Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

2 68 Old Irish Reli onions.
referred to In other parts of the world {phalli). They
were raised in the early religions, as the objects of a
universal worship."
The popular idea in Ireland, that they were erected by
the Danes, is met with the difficulty that there are none
such in Denmark, or in England.
Sir Thomas Molyneux declared them belfries. One
Smith, 1750, supposed their date between 900 and 1000.
An Irish MS. called them hiclusoria, for the imprisonment
of criminals. Governor Pownall gave them an Arkite
origin ;
another, a Pictish ; a third, as the work of Scythian
Sabseans. Brereton, of the Society of Antiquaries, said, in
1763— "I think them rather ancient Irish than either
Pictish or Danish."
The Towers must not be confounded with the Brochs or
Pictish houses of Caithness, &c., which were forts with the
residence between two circular walls ;
nor with the so-called
vitrified forts, known in Scotland, and of great antiquity.
But they may be likened to the Nurhaghs or Giants'
Towers of Sardinia, Gozo Island, Balearic Isles, &c.,
though these towers are much more complicated in structure,
and rather conical. Like our Towers, they are splendid
specimens of masonry.
The Nurhaghs are numerous—even thousands remaining.
As round towers, they slope inward about ten degrees.
They are seen from 20 to 140 feet in diameter, having a
spiral staircase. At Gozo, one, with a diameter of 100 feet,
has one chamber 80 feet by 50. Fergusson, architectural
scholar, declares them pre-Roman in age. He thinks they
did not grow out of Dolmen, nor Dolmen out of them.
The word Niir Tcx^diUs fire ; but, if fire-temples, why so
many of them } As few bodies are ever found in them, they
could not have been tombs. Oliver considered the Nurhaghs
were granaries in time of peace, but fortresses in war.