The round towers of Ireland; or, The history of the tuath-de-danaans

Contents

PAGE

Introduction . . . . . . . vii

Synopsis ....... xxxvii

Introduction

" When all is dark, who would object to a ray of light, merely because of the faulty or flickering medium by which it is transmitted ? And if those round towers have been hitherto a dark puzzle and a mystery, must we scare away O'Brien, because he approaches with a rude and unpolished but serviceable lantern ? " — Frascr's Mwjazirie for August 1835.

Henky G'Beien, the most daring and ingenious explorer of that recondite mystery, the origin and purpose of Irish Bound Towers, was born in 1808. On both his father's and his mother's side he came of good descent,^ being connected with two of the oldest and most influential families in the west of Ireland. At the time of his birth that branch of " the O'Briens " to which he belonged were settled in Kerry, where his father resided in a wild, mountainous district, known as Iveragh, forming a portion of the Marquis of Lansdowne's Irish estates. That his family were in affluent circumstances is improbable, for up to the age of twelve the boy's education seems to have been neglected in a way very uncommon with Irish people who are well off. " Though I could then tolerably well express myself in English," he says,^ referring to this portion of his life, " the train of my reflections always ran in Irish. From infancy I spoke that tongue ; it was to me vernacular. I thought in Irish, I understood in Irish, and I composed in Irish"; and again, "I was twelve years of

^ "Bryan O'Brien, of the county of Kerry, son of Teige, born 1740, married, 17t]i November 1797, Ellen, daughter of Justin MacCarthy (by Joanna Conway, his wife) ; and had : I. Richard, who died unmar. in Jan. 1861 ; II. Lucien, who also died unmar. in America, in Mar. 1865 ; III. Turlogh Henry, author of The Round Toicers of Ireland, who died unmar. 1835 " (O'Hart's Irish Pedigrees, p. 168. At pp. 39, 40, jws<, O'Brien alludes to his maternal grandfather as "the last of the MacCarthy Mores."

- At pp. 480, 481, post : thus, by the way, refuting a statement (in the Gentleman'' s Magazine for 1835) which has been adopted in the Dictionary of National Biograpliy, that he was utterly ignorant of Celtic.

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age before ever I saw a Testameut in any language." From this unusual neglect, coupled with the fact of his becoming a private tutor soon after he had settled in London, and an obscure reference to certain " difficulties " at the outset of his career as an author, we are probably justified in assuming that money was a rather scarce commodity in the paternal home. There is, however, reason to suppose that when he had reached the age of twelve, or thereabouts, his education was taken in hand, though how, or by whom, does not appear. Evidence of his having been sent to school and placed under systematic and qualified instruction is not forthcoming. In fact, circumstances go to negative that supposition. His acquaintance with Greek and Latin authors seems to have been more extensive than accurate, and his quotations from them are marked by solecisms which any properly taught schoolboy would avoid, but in which the self-educated are prone to indulge. It is true that (at p. 481) he describes in terms of unqualified praise a " tutor " with whom he commenced the study of the Greek Testament ; but there is internal evidence in the same passage that such praise was not wholly deserved, and that the tutor in question was certainly not the person referred to in Father Front's statement that O'Bj^ien had been "brought up at the feet of the Rev. Charles Boyton."^ Mr. Boyton was at the time a highly distinguished Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, who, in addition to holding the position of Greek Lecturer at that University, was the most eminent mathematical " coach " of his day ; and the only connection likely to have existed between him and young O'Brien was that of college-tutor and undergraduate

^ It is not to be supposed that a University Professor of Greek would have had any difficulty in explaining to the most ordinary intelligence an idiom so frequently occurring in the New Testament as els rd, t'Sta, which we meet with, not only in the passage referred to (John i. 11), but at xvi, 32 and xix. 37 of the same Gospel, and at xxi. 6 of the Acts of the Apostles. Nor is it likely that the exegetic difficulty connected with ra I'Sia would have occurred to a boy of twelve. Further, Mr. Boyton did not resign his connection with the University until 1833, whereas, in the passage above cited, O'Brien evidently refers to some time about 1820.

INTRODUCTION ix

in statu pupillari. The probability is, therefore, that any instruction which the boy received at this early period of his life was of a very elementary character, and that his education was mainly conducted by himself, a probability which is certainly not discounted by the wide and promiscuous character of his reading. From the outset of his introduction to letters he is known to have been an omnivorous reader of all books that came in his way, nor was his mode of studying classical authors that by which the scholastic proficiency essential to aspirants for success at college examinations is usually attained. O'Brien did not resemble the ordinary boy-student, to whom Eoman or Greek classics represent merely a given quantity of " text " possessing certain peculiarities of diction or allusion which have to be nicely dissected, analysed, and mastered, but who regards the subject-matter of each work as being of very minor importance. On the contrary, he manifestly read them as authors, or rather authorities upon the subjects with which they respectively dealt, paying, so far as we can perceive, little or no attention to the diction or distinctive literary character of their writings. The result was what might be expected. If, whilst an undergraduate of Dublin University, it be true that he was regarded by many of his fellow-students as a prodigy of learning, their seniors appear to have been less enthusiastic about his scholarship, for we have not been able to discover his name in the college archives.^ Still, from the fact of his having obtained, after he took his degree in 1831, the appointment of private tutor to the sons of the then Master of tlie Eolls,^ it is possible that he may have distinguished himself previously.

^ It is not even clear that he is identical with the "Henry O'Brien" mentioned in the Catalogue of the Graduates of the University of Duhlin from 1691 to 1868, now in the Britisli Museum. The entry is as follows : — "Henry O'Brien, B.A. {ad cundcm, Cantab.), 1835."

2 This must have been the English Master of the Rolls, who at that time was the Right Hon. Sir John Leach, a judge remarkable for the celerity of his decisions, in marked contrast to those of his coutemporarj', Lord Eldon, of whom it used to be said that he heard cases without determining them, whereas Sir John Leach determined cases without hearing them.

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What seems absolutely certain is, that during his stay at the University he must have availed himself to the full of opportunities presented by the library for which Trinity College is famous. Here, no doubt, he laid the foundation of that Oriental learning in which he was second to no Irishman of his day, and probably to few Englishmen. It is hardly too much to say that in the early part of the century Orientalism was comparatively untrodden ground. Sir William Jones had indeed, many years before, thoroughly explored this field of knowdedge, but the results of his splendid labours had not as yet been properly assimilated by the general mass of readers, or supplemented to any remarkable extent by other workers in the same field. Hence the scope of European knowledge of the East was by no means so extensive then as now ; and an enthusiastic student thereof, which O'Brien undoubtedly was, had it in his power to acquire an almost complete mastery of the subject, so far as it was then known. It was one peculiarly fitted to his ardent, dreamy, and speculative nature. He read, he pondered, he divined, he foresaw. Dark places in the history of his own country began to grow clear in the light of this Eastern dawn. Hitherto, like so many of his compatriots, he had found no way of accounting for the extraordinary contrast between the distinctive superiority of " the Ireland that ■was " and the relative obscurity of " the Ireland that is." To what, he must apparently have asked himself, was the fact to be attributed, that a people who in days of old were admittedly pre-eminent in learning and civilisation, should have afterwards lost all claim to such distinction ; or how was it that, in a land covered with the ruins of structures evincing the ripest skill and most fanciful artistic device, architecture should have sunk to a level that was almost barbarous ? Why was it that this decadence did not take place gradually, as one would expect, but was plainly the result of a sudden check that stopped the erection of such edifices at once and for ever ? Why were tlie materials, structure, and conformation of the edifices in question so different from those of other

INTRODUCTION xi

ancient buildings found in their immediate neighbourhood ? Why had their sculptured ornamentation reference to what was unconnected with, nay even opposed to, the teachings of that religious faith to which its execution was attributed ; and why did the peasantry, inheriting the tradition of bygone ages, not recognise them as identified with that religion ? Questions like these are very stunulating to inquisitive young souls, which usually become fired with an ambition to solve them ; and as O'Brien pored over Sir William Jones and The Asiatic Researches — not to mention his beloved, though decried, Herodotus — it was only natural that he should draw certain conclusions from the undoubted affinity that exists between the languages, folk-lore, customs, superstitions, and modes of thought of his own country and tliose of the Orient. Similar conclusions had forced themselves upon older people who did not possess a tithe of his Eastern lore. Moore, that versatile Anacreontic, in his ill-fitting disguise of an Edinburgh Ee viewer, avowed " That there exist strong traces of an Oriental origin in the language, character, and movements of the Irish people, no fair inquirer into the subject will be inclined to deny ; " and it is further instanced by the same reviewT,r how the famous traveller. Bishop Pococke, on visiting Ireland after his return from the East, was much struck with " the amazing conformity " he observed between the Irish and the Egyptians.^ From early childhood the questions to which we have referred seem to have been present to O'Brien — even from the time when he gazed upon tlie stunted ruin of Bally-Carbery Eound Towner, not far from his father's house, and had been told by awestruck peasants that the real name of that desolate and unsightly object was Cathoir Ghall, or " The Temple of Delight" (p. 48). Since then he had seen other and complete round towers ; had noticed that all were of the same peculiar shape, and possibly had detected for himself, or learned from other sources, the existence of that phallic analogy upon which he so strongly insists.

^ Edinburgh Jleviciv, vol. lix. pp. 148, 149.

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He must have read in Sir William Jones and elsewhere how, in Eastern lands, the idea which lay beneath this same analogy formed the basis of a widespread religious faith, and was expressed in structures devoted to public worship. His next step was, almost inevitably, one of conjecture. If, as the voice of national tradition asserted, the round towers are " temples," and if certain analogous associations are connected with them, might they not have been temples of a kindred religious belief ? Having settled this to his own satisfaction, the speculation would naturally rise — How came that particular form of belief to prevail in Ireland ? Was it native to the soil ; or if not, by whom was it introduced, and when ? His book being mainly an answer to these questions, we need not continue to follow the various stages by which conjecture may have passed into theory, and theory into conviction. With men of O'Brien's temperament the hypothetical interval is rarely of long duration. Before he had assumed the toga virilis of a full-fledged graduate, he probably felt confident that in an Eastern origin lay the true solution of the mystery of the round towers ; and the more he studied the subject, the stronger grew his belief. Being an ambitious man, too, he had no intention to forego the honour which he was persuaded must accrue to the discoverer of this key to a problem that had baffled so many generations of inquirers, and longed for an opportunity to display his acquisition.

That opportunity soon came. In December 1830, the Eoyal Irish Academy offered the prize of a gold medal and fifty pounds to " the author of an approved essay on the Round Towers, in which it is expected that the characteristic architectural peculiarities belonging to all those ancient buildings now existing shall be noticed, and the uncertainty in which their origin and uses are involved be satisfactorily removed." Unfortunately, the advertisement of this offer escaped O'Brien's notice, and he did not jom in the competition which it evoked. But on the 21st February 1832 the advertisement was repeated, and this time it caught his attention. It declared that none of the essays

INTRODUCTION xiii

which had been sent in " satisfied the conditions of the question," and extended the period of competition for another three months (i.e. until 1st June 18.'-)2), in the alleged hope " of receiving other essays on said subject," and also for allowing the authors of the essays already sent in " to enlarge and improve them." Considering the task that was set, new competitors were thus placed at a singular disadvantage- — being expected to do in three months what the others had been unable to accomplish in two years. With all due respect to the Eoyal Irish Academy, it is difficult to believe that its members can have fully realised the nature of their own conditions. There still exist some scores of round towers in a more or less perfect state ; and they are scattered all over Ireland, being situated for the most part in remote and not easily accessible places. The work of visiting and inspecting these — which was, surely, a necessary preliminary to describing " the characteristic architectural peculiarities belonging to all " — would require much time, after which candidates must apply themselves to the by no means tritling task of dispelling '• the uncertainty in which their origin and use are involved," and all within three short months.^ O'Brien w^as not, however, to be deterred by considerations of time or space when confronted with such a chance of winning deathless fame. Besides, he was, in one respect at any rate, well equipped for the enterprise, having already made up his mind as to the " origin and uses" of the Eound Towers. That he had examined them all is not to be supposed, nor is it at all likely that at his age he could have possessed sufficient technical knowledge of architecture, in its historical and scientific aspects, to profit much by their inspection. Still, he was probably acquainted with whatever had been written on that branch of the subject, and had actually made an examination of some towers, which

' Mr. Marcus Keane, author of The Temples and Roimd Towers of Ancient Ireland, states in his Preface to that Avork that he spent three years, during which he had to travel more than five thousand miles, in the performance of a task not much more exacting.

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would give him a fair general idea of the whole. Moreover, he had a formidable quantity of Eastern learning to fall back upon, in which latter respect he would have enjoyed an immense advantage over all other possible competitors, if his judges had only been qualified to appreciate that learning as it deserved. Be his equipment for the enterprise what it might, the enthusiastic young Irishman saw no rocks ahead, felt no mistrust, and rushed into the fray. " I grappled with the question," he assures us, " with all the ardour of my nature ; and, heaven and earth, night and day, in difficulties and in sorroiu, I laboured until I finished my ' essay ' against the appointed hour, when — a brain blow to their {sc. the Academy's) expectation — I sent it in — fully satisfied, from the consciousness of its imperturbable axioms, that all the powers of error and wickedness combined could not withhold from it the suffrage of the advertised medal." ^ The meaning of this passionate reference to malign influences in the background will appear later on ; as yet, he had no cause for misgiving on the subject of fair play, and his overweening self-confidence precluded any anticipation of failure. Bad omens seem to have attended his venture from the very outset. The Academy had requested that each essay should be inscribed with some motto ; and it would appear that the motto appended to O'Brien's was " ^(oii] ev tt] epefxco" (sic^) — a sorry introduction to the notice of learned Academicians.

The heartburnings of suspense, with which most young authors are familiar, soon began. Four days after his essay had been sent in, the Academy issued a third advertisement, requiring all the essays to be taken back, and extending the period of preparation by an additional month, " so as to admit of the receiving of other essays on said subject, and for allowing the authors of essays already given in to improve and enlarge them." O'Brien after-

iFrom "To the Public," a narrative prefixed to his translation of Villanueva's " Ibernia Phcenicia," which preceded The Round Towers.

" Ibid. p. xxxii. "'Epejuco " may, however, be an error of the printer, and the fact that it was subsequently corrected lends colour to this view.

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wards saw fit to attribute this fresh delay to a cause very different from that alleged ; but just then, being persuaded that his triumph was merely postponed, he reconciled himself as best he could to the infliction, and calmly waited for apotheosis. Six months more passed by — wearily enough, we may be sure ; and then, one direful morning, just at the close of 1832, came news that the premiums had been adjudged as follows : — "£50 and the gold medal to George Petrie, and £20 to Henry O'Brien, Esq."

It may be stated here that an additional premium of £100, which had been placed by Lord Cloncurry at the disposal of the Academy, was also awarded in its entirety to Mr. Petrie, and that the essay sent in by tliat gentleman was, by order of the Academy, printed in their Transactions. It further appears that O'Brien's essay was at first accepted for publication in the Transactions, but afterwards rejected on the ground of having been made too lengthy by the insertion of additional matter, though in its most enlarged form it never attained to the dimensions of Mr. Petrie's work, and, presumably, must have been smaller in its original than in its present shape. The true reason for its exclusion from the Transactions (as will, we think, appear from what follows) was that the Academy took offence at the way in which O'Brien received their decision. Nor was such resentment to be wondered at. So confidently had our author reckoned upon an overwhelming triumph for the revelation which, as we have seen, he believed to be not only unprecedented, but given to the world with flawless perfection of statement, that the award seems to have almost maddened him. Belonging to a race which has never been remarkable for the silent endurance of wrongs, he lost no time in giving expression to his feelings of disappointment. At first came distant mutterings of the storm that was brewing. " On hearing of the decision," he informs us, " I wrote off to the secretary, tendering, in indignant irony, my thanks for their adjudication, taking care, however, to tell xvi THE ROUND TOWERS

them that I had expected an issue more flattering to my hopes." This dignified attitude having apparently failed to imbue the Academy with a desire to remedy his grievance, he flung off the mask of satire, and rushed into downright, unmistakable personalities of a kind rarely addressed to august and learned associations. He declared that, from information which had come to his knowledge, he was prepared to prove " that the Royal Irish Academy, at the very moment in which they published their second invitation (i.e. that by which the time for receiving essays was extended to 1st June 1832), had actually determined to award the gold medal and premium to one of tlieir oun Council."'^ He then went on to denounce the successful essay as " a farrago of anachronisms and historical falsehoods." He prophesied that when both essays were published, and the public given an opportunity of seeing " the truth," in the shape of his own essay, there would be a general acclamation of " This alone is right." He warned the Academy that, " though separated from them by a roaring sea " (he was living in London at the time), his eye was on their plans, and he demanded from them an opportunity for making his ascrij^tion of the Round Towers " a mathematical demonstration by all the varieties and modes of proof " ; and further, that upon such demonstration they should at once award him the gold medal and premium, " or, if that could not be recalled, an equivalent gold medal and premium "—not that, as he is careful to assure them, this offer was to be construed as an admission that his original essay was not " all-suflicient, all-conclusive, all-illustrative, and all-convincing." As was only to be expected, the reply sent to this challenge ran to the effect that, " whatever might be the merits of any additional matter supplied to them after the day appointed by advertisement, the Academy could not make any alteration or revocation of their award." Then

^ It must be admitted that a letter alluded to at p. xix, 2^ost, written by the Rev. Cresar Otway, a member of the Council, lends some colour to this assertion.

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came the rejoinder, — " I do not want them either to ' alter ' or ' revoke ' their award ; bat simply to vote me ' an equivalent gold medal and premium ' for my combined essay, or, if they prefer, the new portioii of it. Should this be refused, I will put my cause into the hands of the great God who has enlightened me, and make Him the Umpire between me and the Academy." -^ One is not surprised to learn that " no answer was received to this communication," which, as already pointed out, may have afforded one of the reasons why the Academy declined to publish the essay in their Transactions. We may sympathise with O'Brien's disappointment, and even go further in deprecation of the attitude assumed by the Academy ; but it is impossible to deny that his conduct showed a w^ant of dignity and common sense, excusable only on the ground of youth.

As regards the Academy's decision, assuming that the competition was conducted fairly, — and, a priori, everything seemed in favour of that assumption, — it is not easy to see how it could well have been other than it was. With all possible admiration for O'Brien's talents and learning, candour obliges us to own that his essay— taken merely as a literary performance — was inferior to that of his rival. Apart from the question as to whether his theory was the true one, and that of Dr. Petrie the reverse, the Academy were in a manner bound by regard for their own dignity, and by the literary standard then prevailing, to withhold the meed of their unqualified approval from a composition which violated in so many respects the established precedents of literary " form," not to mention the canons of good taste. Besides, O'Brien was, in archiTeological matters, so far in advance of his generation, that a body of elderly gentlemen, who simply represented the standard of knowledge prevalent at the time, might well be excused for declining to follow him. They had, in fact, to decide between the respective merits of two

^ P. xxiii of the introduction to Fhosnician Ireland, inscribed "To the Public."

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essays, — one of which was well put together, conformuig, at least in appearance, to the stipulated conditions, expressing the most approved views, bearing the marks of careful and systematic investigation and of superior technical knowledge, also of literary skill much above the average ; the other, daring, novel, incoherent, propounding views which were not only unfamiliar, but even shocking, to grave and reverend seignors, rambling in method, deficient in proof, and slipshod in language. Was it not, then, almost inevitable that they should have preferred the former ? But if one has to pronounce upon the way in which the competition was started, carried on, and finally decided, we are by no means sure that O'Brien had not some reason to complain. First of all, with regard to his charge of the Academy having awarded the prize to a member of their own Council, the evidence to support it is primd facie strong. Upon turning to vol. xvi. of the Transactions of the Eoyal Irish Academy, we find the names of " The Committee of Antiquities of the Council " for the year 1830 (that in which the competition was first invited) given as follows : — " Isaac D'Olier, LL.D. ; Thomas Herbert Orpen, M.D. ; Hugh Ferguson, M.D. ; Sir William Betham ; John D'Alton, Esq. ; George Petrie, Esq. ; and the Rev. Cffisar Otway." In the next volume of the Transactions, extending to 1837, the above list is given without any alteration, except that Mr. D'Alton's name is omitted, that of the Dean of St. Patrick's being substituted. From this the inference seems only natural that " George Petrie, Esq.," was a member of the Council (being likewise, as we find, " antiquarian artist to the Academy ") at the time when the idea of offering a prize for an essay on the Round Towers was first started ; that he continued to be a member while the competition was in progress, and was actually one when the said prize was adjudicated. Next, as to the charge that the Academy had predetermined to award the prize to a member of its own Council, we have the very compromising letter of the Rev. Mr. Otway (himself a member of the Council) to the editor of the Dublin Penny

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Journal, which is cited in the Preface to the first edition of this work/ coupled with those repeated postponements of the date for sending in essays, which O'Brien assures us were inexplicable on any other ground than that of giving Mr. Petrie time to finish his essay. We are far from contending that the reasons adduced in support of both these charges should weigh against the high repute which the Royal Irish Academy has always enjoyed from the time of its foundation ; still, it is impossible to deny that, in the absence of all satisfactory explanation, — at least so far as we have been able to discover any, — they wear a rather ugly look.

O'Brien was resolved that, as the Academy would not publish his essay, he must do so himself ; but in the meantime he had been engaged upon a translation of Dr. Villanueva's Ihernia Fhcenicia, which appeared in 1833. Personal liking for the author must have been his motive for undertaking this task, as his own views do not always harmonise with those of the Spanish savant ; and certain letters which are quoted in the " Translator's Preface " show that the two were very intimate. Having made this con^ cession to friendship, he busied himself with the production of an enlarged and amended version of his essay. The first edition of this was published, early in 1834, by Whittaker & Co. of London, and J. Cumming of Dublin. It seems to have met with a ready sale, for a second edition appeared during the same year, bearing the imprint of Parbury & Allen, London, and J. Cumming, Dublin. Both editions are in octavo, and to outward appearance uniform, but differ in some respects. On the title-page of the first it is described as the " Prize Essay of the Royal Irish Academy, enlarged"— a description omitted in the second. Further, the title itself is given as " The Round Towers of Ireland (or the Mysteries of Freemasonry, of Sabaism, and of Budhism, for the first time unveiled) " ; but the words within brackets are absent from the title-page of the second. A few corrections, too, appear in the latter ^ This letter will be found at p. Ixxi, post.

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