No combination of letters could possibly approach closer, or convey to a discerning mind greater affinity of meaning to anything, than does the above name to the description given of them in the twelfth century by Giraldus Cambrensis, who calls them “_turres ecclesiasticas_, quæ, more patriæ, arctæ sunt et altæ, nec non et rotundæ.” This definition, vague as it may seem, affords ample illumination, when compared with the epithet which I have above adduced, to penetrate the darkness of this literary nebula. The word “_turres_” points out their constructional symmetry, and “_ecclesiasticas_” their appropriation to a religious use; and what can possibly be in stricter consonance with the tenor of this idea than “Cathaoir ghall,” or the Temple of Brightness, which I have instanced above as the _vernacular_ appellation of one of those sanctuaries? Should it be asked, why did not Cambrensis, at the time, enter more fully into the minutiæ of their detail? I shall unhesitatingly answer, it was because he knew nothing more about them. The Irish had at that moment most lamentably dwindled into a degenerate race. The noble spirit of their heroic ancestors, which had called forth those pyramids, for the _twofold_ and _mingled_ purpose of _religion_ and _science_, had already evaporated; and all the historian could glean, in prosecuting his inquiries as to their era and cause, was that their antiquity was so remote, that some of them may be even seen immersed beneath the waters of Lough Neagh,[63] which had been occasioned many ages before by the overflowing of a fountain.[64] Let us now turn to the annals of the “Four Masters,” which record the destruction of Armagh, A.D. 995, by a flash of lightning, and see under what name they include the Round Towers in the general catastrophe. Here is the passage at full length, as given by O’Connor--“_Ardmaeha do lose do tene saighnein, ettir tighib, 7[65] Domhuliacc, 7 Cloic teacha, 7 Fiadh-Neimhedh_”; that is, Armagh having been set on fire by lightning, its houses, its cathedrals, its belfries, and its _Fiadh-Neimhedh_, were all destroyed. The _Ulster Annals_ have registered the same event in the following words:--“_Tene diait do gabail Airdmaeha conafarcaibh Dertach, na Damliacc, na h Erdam, na Fidh-Nemead ann cen loscadh_”; that is, Lightning seized upon Armagh, to so violent a degree, as to leave neither mansion, nor cathedral, nor belfry, nor _Fiadh-Nemeadh_, undemolished.