AN IRISHMAN'S DIARY

THE Round Towers of Ireland are remarkable among the world's ancient monuments they make a bold historical and cultural statement…

THE Round Towers of Ireland are remarkable among the world's ancient monuments they make a bold historical and cultural statement. While the Pyramids are dedicated to the enjoyment of a future life and the Roman amphitheatres reflect the pastimes of their builders, the utilitarian and graceful Irish round towers were built to preserve life and cultural heritage during the turbulent times of the Viking raiders.

These merchant pirates from the Scandinavian countries dominated most of the northern world between AD 750 and 1050. They traded on the Volga, discovered Northern America and looted the coast of Western Europe before settling down to found such maritime towns as Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Waterford.

Ireland was easy prey to these mobile warriors, with their swift long ships and advanced technology - hard tempered steel swords.

it was favoured for its treasures - accumulated during the relatively peaceful period of Ireland's Golden Age (450 to 750) - when mainland Europe was stripped bare by waves of horse borne Barbarians from the East. It was easy prey because of its tribal, or clan based society which allowed for very little cohesive or central authority to help resist the Norsemen's sudden and bloody raids on its scattered settlements.

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These places of population and wealth were the wood built villages and student campsites loosely termed "monasteries" (not to be confused with the much later monasteries of the continental orders, mostly built by the Normans, such as Holy Cross in Co Tipperary).

Anchor anchorites

The early monastic settlements grew around primitive cells or churches associated with holy men such as St Declan (Ardmore, Co Waterford); St Kevin (Glendalough, Co Wicklow) and, perhaps the grandest of all, St Kieran's, Clonmacnoise, on the Shannon in Co Offaly. It was burned 26 times by the Vikings.

Their only defence was a circular timber topped mound enclosing the principal buildings. Such simple protection - effective against marauding wolves and erant thieves - was easily overwhelmed by the fierce and motivated Norsemen, whose first looting occurred at Lambay island off the Dublin Coast in 795.

Fifty years later, a Gaelic warrior complained of the "sea vomiting of ships and fleets so that there is not a harbour or landport in the whole of Munster without floods of Danes and other pirates".

Tired of the Vikings' constant attention, the monastic communities started building stone churches which needed only a lime wash and a new reed roof to be quickly "back in business" after a raid.

Kells in Co Meath - home of the famous book - was burned three times in the 50 years between 920 and 970.

Not wishing to constantly rewrite burned manuscripts like the Book of Kells, or bury (and often forget) the location of buried treasures such as the Ardagh and Derrynaflan chalices, the monks built these vertical vaults we call round towers.

Of more than 100 round towers, 65 survive in part or whole. Ardmore in Co Waterford is one of the better preserved, and is typical of this unique Irish architectural form.

it is 30 metres high, battered (i.e., inward sloping all round for stability), had a doorway four metres from the ground, or more than the height of two average men. It had five wooden floors reached by a series of ladders, and each storey had just one small, narrow window.

Eye in the Sky

The top floor, or bell space, under the conical cap roof, had four larger windows facing the main compass points. These were used for observation and sounding alarm bells, in addition to calling the community from the fields for prayer and dining in peaceful periods.

in time of danger, the community took refuge with the monastery's treasurers and books by climbing a rope ladder into the tower. Having pulled in the ladder and securely barred and bolted the strong oak and iron door, they "sat out" the sacking of the settlement and church buildings, emerging only when the look out on the top floor sounded the "all clear" once he saw, from the flames on the horizon, that the Scandinavian visitors had arrived at their next stop.

All Irish round towers are handcrafted in native stone and cemented with a sand, lime, horsehair and oxblood mortar - a technique imported from Roman Britain.

When you look at a complete Irish round tower or bellhouse (cloig theach), such as Ardmore or Clondalkin, you are viewing one of Northern Europe's few remaining stone structures from the "Dark Ages", whose plan may have inspired the campaniles of Italy and the crude towers built into many English and south German churches.

A legacy of lanes

Part of the settled Viking legacy is the number of Norse names of towns such as Leixlip (salmon leap), Waterford and a unique, narrow stepway near St Finbarr's Cathedral in Cork, called Kaysers Lane (way to the quay). Wexford also has a Kaysers Lane.

Few parts of Ireland are more than an hour's drive from a round tower. Not all are as spectacularly located as those at Clonmacnoise or Glendalough and not all are in a good state of repair. But each is uniquely beautiful and represents a chapter in Ireland's rich history. Now, as spring nears, go out and see for yourself.