The Irish Round Tower: Origins and Architecture Explored.
Author: LALOR, Brian.
Dublin: Collins Press, 1999. 247 pages. Illustrated. Hardback.
Round Towers are among the most intriguing products of the Celtic imagination. Seventy-three early medieval Round Towers survive in Ireland. They represent the only form of architecture unique to Ireland. Most Round Towers stand in association with surviving ecclesiastical settlements and are in some of the most beautiful and historic areas of the country.
There has been much debate on the origin of the Round Tower, but few publications. This book, which makes a significant contribution to the debate, is the first for twenty years on the subject and only the second published during the twentieth century. In this fully-illustrated study the author views them as an integral unit of an often now-vanished ecclesiastical complex. Their architectural design, construction, function and landscape setting are looked at in detail and the uniqueness of each Round Tower is described.
The Round Towers of Ireland:
• were ecclesiastical bell-towers, referred to in the Irish Annals as cloicteach (bell house);
• were built between the tenth and twelfth centuries primarily as the church belfries of early medieval monasteries;
• are among the primary works of Irish medieval antiquity, seventy-three of which some remnant still stands, complete or in ruins;
• represent an essential symbol and icon of Irish culture from the eighteenth to the twentieth century.
The Irish Round Tower:
• is both a detailed study and a practical guide to these intriguing products of the Celtic imagination at its most fertile and fanciful;
• contains new information on the origin of the towers based on compelling parallels from Continental Europe;
• is arranged county by county, allowing a reader to locate towers in the immediate area.
CONTENTS
Preface.
Introduction.1. Ireland during the Early Medieval Period.
2. Archaic Architecture in Europe.
3. Early Medieval Towers outside Ireland.
4. Definition and Typology.
5. The Anatomy of an Irish Round Tower.
6. Manuscript Sources and Missing Towers.
7. Inventory.Glossary.
Bibliography.
Index.
The seventy-three known round towers are catalogued in the Inventory section, county by county, with photographs of each.
ISBN: 1898256640
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