The above and various other little diversities prove that these remarkable structures were erected by various workmen and at very different Omen, and, as Gimhlus Camhrensis says, "according to the manner of the country." Some excellent Irish archeologists imagine that they range in date from the 5th or Gth to the 10th or 12th century.
Their situation on hill or dale is equally variable, nor does any one circumstance respecting their situations seem to be common to all, except their immediate vicinity to a small and very ancient church, though in some instances this ancient building has been replaced by a more modern fabric.
It ia a well known fact that the early missionaries usually chose the sites of Pagan places of worship for their churches, and the undoubted relics of Pagan places of worship still remain in clew association with these towers, and even in the same churchyard ; the pillar stone of witness, the tapering sun-gene, the crombric, the fire-house, and the holy spring of sacred 'water necessary in the mystic rites, all these, according to some Irish archaeologists, are found along with the tower, and the little ancient church, within the same narrow boundary.
The speculations of antiquaries as to the objects of rearing these, mysterious towers have indeed been manifold—penitentiaries, the abode of anchorites, beacon-towers, alarm-posts, places of safety for goods, sepulchral stelte, hell-towers, trumpet-ton-ens, from whence, by means of the great brazen trumpet, the people were invited to worship, fire-towers, where the sacred fires of Bel or Beal, who was undoubtedly worshipped hi Ireland and Scotland, were kept alive, the tower itsell being an emblem of the aun-beam or ray of heas.enly fire, or finally
that they were Iluddhie In their origin, and sepulchral in their immediate application, they having been erected over the bones or relics of saints. It now seems to be the opinion of the best autho • rifles that they are the work of Chriatiau architects, and were built for ecclesiastical purrodea They appear to have always stood in prox imity to a church or monastery, and in fact to have been employed both for bell-towers and as keeps, or strongholds, into which the cede elastics might retreat with the church plate and records, in case of an attack. Their origin, or the type from which they were in the first Instance Imiteted,ia however still matter of conjecture.
Before closing this article, it should be mentioned that though these towers are almost peculiar to Ireland, there are two in Scotland, but in that district which, in the very early ages, was in close and constant connection with Ireland.
In other parts of the world, as Andalusia, the Caucasus, Persia, and of India, towers of all sins and shapes, and in various situations, nve been discovered. As in all these there are some points of resem blance, they may all perhaps prove to be successive links of that long chain of evidence by which these remarkable buildings may even yet be traced downwards from their origin to the pagan rites of the Scoti or Irish.