“In no part of Europe do we find any similar building of antiquity. In Scotland, it is said, two or three pillar towers exist, and these, it may be inferred, were reared by Irish colonists. In the far east only we come to erections of the same character and dimension; the first thing that a traveller is reminded of on seeing an Irish round tower, is a Turkish minaret. “No authentic records exist to guide us to a knowledge of the time when these towers were built, or of the use for which they were intended. Everything proves that they have existed from a very remote antiquity, and the most opposite conclusions have been adopted with respect to the period and object of their erection; none of these hypotheses carry conviction with them, but of many, at least, the absurdity can be shown with little trouble. “Some, for instance, have maintained that these towers were built by the Danes; but these sages appear to have forgotten that round towers are found in parts of the island where the Danes never set foot, as, for instance, in Donegal and the remote counties of Connaught. Besides, had these been Danish erections, how came the Danes not to leave any of them in England? “Popular tradition assigns them to the Phœnicians, and learned antiquarians ought not too hastily to reject popular tradition, for often the memory of a people undergoes less corruption and change in the course of a thousand years than do the records preserved in books. There is nothing very improbable in the hypothesis that these towers were built by the Phœnicians, who are known to have visited the island and to have exercised power there. “Travellers have recently discovered in the Persian province of Masanderan towers precisely similar to those of Ireland, and in India erections of a similar kind, dedicated to religious purposes, have also been met with. This, taken in connection with the shape of the Turkish minaret, makes it extremely probable that the round towers have had an Oriental origin. Many have been staggered by the great antiquity which such an hypothesis would assign to the Irish towers, but they are buildings of wonderful solidity, and there is nothing at all extraordinary in the supposition that these stones may have remained in their present position for some thousands of years. Have we not even brick buildings of Roman erection, that are known to have been built before the Christian era?