towers round ireland

A St. Bridget ( Not to be confused with the saint of the same name from Kildare) founded a monastery or convent here in the 6th century which was burned in 1094. The 34 foot high stump of a Round Tower with round-headed doorway is all that remains of the old monastery. The church is said to have been built in 1609, but may be earlier. It has an intact east window and partially preserved barrel-vaulting. The staircase leading from the church to the roof forms a separate building beside the ch...

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...

St. Senan, who died in 544, founded his monastery here in the first half of the 6th century. One of his pupils was St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise. The monastery was ravaged by the Vikings in 816 and again in 835, and was probably even occupied by them from 972 to 975, but was recaptured by Brian Boru. The most conspicuous part of the old monastery is the Round Tower, 120 feet high, which is unusual in that the door is at ground level.

Just to the east of the tower is the Cathedral, a chu...

A well-preserved round Tower which is lower and fatter than most examples. It had a round-headed doorway (now blocked up), and flat - and gable-headed windows. The church beside it, although built in the 18th century, incorporates a 16th century mullioned window and a small plaque with the Crucifixion dated 1625. The first church here was founded by St. Patrick and, because of this, the Archbishops of Armagh long claimed jurisdiction over it. But in 1351 the Pope authorised the Archbishop of...

Having started off its life possibly as a Norman castle after 1333, this tower was extensively repaired by Hugh Boy O'Dogherty in 1602 to act as a bridgehead for the Spaniards who were supposed to land on the Inishowen Peninsula.

It was burned by the English shortly afterwards, but was repaired either in 1641 or in 1689, and used as a manor. it is beautifully situated beside the Crana stream, but its three storeys contain little of any architectural or artistic interest....

St. Colmcille founded a monastery here about 575 on lands given by King Aedh Ainmire. Not far away, at Culderimne, the saint had been heavily involved in a battle in 561 in a dispute over the ownership of a book! The monastery seems to have been well known from the 9th to the 16th century, and was plundered by Maelseachlain O'Rourke in 1187. It was plundered again in 1267 and 1315, and the last known abbot died in 1503.

The Church of Ireland church stands on the site of an older chu...

This round Tower, without windows on the top, is 65 feet high and it may never have been completed. there is a flat raised moulding around the round-headed doorway, and an indistinguishable head carved above it. The monastery of which the tower is the sole remnant was founded by an obscure saint named Tua who was attached to the nearby monastery of Clane. Little is known of the history of the monastery except that one of its abbots, named Folachtach, died in 765. The church beside the Round...

An old monastery was founded here by St. Tighernach in the 6th century. The high Cross probably stood near the Round Tower originally and was later moved to its present position in the Diamond. The cross (9th century?) is in two parts which did not belong together originally. On the west face are Adam and Eve, the Sacrifice of Isaac and Daniel in the Lions' Den, while on the east face are the Adoration of the Magi, the Marriage Feast of Cana, the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes and th...

This is a well-preserved Round Tower 25 metres (84 feet) high, standing on a metre (3 feet) high plinth, and with a doorway 3 metres (11 feet) above the ground. The tower was struck by lightening in the last century, but it was repaired around 1840 by Bishop Verschoyle. The original monastic foundation here probably goes back to the 5th century when Saint Patrick appointed Muiredach as first bishop of Killala....

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....