Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-01-17
Pagan Ireland.

Charles DeKay begins his article on
Ireland in the January Century. We
quote as follows: "The pagan survives
IN architecture. Buildings were gener-
ally square and of wood, or round and of
wattles plastered with clay and painted
in brig h5 colors. After christianity was
established and the use of stone became
less rare in religious and military life, the
conservative bent of the people kept a
form of tower no longer represented in
Great Britain and the mainland. A.
early as the twelfth century, when the
Norman Welsh began to make stone the
rule Instead of the exception, GIraldus,
the Travelled pIelats, talks of ecciesiastI
Cal towers, which according to the GUS
tom of the country are slenoer and lofty
aud moreover roUnd.' He knew that they
were peculiar but did rot suspect that
this 1orm of tower re pI ented an Ipheri-
.ance from a pagan religion any more
han he saw the paganism of the rites at
at the shrine of ST. |idglt. Yet Gnletter-
I'd Irish tradition has kept the thread OF
fact without being able TO g i've the his
torical sequences. In It's lmm e6late use
the round tower was sort of military
necessity, and came after the ruin of
mon as'ic settlements by the pagan from
the Baltic. Daring sudden raids Is was a
place OF security which cou not be
burued down like the timber churches
near by or the wattled cabins of monks
and olerics within the cashel wall. 1t was
belfry whence hand bells were run to
call the students to school and the faith
full 70 prayer. 1t was watch tower and
beacon. But it reaches thro0gh military
usage back to pagan times. Ia polish
ed and hig hly artificial shape, due to By
zantine science in architecture, 1t repre-
sents the rude wattled house of Gauls.
Seeing how the Irish kept heather ideas
In other things, we can perceive how the
round wicker house of the K cit, such as
we see it carved on the column of An
toninus of Rome, developed into the
wood and wicker outlook tower and
beacon, and in skillful hands became the
Irish round tower, perpetuated to this
day by the hundred or more shafts of cut
stone which lend charm 60 es many Irish
landscapes. Christian in usage, they ar
pagan N design. The Mortimer cause
the demand, heathenism supplied the
pattern, and B. zantine craftsmen, drived
from the East by the bigotry of tim
image breaking emperors, supplied the
science to rear towers more durable, use
/
Ireland had seen before or has seen
since The history OF towers in Moham-
medan countries which can be derived
from a worship of the heavenly bodies
supplies q very remarkable parallel which
rhe arch e ologists of the last century per-
ceived but could not define. In America
the round tower, with its high entrance
and adaptation to watchers and sun
worship, is found among the extinct
cliff-d yelling Indians. Towers in Mexi-
co and Yucatan were in use for the same
purpose. Observe in the round tower
preserved at Ardmore the bands which re-
peat, without any useful object in stone
the horizontal bands that strengthened
the tall wicker house of Gsuls. Such ap
parently trivial points weigh heavily in
favor of the indigenous character of the
round tower of Ireland"