towers round ireland

On the site of a monastery founded by St. MacOlmog, this Round Tower is unique in that the lower part of the tower is hexagonal, and upper part it is round. It has a square-headed doorway. An internal ladder leads to the top which was altered in the last century to make a belfry. Access into the tower is not premitted....

The church and Round Tower stand on the site of an Early Christian monastery founded by St. Tola who died between 733 and 737. Where the church stands there was a 12th century Romanesque nave-and-chancel church with a plain chancel arch and a wonderfully decorated west doorway above which was an ornamental lancet window. Three narrow lancet windows were inserted in the east gable early in the 13th century.

Some considerable time later the church must have fallen into decay. Possibly...

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...

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....

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....

An early Christian monastery was founded here by St. Colman Mac Lenen who died around 600, but all its buildings were burned in 1137. The cathedral of the present Church of Ireland Diocese was started around 1250, but because of much modernisation, comparatively little of this early church can be seen. The chancel has been heavily modernised; the chancel arch was blocked up in 1705 and removed completely in 1775. The east window was inserted in1856. The Cathedral's most famous Bishop was George...

A fine Round Tower with a round-headed splaying doorway and with flat-headed and pointed windows, but its conical cap is missing. At the foot of the tower is an old Irish cross-slab bearing interlacing ornament and the old Irish inscription OR DO GRICOUR (last two letters doubtful) meaning 'A prayer for Gricour'....

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...

The Cathedral was begun by Ralph of Bristol around 1223, but only the south transept and a part of the tower as well as small portions of the rest of the church date from this period. It was partially restored in the 15th century, and heavily restored int he 19th century when the choir was almost totally rebuilt. In the south transepts are preserved some good medieval tombs (particularly that of Sir Maurice Fitzgerald of Lackagh who died in 1575) and some of the medieval floor-tiles, and in th...

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...