Ireland's Round Towers

Book excerpt: The round tower is Ireland’s most distinctive medieval monument. This book explores the towers’ qualities as works of architecture as well as examining their relationships with other buildings at the sites on which they stand. The author suggests how the towers were employed in ceremonies and other ritualised activities of the Viking Age church in Ireland. They prove to be crucial evidence in a new history of Irish Christianity between the Viking raids and the late 12th-century invasion.