Round Tower (Ireland)
The always free-standing, slim round tower (Irish: Cloigtheach (singular), Cloigthithe (plural) - English Round Tower ) of Irish Scottish churches is one of the historical landmarks of Ireland . There are 65 of possibly 120 towers of this type still built on the island . Some are almost complete, many only preserved as stumps. Outside the island of Ireland there are only three such round towers left today, one on the Isle of Man and two in Scotland .
Records point to the earliest towers dating back to 919 AD ( Castledermot ). They were still being built until 1238 AD ( Timahoe , County Laois , and Kildare ), but their peak was in the 11th and 12th centuries. They were always built near a church.
Construction
Towers that are still fully preserved today rise from 22.90 m (Turlough) to 34.90 m (Kilmacduagh) and have a circumference of 12 to 18 meters. They have a conical cap. In some cases, such as in Kildare or Kilkenny, this was replaced by battlements in later centuries. Its entrance is typically 3 m high (except for Scattery Island ) and points roughly in the direction of the neighboring church. Small windows (rectangular or rounded) let light into the interior. Under the roof, four or more windows are evenly arranged around the perimeter. The stairs and the intermediate floors in the tower were made of wood. No traces of them have survived.
The Irish word for these towers is cloigtheach , which means “bell house”. This is similar to the meaning of the Italian term campanile . It can be assumed that bells were rung from the upper windows in Ireland too.
George Petrie published his studies of ancient Irish sources in 1845, according to which they were not only bell towers but also stores for the monastery's treasures - bells, crosses and books. The towers, the entrances to which were usually a few meters above the ground (dromiskin), were climbed on the inside using stairs or ladders made of wood. The connections of these stairs were found during excavations . They have such entrances in common with several early medieval escape and defense towers in other countries. Due to their construction, the Irish towers looked like a fireplace in the event of a fire, in which everything quickly burned to ashes. According to tradition, monks and kings also died in the flames.
distribution
The List of Round Towers of Ireland includes all of Ireland's Round Towers.
There are also the following round towers built under Irish influence:
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Scotland
- Abernethy , Perthshire , 11th century roofless
- Round tower of Brechin Cathedral , Tayside , 10th century
- Isle of Man
Round towers of modern times
Due to their high symbolic content, round towers were built as monuments in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- A round tower was built over the grave of Daniel O'Connell in Glasnevin in 1847.
- In the Irish National Heritage Park in Ferrycarrig, County Wexford, there is a round tower in memory of those who fell in the Crimean War .
- A round tower has stood in the Knockmealdown Mountains since 1935 in honor of Liam Lynch , Chief of Staff and General of the Irish Republican Army who died in the Irish Civil War in 1923 .
- In Mesen in Flanders there has been a round tower since 1998 to commemorate the Irish soldiers of the British army who died in the First World War .
Round steeples in other countries
Counterparts with a similar function could be the Italian campaniles and the Islamic minarets . In the case of round Campanili, such as that of Sant'Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna (870–878) or the leaning tower (1173–1372) of the Cathedral of Pisa , Irish influence cannot be asserted.
Some Carolingian churches from the 8th – 10th centuries Century had round towers, but because of the Irish-Scottish mission can go back to Irish models. An example shows a plan of how the monastery founded by the Irish under Gallus ( St. Gall Monastery Plan ) should ideally have looked.
The compact round tower of the round tower church St. Laurentius in Kosel ( Schleswig ) from the 13th century reminds less of Irish Scottish towers than of the round churches of Bornholm .
literature
- George Lennox Barrow: The Round Towers of Ireland . The Academy Press, Dublin 1979, ISBN 0-906187-04-4 .
- George Lennox Barrow: Irish Round Towers . 1985, ISBN 0-85306-679-5 .
- Brian Lalor: The Irish Round Tower . The Collins Press, Cork 1999, ISBN 1-898256-64-0 .
- Roger Stalley: Irish Round Towers . Town House and Country House Ltd, Dublin 2000, ISBN 1-86059-114-0 .
- Henry O'Brien: Round Towers of Ireland or History of the Tuath de Danaans . 2003, ISBN 0-7661-5925-6 .
- Tadhg O'Keeffe: Ireland's Round Towers . Tempus Publishing Ltd, 2004, ISBN 0-7524-2571-4 .
- George Cunningham: The Round Tower at Roscrea and is environs . Parkmore Press, Roscrea 2014, ISBN 978-0-9505368-9-7 .
