The Round Towers

Every stranger who has visited Ireland must have been impressed by the Round Towers still to be seen in almost all parts of the island—tall, pillar-like erections, which are almost as peculiar to Ireland as the Pyramids are to Egypt. The traveller from Dublin to the south can see more than one of those pillar towers standing, almost unharmed by time, quite near to the rails along which run the steaming and screaming engines of modern locomotion. It is still disputed whether these Round Towers were built long before or soon after the birth of Christianity, and whether they symbolized any form of worship, and, if so, what was the form of worship in whose honour they pointed to the sky.