“No less diversified have been the opinions respecting the use for which the round towers were intended, and on this subject some strangely absurd doctrines have been advanced. Some people have supposed them to have formed chains of telegraph stations spread out over the whole island; but the absurdity of this notion is sufficiently shown by the position of some of the towers upon low ground, in the corners of valleys, and on remote and solitary islands, whence nothing could well be seen, and nothing, therefore, made known. This opinion is, nevertheless, still entertained by many. “Others suppose the towers to have been fortresses, erected in the early ages of Christianity as places of refuge, in case of danger, for the priests and their church treasures. I can hardly think, however, that any people could have selected such a style of architecture for places of defence. The defenders within would have had to stand upon each other’s heads, and their only means of annoying their enemies would have been the four small openings at the top, eighty or a hundred feet from the ground. Besides, had the round towers been military places of defence, they would probably have all been destroyed in the course of the constant wars by which the island has been afflicted, whereas the round towers have evidently been preserved by the people with great care, and have ever been looked on by them with the greatest veneration. “The notion that the round towers were built by the early Christians as steeples to hang their bells in is equally untenable, for, though they are frequently found in close vicinity to the ruins of churches, yet no kind of steeple could be worse constructed for such a purpose, as the sound of the bells would scarcely have been heard through the small apertures at the top, except by those who had already assembled around the tower. “Many other opinions have been hazarded, but all at variance with the popular tradition, which represents the round towers to have been the temples of the old fire-worshippers from the East, who came over with the Phœnicians. The poet Moore and other Irish antiquarians are disposed to adopt this tradition, the more so as the pyreas of the Ghebers, according to the account of several travellers, bear the closest similitude to the Irish towers, and because the worship of fire is known to have been at one time the prevailing religion of Ireland. The dark interiors of these towers have been well calculated to show the sacred fire preserved there to the greatest advantage, and the height of the entrance-door from the ground would be explained by the sanctity of the place, to which only a few were probably allowed to have access.