Origins and functions of Irish Round Towers

¶ … mysteries of Ireland came yet another one that historians and archaeologists have been trying to decipher for some time: the Irish Round Towers. The name itself carries enough to become a description in its own right of these wonders of the Irish architecture. However, what is behind the notion of round tower in Ireland and, most notably, what the origins of these towers was, what their purpose eventually became, and how they influenced the development of the Irish civilization, is still a subject of debate.

Several theoreticians and historians attempted, throughout the period from the 17th to the 19th centuries, to provide explanations for the round towers in Ireland, ranging from a purely defensive role, to a potential role as a treasury, around the churches and monasteries where the round towers were built and going through to their function as a bell tower, similar to several found throughout Europe at that time.

The overall objective of this paper is to draw upon existing research in order to create a concentrated analysis of the different opinions and knowledge trend in the area of round towers. The aim of this paper will be to examine the origins of these architectural structures and provide background on some of the dating techniques, as they have been used up to our times. At the same time, a significant part of the paper will concentrate on the analysis of the different roles and functions potentially assigned to round towers, as well as to the arguments pertaining to each of these functions in part.

General structure of round towers

Round towers are almost unique through their structure. The general description used for them is that of "great tubes of stone" to show their cylinder nature, as well as the predominant element of construction, stone. The respective stone cylinder was generally divided into several floors with the use of wooden planks that provided for each storey in part. The upper part of the construction was completed with a conical roof made of stone. Usually, many of the round towers also had an additional wooden ladder on the outside of the building, which was sometimes used as an element to further emphasize the alleged defensive role that the round towers had in the Irish monastic history.

Functions

The detailed discussion surrounded the origin of the round towers have affected, in many ways, the debates around the actual function of these round towers. Passing swiftly through theories that, even in the 20th century, propose ideas according to which the round towers are somehow interrelated to concentrate cosmic energy, let us focus on some of the more rational analysis.

One such analysis proposed the defensive function as the essential function of the round tower. There are, indeed, supportive elements for such a theory. First of all, historically, if we believe these towers to have been built somewhere in the Early Middle Ages, perhaps as far back as the 5th or 6th centuries, we can identify this period of time as the one immediately following the collapse of the Roman Empire. At this point, civilization in the West comes under extended pressure from hordes of invading barbarians who seek to destroy almost all existing sources of life and culture. While Ireland is somehow outside the main epicenter of these invasions, it still remains vulnerable. Round towers could thus provide the necessary defense around a monastery or church.

Some of the elements that could support such a defensive function include the fact that these towers were built of stone even in a period when stone defensive constructions were not yet the norm throughout Europe (the Norman keeps, for example, would become the usual defense fortification only in the 11th century). At the same time, the round towers were equipped with wooden ladders on which the people could claim inside and, allegedly, pull up the wooden ladder, making it almost impossible for the attacker to either climb inside or in any other way, endanger the life of the people inside the round tower.

One of the important arguments used against the belief that round towers had a primarily defensive function comes from the ladder itself. The ladder would have been made of heavy wood and would generally be as long as thirty feet.

Both these factors would have made it almost impossible for a wooden ladder to be pulled inside, especially given the accessibility issue inside a round tower. Potentially, only something as flexible as a rope ladder would make sense as to being able to be pulled inside, but certainly not a wooden ladder. At the same time, being located near monasteries and churches, it would be difficult to imagine elderly monks completing all the physically challenging task involved with using the round tower in its defensive function.

Additionally, the doorway, providing access to the round tower, showed a different perspective than would have seemed reasonable if the towers had a primarily defensive function. As such, in some of the round towers, the doorway was on the ground or very close to the ground, and this was noticed in some of the round towers that were otherwise built in regions that were more vulnerable to attacks and invasions. On the other hand, in other cases, the doorway was above ground, but history has not mentioned any such attacks in the area.

The historians and archaeologists remained significantly split on the issue of the defensive function in the case of round towers. Some historians tended to see this as a secondary function, while the corroboration of the time these towers were possibly built with the Viking invasions made other historians argue more strongly over the defensive function of the towers.

There seem to be more historians arguing for the belfry use of round towers in Ireland. One of the arguments in this sense is related to the existence of similar belfries, called campanile, in Italy, around the same time as the round towers of Ireland, perhaps the most well-known example in this sense being the Tower of Pisa. This argumentation would reasonably make sense, as most of these round towers were discovered either next to the ruins of some church or monastery or actually enabled the discovery of such a religious ruin.

Nevertheless, there are other questions that arise from assuming this primary function for the round towers in Ireland. First of all, the round towers seem to be completely out of proportion with the surrounding architecture, notably the church or monastery they were built next to. In some cases, the difference of height from construction goes well over thirty meters.

In my opinion, this is not necessarily an argument that can stand against the specified function of the Irish round towers. Roger Stalley has mentioned the Tower of Pisa as an example of an Italian campanile that would be considered an appropriate comparison in Italy. However, if we consider the Tower of Pisa and the way this is located in the Campo dei Miracoli, the conclusion is simple: the tower is significantly higher than the church situated next to it. Further more, this stands for almost any example we wish from the Italian architecture, ranging from the Church of San Marco in Venice to the Church of San Giovanni e Paolo in Rome.

Another argument that is brought into discussion by assuming this primary function is related to the design consistency. Despite small influences brought about by the Romanesque style, these constructions remained reasonably unaltered in design and architecture throughout history, despite the European architecture developing in this period of time.

In my opinion, this is not necessarily a problem that arises. Ireland, during the period of time when we assume that these towers were built, was somewhat isolated from the cultural trends developing on the continent. The small changes in the design and architecture of the round towers in fact reflected the small participation of Ireland to the European cultural exchanges.

The form of the round towers however would still continue to intrigue, despite these different aspects and explanations. Different particularities of the construction, such as the conical roofs of stone and the raised doorways, still provide intriguing elements for such an explanation. Some have shown the roofs, for example, as a way of preventing the continuous dangers of lightning and a mean of isolating the construction below. The explanation stands as a technical explanations, however, there are numerous others that could be used as well.

Conclusions

One of the potential eclectic conclusions one can draw is that the round towers in Ireland provided all of these functions, overall, at different periods of time. At the time of Barbaric invasions, when Ireland was vulnerable to invasions from the Vikings, for example, round towers certainly provided a defensive function. The strong stone towers could be, by themselves, a strong deterrent to the invading parties. At the same time, as a corollary to the defensive function, the round towers could well function as treasuries, because the strong stone and difficult accessibility made them plausible in this role.

At the same time, it is obviously reasonable to believe that the Irish round towers were also closely related to several monastic and religious functions. The most obvious of them seems to be that of a bell tower, especially given the widespread of this type of towers throughout Europe during the period of time starting with the 10th century. Nevertheless, one will also need to take into consideration the reasonably little influence that Europe actually had on Ireland during this time.

One of the very difficult challenges remains dating the Irish round towers. Carbon dating is useful in determining the period of time when these constructions were made, despite the interval of time being extremely generous. However, it helps point to somewhere around the 9th to 10th century as a reasonable timeframe when the round towers began being produced in Ireland, and not anywhere towards Antiquity.