THE ROUND TOWERS OF IRELAND

Author of “The Round Towers of Ireland.”

THE ROUND TOWERS
OF IRELAND

OR

THE HISTORY OF THE TUATH-DE-DANAANS

BY
HENRY O’BRIEN

A NEW EDITION

WITH INTRODUCTION, SYNOPSIS, INDEX, ETC.

London: W. THACKER & CO., 2 Creed Lane, E.C.
Calcutta: THACKER, SPINK & CO.
1898

[All Rights Reserved]

750 Copies only of this Edition have been printed for Sale and the Type distributed, of which this is No. 324.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

“When all is dark, who would object to a ray of light, merely because of the faulty or flickering medium by which it is transmitted? And if those round towers have been hitherto a dark puzzle and a mystery, must we scare away O’Brien, because he approaches with a rude and unpolished but serviceable lantern?”—Fraser’s Magazine for August 1835.

Henry O’Brien, the most daring and ingenious explorer of that recondite mystery, the origin and purpose of Irish Round Towers, was born in 1808. On both his father’s and his mother’s side he came of good descent,[1] being connected with two of the oldest and most influential families in the west of Ireland. At the time of his birth that branch of “the O’Briens” to which he belonged were settled in Kerry, where his father resided in a wild, mountainous district, known as Iveragh, forming a portion of the Marquis of Lansdowne’s Irish estates. That his family were in affluent circumstances is improbable, for up to the age of twelve the boy’s education seems to have been neglected in a way very uncommon with Irish people who are well off. “Though I could then tolerably well express myself in English,” he says,[2] referring to this portion of his life, “the train of my reflections always ran in Irish. From infancy I spoke that tongue; it was to me vernacular. I thought in Irish, I understood in Irish, and I composed in Irish”; and again, “I was twelve years of age before ever I saw a Testament in any language.” From this unusual neglect, coupled with the fact of his becoming a private tutor soon after he had settled in London, and an obscure reference to certain “difficulties” at the outset of his career as an author, we are probably justified in assuming that money was a rather scarce commodity in the paternal home. There is, however, reason to suppose that when he had reached the age of twelve, or thereabouts, his education was taken in hand, though how, or by whom, does not appear. Evidence of his having been sent to school and placed under systematic and qualified instruction is not forthcoming. In fact, circumstances go to negative that supposition. His acquaintance with Greek and Latin authors seems to have been more extensive than accurate, and his quotations from them are marked by solecisms which any properly taught schoolboy would avoid, but in which the self-educated are prone to indulge. It is true that (at p. 481) he describes in terms of unqualified praise a “tutor” with whom he commenced the study of the Greek Testament; but there is internal evidence in the same passage that such praise was not wholly deserved, and that the tutor in question was certainly not the person referred to in Father Prout’s statement that O’Brien had been “brought up at the feet of the Rev. Charles Boyton.”[3] Mr. Boyton was at the time a highly distinguished Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, who, in addition to holding the position of Greek Lecturer at that University, was the most eminent mathematical “coach” of his day; and the only connection likely to have existed between him and young O’Brien was that of college-tutor and undergraduate in statu pupillari. The probability is, therefore, that any instruction which the boy received at this early period of his life was of a very elementary character, and that his education was mainly conducted by himself, a probability which is certainly not discounted by the wide and promiscuous character of his reading. From the outset of his introduction to letters