Often, something that is in front of our eyes is ignored or suppressed because it brings up uncomfortable associations, or the prevailing political or religious climate is hostile to the truth. The “mystery” of Irish round towers may well be a good example of this.
In the 18th and 19th century the towers became the subject of heated speculation as to their function. Places of refuge from the Vikings was, and still is, a favourite. However their unsuitability as fortresses has been pointed out by numerous commentators, not to mention the amount of times people were burned to death in them, as witnessed in the Annals. They have been thought to be fire temples, houses for anchorites, pagan idols and all sorts of strange ideas.
But what’s curious about this is the towers are not ancient, they are not prehistoric, but were built during the heyday of Irish monastic Christianity, a time from which many records survive. They also belong to a religion that we understand, one that is with us still, albeit in much altered form. This is not some archaic stone age belief system that remains impenetrable to us. We are fairly sure of the function of all the buildings in the archaeological record surviving from this time. If this is the case, why does the function of these towers remain so mysterious? Well, to understand why their function has been wilfully forgotten, we must first piece together how they were used and what they represent in historical terms.
The Irish countryside is dotted with magnificent stone towers between 65 and 130 feet in height. They were built between the 9th and 12th century, when there construction was abruptly halted. We will see why that timing is interesting later. The towers are normally built within the inner ring of the three rings that usually surrounded an Irish monastery, and overlooking the second ring in which only baptised Christians were allowed. The door faces the church towards the centre of the monastery. At the top, under the conical roof, are normally four windows (one has eight) facing the cardinal points of the compass.
The current orthodoxy is that they are belfries. Bell towers from which the bells were rung to summon the monks to prayer. This is a reasonable enough assumption. The Irish name for the towers (cloctheach) appears to bear this out. “Cloc” is a bell in Irish, hence the modern “clog” for a clock. It is also the word for stone, so some have translated it as “stone house”, although this seems to have a different origin so I’ll leave it aside. More subtly, “cloc” can be used to indicate something bell shaped, and this is its use in a word for helmet, “clocatt” a compound meaning a helmet of some sort. So it may also refer to the shape of the towers, which had conical roofs.
But, assuming bells were rung from the towers, how was this done? Or what did it sound like? Irish bells were not like modern church bells, they were usually fairly small, and simply made from an iron core folded over and surrounded by bronze. Their sound may be likened to cow bells. They were made before large scale foundries could cast bells in one piece. So they could not be used like a modern belfry in which large bells are mounted and swung to sound across the countryside. In fact we know they had a limited range because of the law text denoting the extent of a monasteries “faithche” (ceremonial green or court surrounding a building) to extend as far as a bell could be heard. So how were they used?
Early Christian worship involved generally the chanting of the psalms in responsorial form, in which a leader known as a lector, chanted the psalm and the congregation responded by singing the response. This form was often accompanied by the rhythmic ringing of bells or cymbals, which are still used in Coptic and Ethiopian traditions. It is possible that this is how Irish bells were used as it is a task they are more suited for. But is there any evidence for this? Interestingly, the annals refer to at least two instances in which fires in a tower resulted in the death of a lector, the “fer leginn”, literally “man of reading”. This would appear to mean the lectors were often in the towers, and in a vulnerable enough place within them not to be able to get out, i.e. the top. The towers are in an ideal position to deliver the psalm as they overlook the second ring of the monastery, the place reserved for baptised Christians (only the monks and priests could enter the inner ring). Here, the congregation in the open, could hear the psalm heads be delivered and respond accordingly. A modern form of call and response Gaelic psalm singing is preserved to this day on the Scottish Western Isles. If this is how the towers were used, the effect on the listener would be extremely similar to the modern call to prayer by the Muslim muezzin from the minaret of a mosque.
Example of Gaelic Psalm singing
Connections to Islam
The construction of Irish round towers coincides with the development of the minarets in the western Islamic world. The earliest known example is at the mosque at Karouan in Tunisia and dates from 836 AD. Minarets appear to have spread from west to east after this time. They were also built in Spain over the next few centuries as it was under Muslim control at this time. The development of Irish round towers and minarets is contemporary,and importantly, painstaking attempts to link the Irish towers to Roman and Continental bell towers have failed to find convincing parallels.
Contact between Islamic Spain and Ireland is undoubted at this time as these were the only sophisticated literary cultures in western Europe during these centuries. Books were sourced here by Irish scholars eager for knowledge, and many Greek and Latin and Hebrew texts were translated in Umayyad Spain. Arab Christian contact is shown by artefacts like the 9th century Ballycotton cross from Co. Cork, on which is the inscription “In the Name of Allah” in Arabic Kufic script. There are similarities between Irish and Islamic law courts which may show influence.
Many features of early Christian worship were common to both Islam and Christianity. This is due to their common origin in Jewish, Syrian and Egyptian forms of worship. For example, the chant or singing had a common origin in Jewish temple singing, the use of prayer mats, which were used in Ireland also, and the full prostration to the floor, still practised by Coptic Christians to this day.
On an Islamic minaret, the muezzin delivers the adhan, he turns to the four cardinal directions. This was a feature of early Christian prayer as well, and as we have noted, the windows on the upper storey of the round towers usually face the four points of the compass, perhaps to allow this turning clockwise that was feature of early Irish prayer.
When Irish Christianity and Islamic Spain stood for centuries as the only fully literate civilisations in western Europe, both being harassed by pagan Vikings and Germanic tribes from the east, is it far fetched to imagine they may have seen more commonalities than differences? In an age before the religious crusades this ids quite plausible.
Demise of the Towers
Roman Catholic contact with the Islamic world from the 11th century on through the crusades, created a concern to differentiate themselves from any vestiges of common heritage that may have existed between the religions. One can well imagine that it maybe the case that the Irish round towers were too reminiscent of exactly this heritage, and after the Roman sponsored Irish church reforms in the 12th century, and particularly the Norman invasion, (which the church backed) no tower was ever built in Ireland again.
In fact, it is not a stretch to imagine that the Norman invasion was really a Crusade against the Irish form of Christianity, one that, thanks to its antiquity and despite the fact that it had preserved and spread Latin civilisation after the collapse of the of the Roman Empire, gave the game away as to the common origins of the two great religions of the western world.
Notes:
“The 10th year, a just decree, joy and sorrow reigned, Colman Cluana, the joy of every tower died; Albdann went beyond the Sea.”
( AFM pub. Dublin 1856, vol II pp. 612 3)
But in at least two cases the monastic fer leginn,7 ‘lector’ or master of learning, was the victim: at Slane in 950 (the earliest reference to a round tower in the annals) the fire consumed a crozier, a bell, Caenechair the lector, and a multitude with him
(A. U., A.F.M., C.S., A. Clon.), and the lector was burned in the tower at Fertagh in 1156 (A.F.M.; A. Tig. has Aghmacart).
Here Ann Hamlin notes the association of lectors with the towers, but then fails to follow the logic that they were more than likely doing their normal job. The simplest explanation is the first that should be tested of course.
“The great majority of annal references to the fer leginn are simply obits, and it is interesting to note this association with round towers. Could this be a hint of a special role for the lector, to organise the retreat to the tower with books, relics, service equipment and treasures, and perhaps other refugees, to sit out the attack? “
ANN HAMLIN Historic Monuments and Buildings Branch, Department of the Environment (N.L)
Copyright Dylan Foley 2017
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
All is Motion 