Conical erections, tall and slender, so frequently found adjoining to, or nearly in contact with, the ancient churches. Those antiquaries who give them a very recent date, suppose them to be the work of native builders, whilst the Castles and Churches are by English or French architects: but Vallancey claims for them a very ancient date, asserting that they were erected by the Phœnicians to contain the sacred fire, and copied from the pyramidal stones so frequent with that people and with the Druids. Ledwich, however, merely considers them as common appendages to the wooden churches; some at a distance of 8 feet, others 124; and one, at _St. Kevins_, actually joined to it. This latter writer assumes that they are _Ostmanic_, or Danish productions, "and from uninterrupted tradition, probably to have been belfries from the beginning." Of these about sixty-six remain. Except as to rotundity, every architect seems to have followed his own fancy both in height and in internal arrangement: the one at Antrim is 80 feet high, tapers about 18 feet from the top in form of a sugar-loaf, where it is about 36 feet in girth, and 52 near the base; some have their door 24 feet from the ground, but in general not more than 10 or 12. The Tower at Drumiskin is supposed to have been the highest in the island, upwards of 130 feet, and nearly equalled by those at Kildare and Kilkenny. That at Kilmacduagh in Galway is 110 feet, with the door 24 feet from the ground. Much controversy has existed respecting the origin of these round edifices. The first writer who mentions them is _Giraldus Cambrensis_, who certainly calls them "Ecclesiastical Towers;" and some writers go so far as to assert, from the grammatical construction of the sentence in which he describes them, that he saw the builders in the very act of raising them, in 1185. This at least is certain, that they were so early in existence; but Lynch, who wrote in 1662, asserts that they were erected by the Danes, as early as 838; in which he is followed by Peter Walsh, also by Molyneux in 1727, who ascribes them to the Ostmen or Danes, but supposes them to be of later date than the Raths and other earthen works, and erected solely as Bell Towers for calling the people of large districts to join in religious ordinances. But there are some circumstances which militate against that opinion, whilst others seem to confirm it. At the Giant's Ring in the County of Down, we have an instance of a Round Tower on a spot manifestly of Druidical superstition, without any Church in its vicinity; as if the churches were built near to the Towers, instead of these being built near to the churches, the early preachers of Christianity choosing to erect their new religious edifices on spots already consecrated in the eyes of the people. It must be acknowledged, however, that when the Round Tower at Downpatrick was pulled down in 1790, whilst repairing the cathedral,