towers round dublin

Lusk Round Tower is all that remains of a monastery, founded in the 6th century by St Macculin.
The attached tower house is of the 16th century origin and contains the Lusk Heritage Centre (see separate record) where there is an interesting exhibition of Fingals medieval churches and a 16th century effigy tomb....

It was possibly St. Comgall of Bangor who founded the first monastery here. The present nave-and-chancel church may have been built or re-built as late as the 16th century, but it incorporates part of an earlier church.

Attached to the south wall of the church are a number of unusual Early Christian decorated slabs. Near the south-west end of the church is the stump of a Round Tower, remains of the old monastic stone wall surround the graveyard.

In a laneway leading down fro...

A three storey 16th century granite tower with a vault over the second. It has parapet machicolations.
Together with the reconstructed Dalkey Tower Hall, further along on the opposite side of the street, it is the last of the seven castellated buildings which once stood in the old walled town of Dalkey....

The foundation of the first monastery is attributed to St. Cronan, otherwise called Mo-Chua, who lived possibly in the 6th century. The monastery is first mentioned in 776.
It was plundered by the Vikings in 832. In 1076 the southern half of Ireland demanded the expulsion of O'Ronain from the abbacy as it was claimed that he held it against the rightful abbot.

This probably means that the monastery had fallen into lay hands by that time. The most important remnant of the monaste...