Irish Druids and Old Irish Religions

In Irish we read of the Danaan King, Budh the red ;
Round Tower Creed. 273
which a great deal of the rehgion of Budh developed.
This
will not appear strange when we consider, in connection
with the point, that many of the Saints bear Aryan and
Semitic names."
The bells, asserted by tradition to have belonged to the
Towers, furnish an argument for the advocate of Buddhism,
so closely associated with bells.
Glendalough, in its sculptures, appears also to favour
this idea. No one can visit St. Kevin's Kitchen there
without being struck with such resemblances. Ledwich
has pointed out some of these. As among the most
ancient structures in Ireland, and singularly allied to the
Tower near, St. Kevin's Kitchen peculiarly aroused the
attention of the writer. It was not only the position
occupied by the serpent, the bulbuls or doves, the tree of
life,
or Irish Aithair Faodha.ox tree of Budh, but the stone
roof and the peculiar cement of the walls bore witness
to its antiquity.
The Buddhist form of the Crucifixion, so different from
anything in early Christian art, is another singular feature.
In the Tower of Donoughmore, Meath county, is one of
these sculptures; as Brash describes—" very diminutive
rude figure with extended arms, and legs crossed."
of the Hill of Budh, Cnox Buidhbh, in Tyrone ; of other
Budh hills in Mayo and Roscommon
; and, in the Book of
Ballymote, of FergiLs of the Fire of Budh. Buddhism was
a great power in remote ages ; and, as Allanson Picton
points out, " not so much in its philosophical conclusions,
as
the feeling out of the soul towards an unlimited loyalty
to the infinite." Still, if Round Towers owe anything to
Buddhism, why are they only in Ireland.?
While Larrigan thought them pagan, Lynch, O'llalloran,
Ledwich, O'Curry, and Pctric held them Christian. A