oenach Culi, Oenach
Colmain, Temhair Erann.

"Oenach Cruachan, in the first place, it was there the race of
Heremon (_i.e._, the kings of Tara) were used to bury until the
time of Cremhthann, the son of Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg (who was the
first king of them that was interred at Brugh), viz., Cobhlhach
Coelbregh, and Labhraidh Loingsech, and Eocho Fedhlech with his
three sons (_i.e._, the three Fidhemhna--_i.e._, Bres, Nar, and
Lothoe), and Eocho Airemh, Lughaidh Riabh-n-derg, the six daughters
of Eocho Fedhlech (_i.e._, Medhbh, and Clothru, Muresc, and
Drebrin, Mugain, and Ele), and Adill Mac Mada with his seven
brothers (_i.e._, Cet, Anlon, Doche, _et ceteri_), and all the
kings _down_ to Cremhthann (these were all buried at Cruachan). Why
was it not at Brugh that the kings (of the race of Cobhthach down
to Crimthann) were interred? Not difficult; because the two
provinces which the race of Heremon possessed were the province of
Gailian (_i.e._, the province of Leinster), and the province of
Olnecmacht (_i.e._, the province of Connaught). In the first place,
the province of Gailian was occupied by the race of Labhraidh
Loingsech, and the province of Connaught was the peculiar
inheritance of the race of Cobhtach Coelbregh; wherefore it
(_i.e._, the province of Connaught) was given to Medhbh before
every other province. (The reason that the government of this land
was given to Medhbh is because there was none of the race of
Eochaidh fit to receive it but herself, for Lughaidh was not fit
for action at the time.) And whenever, therefore, the monarchy of
Erin was enjoyed by any of the descendants of Cobhthach Coelbregh,
the province of Connaught was his _ruidles_ (_i.e._, his native
principality). And for this reason they were interred at Oenach na
Cruachna. But they were interred at Brugh from the time of
Crimthann (Niadh-nar) to the time of Loeghaire, the son of Niall,
except three persons, namely, Art, the son of Conn, and Cormac, the
son of Art, and Niall of the Nine Hostages.

"We have already mentioned the cause for which Cormac was not
interred there. The reason why Art was not interred there is
because he 'believed,' the day before the battle of Muccramma was
fought, and he predicted the Faith (_i.e._, that Christianity would
prevail in Erin), and he said that his own grave would be at Dumha
Dergluachra, where Treoit [Trevet] is at this day, as he mentioned
in a poem which he composed--viz., _Cain do denna den_ (_i.e._, a
poem which Art composed, the beginning of which is _Cain do denna
den_, etc.). When his (Art's) body was afterwards carried eastwards
to Dumha Dergluachra, if all the men of Erin were drawing it
thence, they could not, so that he was interred in that place
because there was a Catholic church to be afterwards at the place
where he was interred (_i.e._, Treoit _hodie_). because the truth
and the Faith had been revealed to him through his regal
righteousness.

"Where Niall was interred was at Ochain, whence the hill was called
Ochain, _i.e._, _Och Caine_, _i.e._, from the sighing and
lamentation which the men of Erin made in lamenting Niall.

"Conaire More was interred at Magh Feci in Bregia (_i.e._, at Fert
Conaire); however, some say that it was Conaire Carpraige was
interred there, and not Conaire Mor, and that Conaire Mor was the
third king who was interred at Tara--viz., Conaire, Loeghaire, and
* * *

"At Tailltin the kings of Ulster were used to bury--viz., Ollamh
Fodhla, with his descendants down to Conchobhar, who wished that he
should be carried to a place between Slea and the sea, with his
face to the east, on account of the Faith which he had embraced.

"The nobles of the Tuatha De Danann were used to bury at Brugh
(_i.e._, the Dagda with his three sons; also Lughaidh and Oe, and
Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan, the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of
Etan), and Cremhthann followed them because his wife Nar was of the
Tuatha Dea, and it was she solicited him that he should adopt Brugh
as a burial-place for himself and his descendants, and this was the
cause that they did not bury at Cruachan.

"The Lagenians (_i.e._, Cathair with his race and the kings who
were before them) were buried at Oenach Ailbhe. The Clann Dedad
(_i.e._, the race of Conaire and Erna) at Temhair Erann; the men of
Munster (_i.e._, the Dergthene) at Oenach Culi, and Oenach Colmain;
and the Connacians at Cruachan."

ANCHORITE TOWERS.

Because Simon Stylites lived in a domicile, sized "scarce two cubits," _on_ a pillar sixty feet high, and because other anchorites lived on pillars and in cells, Dean Richardson suggested that the Irish Round Towers were for hermits; and was supported by Walter Harris, Dr. Milner, Dr. King, etc. The _cloch angcoire_, or hermit's stone, quoted in aid of this fancy, turns out to be a narrow cell; and so much for the hermits!

The confusion of

TOURS AND TOWERS

is a stupid pun or a vulgar pronunciation in English; but in Irish gave rise to the antiquarian theory of Dr. Smith, who, in his _History of Cork_, concludes that the Round Towers were penitential prisons, because the Irish word for a penitential round or journey is _turas_!

THE PHALLIC THEORY

never had any support but poor Henry O'Brien's enthusiastic ignorance and the caricaturing pen of his illustrator.

We have now done with the theories of these towers, which Mr. Petrie has shown, past doubt, to be either positively false or quite unproved. His own opinion is that they were used--1, as belfries; 2, as keeps, or houses of shelter for the clergy and their treasures; and 3, as watch-towers and beacons; and into his evidence for this opinion we shall go at a future day, thanking him at present for having displaced a heap of incongruous, though agreeable, fancies, and given us the learned, the most exact, and the most important work ever published on the antiquities of the Ancient Irish Nation.

THE IRISH BRIGADE.

When valour becomes a reproach, when patriotism is thought a prejudice, and when a soldier's sword is a sign of shame, the Irish Brigade will be forgotten or despised.

The Irish are a military people--strong, nimble, and hardy, fond of adventure, irascible, brotherly, and generous--they have all the qualities that tempt men to war and make them good soldiers. Dazzled by their great fame on the Continent, and hearing of their insular wars chiefly through the interested lies of England, Voltaire expressed his wonder that a nation which had behaved so gallantly abroad had "always fought badly at home." It would have been most wonderful.

It may be conceded that the Irish performed more illustrious actions on the Continent. They fought with the advantages of French discipline and equipment; they fought as soldiers, with the rights of war, not "rebels, with halters round their necks"; they fought by the side of great rivals and amid the gaze of Europe.

In the most of their domestic wars they appeared as divided clans or abrupt insurgents; they were exposed to the treachery of a more instructed, of an unscrupulous and a compact enemy; they had neither discipline, nor generalship, nor arms; their victories were those of a mob; their defeats were followed by extermination.

We speak of their ordinary contests with England from the time of Roderick O'Connor to that of '98. Occasionally they had more opportunities, and their great qualities for war appeared. In Hugh (or, rather Aodh) O'Neill they found a leader who only wanted material resources to have made them an independent nation. Cautious, as became the heir of so long a strife, he spent years in acquiring military knowledge and nursing up his clan into the kernel for a nation; crafty as Bacon and Cecil, and every other man of his time, he learned war in Elizabeth's armies, and got help from her store-houses. When the discontent of the Pale, religious tyranny, and the intrigues and hostility of Spain and Rome against England gave him an opening, he put his ordered clan into action, stormed the neighbouring garrisons, struck terror into his hereditary foes, and gave hope to all patriots; but finding that his ranks were too few for battle, he negotiated successfully for peace, but unavailingly for freedom; his grievances and designs remained, and he retired to repeat the same policy, till, after repeated guerillas and truces, he was strong enough to proclaim alliance with Spain and war with England, and to defeat and slay every deputy that assailed him, till at last he marched from the triumph of Beal-an-ath Buidhe[39] (where Marshal Bagenal and his army perished) to hold an almost royal court at Munster, and to reduce the Pale to the limits it had formed in the Wars of the Roses; and even when the neglect of Spain, the genius of Mountjoy, the resources and intrigues of England, and the exhaustion and divisions of Ireland had rendered success hopeless, the Irish under O'Ruarc, O'Sullivan, and O'Doherty vindicated their military character.

From that period they, whose foreign services, since Dathi's time, had been limited to supplying feudatories to the English kings, began to fight under the flags of England's enemies in every corner of Europe. The artifices of the Stuarts regained them, and in the reign of Charles the First they were extensively enlisted for the English allies and for the crown; but it was under the guidance of another O'Neill, and for Ireland,[40] they again exhibited the qualities which had sustained Tyrone. The battle of Benburb affords as great a proof of Irish soldiership as Fontenoy.

But it was when, with a formal government and in a regular war, they encountered the Dutch invader, they showed the full prowess of the Irish; and at the Boyne, Limerick, Athlone, and Aughrim, in victory or defeat, and always against _immensely superior numbers and armaments_, proved that they fought well at home.

Since the day when Sarsfield sailed the Irish have never had an opportunity of refuting the calumny of England which Voltaire accepted. In '98 they met enormous forces resting on all the magazines of England; they had no officers; their leaders, however brave, neither knew how to organise, provision, station, or manoeuvre troops--their arms were casual--their ignorance profound--their intemperance unrestrainable. If they put English supremacy in peril (and had Arklow or Ballinahinch been attacked with skill, that supremacy was gone), they did so by mere valour.

It is, therefore, on the Continent that one must chiefly look for Irish trophies. It is a pious and noble search; but he who pursues it had need to guard against the error we have noticed in Voltaire, of disparaging Irish soldiership at home.

The materials for the history of the Irish Brigade are fast accumulating. We have before us the _Military History of the Irish Nation_, by the late Matthew O'Conor. He was a barrister, but studied military subjects (as became a gentleman and a citizen), peculiarly interested himself in the achievements of his countrymen, and prepared materials for a history of them. He died, leaving his work unfinished, yet, happily sufficiently advanced to offer a continuous narrative of Irish internal wars, from Hugh O'Neill to Sarsfield, and of their foreign services up to the Peace of Utrecht, in 1711. The style of the work is earnest and glowing, full of patriotism and liberality; but Mr. O'Conor was no blind partisan, and he neither hides the occasional excesses of the Irish, nor disparages their opponents. His descriptions of battles are very superior to what one ordinarily meets in the works of civilians, and any one reading them with a military atlas will be gratified and instructed.

The value of the work is vastly augmented by the appendix, which is a memoir of the Brigade, written in French, in 1749, and including the War Office orders, and all the changes in organisation, numbers, and pay of the Brigade to that date. This memoir is authenticated thus:--

"His Excellency, the Duke of Feltre, Minister of War, was so kind
as to communicate to me the original memoir above cited, of which
this is a perfect copy, which I attest.

"DE MONTMORENCY MORRES (Herve),
"Adjutant-Commandant, Colonel.

"Paris, 1st September, 1813."

To give any account of the details of Mr. O'Conor's book we should abridge it, and an abridgment of a military history is a catalogue of names. It contains accounts of Hugh O'Neill's campaigns and of the wars of William and James in Ireland. It describes (certainly a new chapter in our knowledge) the services of the Irish in the Low Countries and France during the religious wars in Henri Quatre's time, and the hitherto equally unknown actions abroad during Charles the Second's exile and reign.

The wars of Mountcashel's (the old) Brigade in 1690-91, under St. Ruth in Savoy, occupy many interesting pages, and the first campaigns of the New Brigade, with the death of Sarsfield and Mountcashel, are carefully narrated. The largest part of the work is occupied with the wars of the Spanish succession, and contains minute narratives of the battles and sieges of Cremona, Spire, Luzzaca, Blenheim, Cassano, Ramilies, Almanza, Alcira, Malplaquet, and Denain, with the actions of the Irish in them.

Here are great materials for our future History of Ireland.

---------------------------------------------------------------
[39] See Mitchel's _Life of Hugh O'Neill_, and Meehan's _Flight of
the Earls_. Dublin: Duffy & Sons.

[40] Owen Roe, who defeated Monro, 1646.

THE SPEECHES OF GRATTAN.[41]

Of the long line of Protestant patriots Grattan is the first in genius, and first in services. He had a more fervid and more Irish nature than Swift or Flood, and he accomplished what Swift hardly dreamed, and Flood failed in--an Irish constitution. He had immeasurably more imagination than Tone; and though he was far behind the great Founder of the United Irishmen in organising power, he surpassed him in inspiration. The statues of all shall be in our forums, and examples of all in our hearts, but that of Grattan shall be pre-eminent. The stubborn and advancing energy of Swift and Flood may teach us to bear up against wrong; the principles of Tone may end in liberation; but the splendid nationality of Grattan shall glorify us in every condition.

The speeches of Grattan were collected and his memoirs written by his son. The latter is an accessible and an invaluable account of his life; but the speeches were out of print, not purchasable under five or six guineas, and then were unmanageably numerous for any but a professed politician. Mr. Madden's volume gives for a trifle all Grattan's most valuable speeches, with a memoir sufficient to explain the man and the orator.

On the speeches of Grattan here published we have little to say. They are the finest specimens of imaginative eloquence in the English, or in any, language. There is not much pathos, and no humour in them, and in these respects Grattan is far less of an Irishman, and of an orator too, than Curran; but a philosophy, penetrating constitutions for their warnings, and human nature for its guides--a statesman's (as distinguished from an antiquarian's) use of history--a passionate scorn and invective for the base, tyrannical, and unjust--a fiery and copious zeal for liberty and for Ireland, and a diction and cadence almost lyrical, made Grattan the sudden achiever of a Revolution, and will make him for ever one of the very elements of Ireland.

No other orator is so uniformly animated. No other orator has brightened the depths of political philosophy with such vivid and lasting light. No writer in the language except Shakespeare has so sublime and suggestive a diction. His force and vehemence are amazing--far beyond Chatham, far beyond Fox, far beyond any orator we can recall.

To the student of oratory Grattan's speeches are dangerously suggestive, overpowering spirits that will not leave when bid. Yet, with all this terrible potency, who would not bask in his genius, even at the hazard of having his light for ever in your eyes. The brave student will rather exult in his effulgence--not to rob, not to mimic it--but to catch its inspiration, and then go on his way resolved to create a glory of his own which, however small, being genuine, shall not pale within its sphere.

To give a _just_ idea of Grattan's rush and splendour to anyone not familiar with his speeches is impossible; but _some_ glimmer may be got by one reading the extracts we shall add here. We shall take them at random, as we open the pages in the book, and leave the reader, untaught in our great orator, to judge, if chance is certain of finding such gems, what would not judicious care discover! Let him use that care again and again.

"Sir, we may hope to dazzle with illumination, and we may sicken
with addresses, but the public imagination will never rest, nor
will her heart be well at ease; never! so long as the parliament of
England exercises or claims a legislation over this country: so
long as this shall be the case, that very free trade, otherwise a
perpetual attachment, will be the cause of new discontent; it will
create a pride to feel the indignity of bondage; it will furnish a
strength to bite your chain, and the liberty withheld will poison
the good communicated.

"The British minister mistakes the Irish character; had he intended
to make Ireland a slave he should have kept her a beggar; there is
no middle policy; win her heart by the restoration of her right, or
cut off the nation's right hand; greatly emancipate, or
fundamentally destroy. We may talk plausibly to England, but so
long as she exercises a power to bind this country, so long are the
nations in a state of war; the claims of the one go against the
liberty of the other, and the sentiments of the latter go to oppose
those claims to the last drop of her blood. The English opposition,
therefore, are right; mere trade will not satisfy Ireland--they
judge of us by other great nations, by the nation whose political
life has been a struggle for liberty; they judge of us with a true
knowledge and just deference for our character: that a country
enlightened as Ireland, chartered as Ireland, armed as Ireland and
injured as Ireland, will be satisfied with nothing less than
liberty.

"Impracticable! impracticable! impracticable! a zealous divine will
say; any alteration is beyond the power and wisdom of parliament;
above the faculties of man to make adequate provision for 900
clergymen who despise riches. Were it to raise a new tax for their
provision, or for that of a body less holy, how easy the task! how
various the means! but when the proposal is to diminish a tax
already established, an impossibility glares us in the face, of a
measure so contrary to our practices both in church and state."

We were wrong in saying there was no humour in Grattan. Here is a passage humorous enough, but it is scornful, rhetorical humour:--