Member-only story
Solving the riddle of Ireland’s historic round towers
Latest research overturns the popular theories concerning the function of Ireland’s mysterious round towers, built a thousand years ago during the early medieval period.
They were neither bell towers nor defensive places of refuge, believes author Christopher Freeland who also insists that the Catholic Church, despite its claims, had nothing to do with their origins.
Thought to have been 120 towers in Ireland once, often at least 90 feet tall, there are now about 60; many are ruinous but about 20 remain in good condition. In actuality, they represent an unresolved, enigmatic curiosity.
In the times the towers were built, Ireland, or Éire as it was then known, was a country of tuatha, or small kingdoms, each governed by a chieftain or king. Tribal pacts were always changing, but there were underlying common religious and cultural mores, often founded in ancient Celtic traditions — and, evidently, despite the political diversity, common architectural practices, as revealed in the uniform construction of the towers.
Who actually built the towers is unknown, and the dates of construction are uncertain — between the seventh and tenth, or the ninth and twelfth, centuries depending upon which estimates are favoured. The only other places where such towers are found are Scotland, where there are two, and the Isle of Man, where there’s one.
There’s no real evidence the towers were ever used as belfries — no bells or mechanisms found — or as lookout stations, and practicalities would seem to preclude their use as shelters from enemy attack. Although the Irish word for round tower, cloigtheach, means ‘bellhouse’, the similarly pronounced cloichtheach means simply ‘stone house’ or ‘stone building’, so there could well be some linguistic confusion there.
But now the question of why the towers were built has a new answer: their locations and magnetic properties energetically enhanced the surrounding landscape, in the manner of feng shui and vastu, the Chinese and Hindu systems involving, among other things, the integration of architecture with nature.
This is the intriguing explanation put forward by professional dowser Freeland in his Mysteries of the Round Towers: The subtle energies of the…
