Round tower

The National Monuments Service's description

Situated within the monastic site on the E portion of Scattery Island c. 20m W of the cathedral (CL067-024008-). The tower (H 26m; diam. at base 5.08m) is complete except for the very top of the cap but is closed over internally. There are no floors or ladders remaining and entry through the ground-floor doorway (Wth 0.66m at base narrowing to 0.61m at the top; H 1.8m) gives a clear view to the top. There appear to have been six floors originally with slight offsets at each. The ground-floor doorway is only paralleled at Castledermot, Co. Kildare (KD040-002002-). The door head is formed by corbelling in three stones on either side with the gap between them closed by a short lintel. It faces ESE towards the door of the cathedral. The windows are all small and square-headed facing in ascending order to N, S, SE, WNW and N with four slightly larger at the top facing N, S, E and W. The walls (Wth 1.34m at base) are constructed of roughly coursed sandstone masonry generally comprising small stones but occasional larger rectangular stones are interspersed. A large crack virtually from cap to base was recorded in 19th-century photographs and was later repaired. The tower has a suggested date of the 10th to the 11th century. (Westropp 1897, 282-4; Barrow 1979, 64-6; Lalor 1999, 117-18) This is a national monument in state care, no. 10.

The following images have been uploaded:

CL067-024005-_01.jpg View of round tower from NNE.
CL067-024005-_01.jpg View from NNE showing the round tower and cathedral (CL067-024008-).

Compiled by: Mary Tunney

Date of upload: 12 September 2016

This monument is subject to a preservation order made under the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014 (PO no. 1/1971).

References

Barrow, G.L. 1979 The round towers of Ireland: a study and gazetteer. Dublin. The Academy Press.

Westropp, T.J. 1897 Descriptive sketch of places visited. Part 1. Scattery Island and Canons' island, Co. Clare. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 27, 273-90.

Lalor, B. 1999 The Irish round tower. Wilton, Cork. Collins Press.