Although it is certain that the Danes, at an early period, encompassed with ramparts and towers several of the cities and towns which they held in Ireland, their works have long disappeared, with the exception of Reginald’s Tower, Waterford, built in 1003. Though the walls and gates of a few ancient cities or towns remain, they are obviously of comparatively late date, and invariably found in connexion with places which we know to have been strongholds of the English. In some, as at Drogheda and at Athlone, the wall was of considerable height and thickness. That of Waterford, of which a portion remains, was strengthened with semicircular towers; but they are usually plain. The great majority of these works at present remaining in Ireland were spared as relics, for since the general introduction of cannon and gunpowder for siege purposes they could no longer be relied upon as fortifications. The walls of all the Anglo-Irish cities and towns, which were once remarkable for strength, and the security they afforded to the besieged, have been almost entirely destroyed. Several gates and towers, however, remain, and of these the finest may be seen at Drogheda. [Illustration: St. Laurence’s Gate, Drogheda.] St. Laurence’s Gate consists of two lofty circular towers, connected together by a wall, in the lower portion of which an archway is placed. The towers, as well as the wall by which they are connected, are pierced with numerous loop-holes; and it is probable that the latter was originally, upon the town side, divided into stages by platforms of timber, extending from tower to tower, otherwise the loop-holes could not have been used by the defenders of the gate; and we know that even in their most beautiful buildings, the ancient architects rarely added an unnecessary feature. The other remaining gate-tower of Drogheda is octangular in form, pierced with long, narrow loop-holes, wider in the centre than in the other parts, and was further strengthened by a portcullis, the groove for which remains nearly perfect. Since the period of Cromwell’s ‘crowning mercy,’ the successful storming of Drogheda, the walls of that place have been gradually sinking into utter ruin; but, from some portions which yet remain in a tolerably perfect state, an idea may be formed of their ancient strength and grandeur. Most of the gate-towers remaining in Ireland are square, and of considerable height. Their archways are generally semicircular; but there was a beautiful Pointed example at Ross, in the County of Wexford. [Illustration: The West Gate, Drogheda.] The tower by which the ‘Sheep’ Gate of Trim was once surmounted no longer exists. The adjacent wall seems to have suffered a like denudation. A lofty structure figured in the distance, the belfry of St. Mary’s Abbey,[130] is of a late period of Gothic architecture. [Illustration: The ‘Sheep’ Gate and Yellow Steeple, Trim, Co. Meath.]