towers round ireland

A 96 foot high Round Tower, missing original conical top, dominates this old monastic site whose early history is unknown. Near it stands a ruined church with flat-headed doorway and antae. The chancel and the rounded arch are later additions. The church may have been put to secular use in the 17th century tomb. In a field to the west stands a much work High Cross, possibly of 9th century date. Much of the cross is decorated with geometrical motifs. On the east face are representations of...

Blossom Gate. This is the only gate remaining from the medieval town wall of Kilmallock.
The Collegiate Church. The Round Tower of this church may have originally been part of an earlier monastery. The probably 13th century church has three aisles, a chancel and it’s south wall contains a 13th century door. It’s use as by the Church of Ireland had a bearing on the history of the Earls of Desmond; being the place where the ‘Sugan’ Earl surrendered in 1600 and where the 15th Earl attended a...

St. Patrick is said to have founded the first monastery here. There is a well preserved Round Tower, which lacks its top windows. It is to be suspected that these originally existed, but were not included in the restoration works when the conical cap was replaced about 150 years ago.

The tower is unusual in that there is a Crucifixion about the round-headed doorway, and there are heads beside the arch. The nearby church was built in the 15th century, but it replaces a Romanesque c...

Martello towers get their name from a place in Corsica named Mortella where there was a round tower which proved impregnable when attacked by the English in 1794, twenty-six years after Napoleon's birth on the island.

When, in 1804, it looked as if he might turn the tables and invade England, the English built similar towers around the coast of Ireland which, they feared, Napoleon might use as the 'back door' to England. Though the fears proved groundless, the towers still stand as a m...

It is said that Saint Patrick founded the first monastery here, and it was to there that the tithes from all of Munster were collected for Armagh. Only the stump of a Round Tower and a church remain, both probably dating from the 12th century. The site offers a great view of the County....

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...

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....

In the 17th and 18th centuries Kinsale was an important English naval base. This is reflected in the architecture of the town which, with its 18th century flavour and a whiff of the distant southern shores reached by its mariners, makes Kinsale into the town with what, in my opinion, is the most individual character in the country. In the town and its surroundings are some interesting monuments. St. Multose Church: The present Church of Ireland Parish church, founded probably by de Cogan...

The stump of a Round Tower which is preserved up to the third floor. The round-headed doorway is unusual in that it is only about a foot above the ground. The original monastery was founded by St. Mochua, who was adopted, reared and educated by St. Comghall of Bangor and who died in 637. The monastery was destroyed by fire in 1179....

An old monastery was founded here by St. Finian the Leper in the 7th century. It is referred to as existing in 992, and a stone church here is mentioned in 1044. The western part of the existing church is the oldest. It was finished in 1158 by Auliff Mor na Cuimsionach, a member of the O'Donoghue family, who was buried here in 1166. It has a Romanesque west doorway, with the innermost order plain, and the two outer ones bearing Romanesque decoration. The east window, with a head and a flowe...