towers round ireland

This is an old monastic foundation, ascribed to the early Kerry Saint Lugach. The church in the graveyard was built probably by the Augustinians in the 15th century, though stones from an earlier church are built into its walls. The round Tower is very well preserved, and has a round-headed doorway with an architrave or frame in raised relief around it. Further to the east is a 15th century Abbey....

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 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 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...

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....

The rectangular church, possibly of c. 1200, and the now-featureless Round Tower (reduced to a stump in a storm around 1710) both probably belonged to a monastery founded by St. Domangart of Donard in the 6th century on a site probably now occupied by Maghera Church of Ireland church. Excavations in 1965 provided evidence of occupation near the tower during the Early Christian period....

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....

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...

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...