Hardly a vestige of the ancient buildings of Kildare remain save the round tower. It is over one hundred and thirty feet in height, and therefore one of the highest in Ireland. It seems as perfect as it was the day it was finished. It is sad to say that it is the most completely spoiled--bedevilled would probably be a better word--of all the Irish round towers; for some person or persons whose memories should be held in everlasting abhorrence by every archæologist, have put an incongruous, ridiculous, castellated top on it that makes it look as unsightly and as horrible as a statue of Julius Cæsar would look with a stove-pipe hat on its head. The people of Kildare and its vicinity should at once raise funds and have a proper, antique roof put on their tower, for it is an absolute disgrace to them as it is at present. The top of the tower may have been destroyed by lightning, or, like many other round towers, it may have been left unfinished, and may never have had a top or roof on it. But whatever may have happened to it, its present castellated roof is a disgraceful incongruity. The cathedral of Kildare is a modern and rather plain building of mediocre interest. It is supposed to be built in, or nearly in, the place where the old church stood that was founded by St Brigit in the sixth century. Kildare seems to owe its origin to St Brigit, for the name means the cell or church of the oak; and as Brigit was contemporary with St Patrick, hers must have been the first Christian establishment founded at Kildare. It is stated in the _Trias Thaumaturga_ of Colgan that when she returned to her own district, a cell was assigned to her in which she afterwards led a wonderful life; that she erected a monastery in Kildare, and that a very great city afterwards sprang up, which became the metropolis of the Lagenians, or Leinster folk. It requires a great stretch of imagination to conceive how Kildare could ever have been a "very great city," for it is now, and has for many years, been a small, a very small country town, hardly any more than a village. It seems strange that Kildare is not larger and more prosperous, for if not situated in a picturesque part of the island, the country round it is very fair and fertile, and beautiful as any flat country could be. There is, however, a passage in the "Calendar of Oengus," written in the latter end of the eighth or the beginning of the ninth century, that goes far to prove that what is said in the _Trias Thaumaturga_ about Kildare having been once a large place is true. Speaking of the fall of the strongholds of the Pagans, and the rise of Christian centres, Oengus says-- "Aillinn's proud burgh Hath perished with its warlike host: Great is victorious Brigit: Fair is her multitudinous city."