But, if intended as a place of shelter for either _person_ or _property_, why build them of such an altitude? Above all things, why not build them of such internal capacity as to accommodate the _whole_ number of inmates in each convent, in case of an attack,--as, in fact, those _square_ towers in the desert used; whereas, “a _dozen bulky persons_” could not squeeze together into one of our Round Towers; and accordingly, with the inconsistency inseparable from error, our author himself proclaims that “it has frequently occurred that the _barbarian_, on finding that he had been foiled in his search after treasures, though he burned the abbey, and perpetrated all the mischief he was able, sooner than retire empty-handed, the _pirate_ seized on the abbot, or most prominent member he found belonging to the community, and hurried away the unfortunate individual on board his ship, holding him in durance, till, overcome by ill-usage, he besought his brethren to come to his relief with a heavy ransom for his freedom.” “It has also often happened,” he adds, “that, unable to comply with the tyrant’s exorbitant demands, the monks resigned the captive to his fate.” Surely, if they had those _keeps_ to fly to, the “unfortunate” abbot need not allow himself to be seized at all; and surely, also, if they had all those treasures upon which the Colonel insists, they would not leave the father of their “community” unredeemed from so excruciating a degradation. And hence we may conclude with Dr. Lanigan, “What little credit is due to the stories of some hagiologists, who talk of great estates granted to our monasteries and churches in those and even earlier times.”[55] Indeed, for the two first centuries subsequent to the arrival of St. Patrick, such a thing was incompatible with the nature of the “political compact” in Ireland. I do not deny, however, but that the ecclesiastics of this time did possess some articles of value appertaining to the altar, and that these were objects of unholy cupidity to the Danes: nay, further, I admit that, to escape from the insatiability of those virulent marauders, they used to fly to the belfries, which--from that mistaken regard attached to the edifices, as these receptacles of those sonorous organs to which superstition has ever clung[56]--they had hoped would prove an asylum from their pursuits,--but in vain--neither religion nor superstition opposed a barrier to the Northmen, while the frail materials whereof those belfries were constructed afforded a ready gratification to their appetite for destruction.