Glendalough’s Round Tower in Ireland

I have been side tracked from finishing my posts of my trip to Ireland and visit to the monastic site of Glendalough.  So to rectify that, tonights post is about the stunning ‘Round Tower’, that draws your eye no matter where you are on the site.

Round towers are peculiarly Irish and there are the remains of some 65 such buildings in the country…….this is what the little booklet tells me and some are in good condition like this one, while others are in a fragmentary state.  They were built between the 10th and 12th centuries and had a number of uses, storage for monastic treasures, look outs and bell towers.  Their Irish name ‘Cloigtheach’ means bell tower, suggesting their main use, they were also used as beacons for monks and pilgrims.

I find them them very interesting because where I live in Norfolk, we have about 180 Round Tower Churches and they are mainly of Saxon and Norman origins.  To me they were built for safety and when invaders like the Vikings came over to raid and plunder, there was somewhere for the villagers to go and of course the church plate……this is only my idea.  There nearly always seems to be a door built in the tower several feet from the ground, so once everyone and the sliver were inside, they could then draw up the ladder.

The doorway in Glendalough’s tower is 3.5 metres from ground level and reached by a ladder.  There were originally six floors and the top floor finished with a conical capstone at the top.  The top of the tower was hit by lightening sometime in the 17th century and collapsed into the centre of the tower, it was rebuilt in 1876, using the stones that they found laying inside the tower.

I must admit I found this tower totally awe inspiring and could have quite happily have taken photos of it all afternoon, but I was dragged off to somewhere else in the end.