Now if there be any one point of Irish antiquity which our historians
insist upon more than another, it is that of our ancestral connection with
the Egyptian kings. In all their legends Egypt is mixed up--in all their
romances Egypt stands prominent, which certainly could not have been so
universal without _something_ at least like foundation, and must,
therefore, remove anything like surprise at the affinity our ancient
religion bore, in many respects, to theirs, since they were both derived
from the same common origin.
I have already intimated my decided belief of the application of the
Egyptian pyramids to the combined purposes of religion and science. The
department of science to which I particularly referred was astronomy, the
cultivation of which was inseparably involved in all their religious
rites; for despite of the reverence which the Egyptians seemed to pay to
crocodiles, bulls, and others of the brute creation, in those they only
figured forth the several attributes, all infinite, in the divinity; as
their worship, like that of the ancient Irish, was purely planetary, or
Sabian.
The Indians too have images of the elephant, horse, and other such
animals, chiselled out with the most studious care, and to all intents and
purposes appear to pay them homage; but, if questioned on the subject,
they will tell you that in the sagacity of the former, and the strength
and swiftness of the latter, they only recognise the superior wisdom and
might of the All-good and All-great One, and the rapidity with which his
decrees are executed by his messengers.
If questioned more closely, they will tell you that the Brahmin is but
reminded by the image of the inscrutable Original, whose pavilion is
clouds and darkness; to him he offers the secret prayer of the heart; and
if he neglects from inadvertence the external services required, it is
because his mind is so fully occupied with the contemplation of uncreated
excellence, that he overlooks the grosser object by which his impressions
were communicated. Then with respect to their subterranean temples or
Mithratic caves, of which we have so many specimens throughout this
island, they affirm that the mysterious temple of the caverns is dedicated
to services which soar as much above the worship of the plain and
uninstructed Hindoo, as Brahma the invisible Creator is above the good and
evil genii who inhabit the region of the sky. The world, whose ideas are
base and grovelling as the dust upon which they tread, must be led by
objects perceptible to the senses to perform the ceremonial of their
worship; the chosen offspring of Brahma are destined to nobler and
sublimer hopes; their views are bounded alone by the ages of eternity.
These specimens, though brief, will prove that the spirit of the religion
of ancient India and Egypt was not that farrago of mental prostration
which some have imagined. No, the stars, as the abode, or immediate signal
of the Deity, were their primary study; and even to this day, depressed
and humiliated as the Indians are, and aliens in their own country, they
are not without some attention to their favourite pursuit, or something
like an observatory to perpetuate its cultivation. In May, 1777, a letter
from Sir Robert Baker to the President of the Royal Society of London was
read before that body, which details a complete astronomical apparatus
found at Benares, belonging to the Brahmins.
Such is the remnant of that once enlightened nation, the favourite retreat
of civilisation and the arts, which sent forth its professors into the
most distant quarters of the world, and disseminated knowledge wherever
they had arrived. “With the first accounts we have of Hindostan,” says
Crawford, “a mighty empire opens to our view, which in extent, riches, and
the number of its inhabitants, has not yet been equalled by any one nation
on the globe. We find salutary laws, and an ingenious and refined system
of religion established; sciences and arts known and practised; and all of
these evidently brought to perfection by the accumulated experience of
many preceding ages. We see a country abounding in fair and opulent
cities; magnificent temples and palaces; useful and ingenious artists
employing the precious stones and metals in curious workmanship;
manufacturers fabricating cloths, which in the fineness of their texture,
and the beauty and duration of some of their dyes, have even yet been but
barely imitated by other nations.
“The traveller was enabled to journey through this immense country with
ease and safety; the public roads were shaded with trees to defend him
from its scorching sun; at convenient distances buildings were erected for
him to repose in, a friendly Brahmin attended to supply his wants; and
_hospitality_ and the _laws_ held out assistance and protection to _all
alike_, without prejudice or partiality.... We afterwards see the empire
overrun by a fierce race of men, who in the beginning of their furious
conquests endeavoured, with their country, to subdue the minds of the
Hindoos. They massacred the people, tortured the priests, threw down many
of the temples, and, what was still more afflicting, converted some of
them into places of worship for their prophet, till at length, tired with
the exertion of cruelties which they found to be without effect, and
guided by their interest, which led them to wish for tranquillity, they
were constrained to let a religion and customs subsist which they found it
impossible to destroy. But during these scenes of devastation and
bloodshed, the sciences, being in the sole possession of the priests, who
had more pressing cares to attend to, were neglected, and are now almost
forgotten.”
I have dwelt thus long upon the article of India, from my persuasion of
the intimate connection that existed at one time as to religion, language,
customs, and mode of life between some of its inhabitants and those of
_this_ western island. I have had an additional motive, and that was to
show that the same cause which effected the _mystification_ that overhangs
_our_ antiquities, has operated similarly with respect to _theirs_, and
this brings me back to the subject of the Round Towers, in the _history_,
or rather the _mystery_, of which, in both countries, this result is most
exemplified.
As to their appropriation, then, to the _sacred_ fire, though I do not
deny that _some_ of them _may_ have been connected with it, yet
unquestionably _too much importance_ has been attached to the _vitrified_
appearance of Drumboe tower as if necessarily enforcing our acquiescence
in the universality of that doctrine. “At some former time,” says the
surveyor, “_very strong fires have been burned_ within this building, and
the inside surface towards the bottom has the appearance of
vitrification.”
I do not at all dispute the _accident_, but while the vitrified aspect
which _this tower_ exhibits is proof irresistible that _no fire ever
entered_ those in which _no such_ vitrification appears, I cannot but
_here too_ express more than a surmise that it was not the “_sacred
fire_,” which, when religiously preserved, was not allowed to break forth
in those _volcanoes_ insinuated; but in a _lambent, gentle flame_,
emblematic of that emanation of the spirit of the Divinity infused, as
_light from light_, into the soul of man.
“Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born!
Or of th’ Eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear’st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.”[87]
But to prove that they were not appropriated to the ritual of
fire-worship, _nay, that their history and occupation had been altogether
forgotten when that ritual now prevailed_, I turn to the glossary of
Cormac, first bishop of Cashel, who, after his conversion to
Christianity, in the fifth century, by St. Patrick, thus declares his
faith:--
“Adhram do righ na duile
Do dagh bhar din ar n’ daone
Lies gach dream, leis gach dine
Leis gach ceall, leis gach caoimhe.”
That is--
“I worship the King of the Elements,
Whose fire from the mountain top ascends,
In whose hands are all mankind,
All punishment and remuneration.”
No allusion here to “_towers_” as connected with that _fire_ so pointedly
adverted to. And lest there should be any doubt as to the _identity_ of
this fire with the religious element so frequently referred to, we find
the same high authority thus critically explain himself in another place:
“dha teinne soinmech do gintis na draoithe con tincet laib moraib foraib,
agus do bordis, na ceatra or teamandaib cacha bliadhna”--that is, the
Druids used to kindle two immense fires, with great incantation, and
towards them used to drive the cattle, which they forced to pass between
them every year.
Nay, when St. Bridget, who was originally a _pagan vestal_, and
consequently well versed in all the solemnities of the sacred fire,
wished, upon her conversion to Christianity, A.D. 467, to retain this
favourite usage, now sublimated in its nature, and streaming in a more
hallowed current, it was not in a “tower” that we find she preserved it,
but in a cell or low building “like a vault,” “which,” says Holinshed,
whose curiosity, excited by Cambrensis’s report,[88] had induced him to go
and visit the spot, “to this day they call the fire-house.” It was a
stone-roofed edifice about twenty feet square, the ruins of which are
still visible, and recognised by all around as once the preservative of
the sacred element. When Cambrensis made mention of this miraculous fire
of St. Bridget, why did he not connect it with the _Round Towers_, which
he mentions elsewhere? He knew they had no connection, and should not be
associated.
But, forsooth, the Venerable Bede has distinctly mentioned in the _Life of
St. Cuthbert_ that there were numerous _fire receptacles_, remnants of
ancient paganism, still remaining in this island!--Admitted. But does it
necessarily follow that they were the _Round Towers_?[89] No: here is the
enigma solved--they were those _low stone-roofed structures_, similar to
what the Persians call the “Atash-gah,” to be met with so commonly
throughout all parts of this country, such as at Ardmore, Killaloe, Down,
Kerry, Kells, etc. etc. The circumstance of St Columbe having for a time
taken up his abode in this last-mentioned one, gave rise to the idea that
he must have been its founder: but the delusion is dispelled by comparing
its architecture with that of the churches which this distinguished
champion of the early Christian Irish Church had erected in Iona,[90]
whose ruins are still to be seen, and bear no sort of analogy with those
ancient receptacles. Struck, no doubt, with some apprehensions like the
foregoing, it is manifest that Miss Beaufort herself, while combating
most strenuously for the Round Towers as _fire receptacles_, had no small
misgiving, nay, was evidently divided as to the security of her position.
“From the foregoing statements,” she observes, “a well-grounded conclusion
may be drawn that these _low fabrics_ are seldom found but in connection
with the towers, and were designed for the preservation of the sacred
fire; in some cases the lofty tower may have served for both
purposes.”[91] The lofty tower, I emphatically say, was a distinct
edifice.
Again, when St. Patrick in person went round the different provinces to
attend the pagan solemnities at the respective periods of their
celebration, we find no mention made of any such thing as a “tower”
occupying any part in the ritual of their religious exercises. When he
first presented himself near the Court of Laogaire, not far from the hill
of Tara, on the eve of the vernal equinox, and lit up a fire before his
tent in defiance of the legal prohibition, the appeal which we are told
his Druids addressed to the monarch on that occasion was couched in the
following words:--“This fire which has to-night been kindled in our
presence, before the flame was lit up in your _palace_, unless
extinguished this very night, shall never be extinguished at all, but
shall triumph over all the fires of our ancient rites, and the lighter of
it shall scatter your kingdom.” In this notification, as I translate it
from O’Connor’s _Prolegomena_, i. c. 35, there occur two terms to which I
would fain bespeak the reader’s regard; one is the word _kindled_, which
implies the lighting up of a fire where there was none before; the second
is the word _palace_, which is more applicable to a kingly residence or
private abode, than to a _columnar structure_, which would seem to demand
a characteristic denomination.
Another objection more imposing in its character, and to the _local_
antiquary offering no small difficulty to surmount, is that those
above-mentioned low structures must have been erected by our first Roman
missionaries, because that they bear the strongest possible affinity to
the finish and perfection of the early Roman cloacæ or vaults. This
difficulty, however, I thus remove: no one in this enlightened age can
suppose that these stupendous specimens of massive and costly workmanship,
which we read of as being constructed by the Romans in the very infancy of
their State, could have been the erection of a rude people, unacquainted
with the arts. The story of the wolf, the vestal, and the shepherd is no
longer credited; Rome was a flourishing and thriving city long before the
son of Rhea was born, and the only credit that he deserves, as connected
with its history, is that of uniting together under one common yoke the
several neighbouring communities, many of whom, particularly the
Etrurians, were advanced in scientific and social civilisation, conversant
not only with the researches of letters, and the arcana of astronomy, but
particularly masters of all manual trades, and with none more profoundly
than that of architecture.
But who, let me ask, were those Etrurians? none others, most undoubtedly,
than the Pelasgi or Tyrseni, another branch of our Tuath-de-danaan
ancestors, who, as Myrsilus informs us, had erected the ancient wall
around the Acropolis of Athens, which is therefore styled, by Callimachus,
as quoted in the Scholia to the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, “the Pelasgic
Wall of the Tyrseni.” It is now a point well ascertained by historians
that what are termed by ancient writers _Cyclopean walls_--as if
intimating the work of a race of giants, while the true exposition of the
name is to be found in the fact of their having been constructed by a
caste of miners, otherwise called arimaspi, whose lamp, which perhaps they
had fastened to their foreheads, may be considered as their _only
eye_--were actually the creation of those ancient Pelasgi, and, as will
shortly appear, should properly be called Irish.[92] Mycenæ, Argos, and
Tiryns, in Greece, as well as Etruria and other places in Italy, the early
residences of this lettered tribe, abound in relics of this ancient
masonry. In all respects, in all points, and in all particulars it
corresponds with that of those above-mentioned _low_, stone-roofed,
fire-receptacles, so common in this island; which must satisfactorily and
for ever do away with the doubt as to why such features of similarity
should be observed to exist between our antiquities and those of _ancient
Greece_ and _Rome_; not less perceptible in the circumstance of those
edificial remains than in the collateral evidences of language and
manners.
The sacred fire, once observed with such religious awe by every class, and
in every quarter of this island, was imported from Greece into Italy by
the same people who had introduced it here. Let me not be supposed to
insinuate that the people of the latter country, _modernly considered_,
adopted the usage from those of the former country, moderns also; no,
there was no intercourse between these parties for many years after the
foundation of the western capital. Indeed it was not until the time of
Pyrrhus that they knew anything of their respective existences, whereas we
find that the vestal fire was instituted by Numa, A.U.C. 41. What I meant
therefore to say was, that the same early people, viz. the Pelasgi, who
had introduced it into Greece, had, upon their expulsion from Thessaly by
the Hellenes, betaken themselves to Latium, afterwards so called, and
there disseminated their doctrines not less prosperously than their
dominion.
Numa was in his day profoundly skilled in all the mysteries of those
religious philosophers; and his proffered elevation to the Roman throne
was but the merited recompense of his venerable character. His whole reign
was accordingly one continued scene of devotion and piety, in which
pre-eminently outshone his regard to Vesta,[93] in whose sanctuary was
preserved the Palladium, “the fated pledge of Roman authority,” and which
too, by the way, ever connected as we see it was with the _worship of
fire_, would seem to make the belief respecting it also to be of Oriental
origin. This eastern extraction additionally accounts for that dexterous
State contrivance of client and patron established in the early ages of
the Roman government, corresponding to our ancient clanship--both
evidently borrowed from the same Indian castes.
I now address myself to another obstacle which has been advanced by an
Irish _lady_, and of the most deserved antiquarian repute, whose classic
and elaborate treatise on this identical subject, though somewhat
differently moulded, has already won her the applause of that society
whose discriminating verdict I now respectfully await. But as my object
is _truth_, divested as much as possible of worldly considerations, and
unshackled by systems or literary codes, I conceive that object will be
more effectually attained by setting inquiry on foot, than by tamely
acquiescing in dubious asservations or abiding by verbal ambiguities.
What elicited this sentiment was Miss Beaufort’s remark on the enactment
at Tara, A.D. 79, for the _erection of a palace_ in each of the four
proportions subtracted by order of Tuathal Teachmar, from each of the four
provinces to form the present county of Meath. Her words are as
follow:--“Taking the landing of Julius Cæsar in Britain, in the year 55
before Christ, as a fixed point of time, and counting back fifty years
from that, we shall be brought to about one hundred years before the
Christian era, at which time the introduction of the improvements and
innovations of Zoroaster, and that also of fire towers, may, without
straining probability, be supposed to have fully taken place. _That it
was_ not much earlier may be inferred from the before-mentioned ordinance
of the year 79 A.D., to increase the number of towers in the different
provinces.”
With great submission I conceive that the _error_ here incurred originated
on the lady’s part, from mistaking as authority the comment in the
_Statistical Survey_, vol. iii. p. 320, which runs thus:--“It is quite
evident from sundry authentic records, that these round towers were
appropriated to the preservation of the Baal-thinne, or sacred fire of
Baal: first at the solemn convention at Tara, in the year of Christ 79, in
the reign of Tuathal Teachmar, it was enacted, that on the 31st of October
annually, the sacred fire should be publicly exhibited from the stately
tower of Tlactga, in Munster, from whence all the other repositories of
the Baal-thinne were to be rekindled, in case they were by any accident
allowed to go out. It was also enacted, that a particular tower should be
erected for that purpose in each of the other four provinces, Meath being
then a distinct province. For this purpose the tax called Scraball, of
threepence per head on all adults, was imposed.”
Well, for this is quoted _Psalter of Tara_, by Comerford, p. 51; on
referring to which I find the text as thus: “He (Tuathal) also erected a
stately palace in each of these proportions, viz. in that of Munster, the
palace of Tlactga, where the fire of Tlactga was ordained to be kindled on
the 31st of October, to summon the priests and augurs to consume the
sacrifices offered to their gods; and it was also ordained that no other
fire should be kindled in the kingdom that night, so that the fire to be
used in the country was to be derived from this fire; for which privilege
the people were to pay a scraball, which amounts to threepence every year,
as _an acknowledgment to the King of Munster_. The second palace was in
that of Connaught, where the inhabitants assembled once a year, upon the
1st of May, to offer sacrifices to the principal deity of the island under
the name of Beul, which was called the Convocation of Usneagh; and on
account of this meeting the King of Connaught had from every lord of a
manor, or chieftain of lands, a horse and arms. The third was at Tailtean,
in the portion of Ulster, where the inhabitants of the kingdom brought
their children when of age, and treated with one another about their
marriage. From this custom the King of Ulster demanded an ounce of silver
from every couple married here. The fourth was the palace of Teamor or
Tara, which originally belonged to the province of Leinster, and where the
States of the kingdom met in a parliamentary way.”
I now leave the reader to decide whether the word “palace” can be well
used to represent an “ecclesiastical tower,” or indeed any tower at all;
or whether it is not rather a royal residence for the several provincial
princes, that is meant to be conveyed; as is evident to the most
superficial, from the closing allusion to the _palace_ of Tara, “where the
States of the kingdom met in a parliamentary way.” The impost of the
scraball, I must not omit to observe, has been equally misstated in the
survey; for it was not for the purpose of erecting _any_ structures, but
as an acknowledgment of homage and a medium of revenue that it was
enforced, as will appear most clearly on reverting to the original, and
comparing it with the other means of revenue, which the other provincial
kings were entitled to exact. But what gives the complete overthrow to the
doctrine which would identify those _palaces_ with columnar edifices, is
the fact that there are no vestiges to be found of _Round Towers_ in any,
certainly not in all of those four localities specially notified. Wells
and Donaghmore are the only Round Towers now in the county Meath, and
these are not included among the places above designated.