The Round Tower

You may remember from an earlier post how miffed I was at not being able to visit Devenish Island’s round tower. I have a pretty key scene in Her Irish Warrior where the characters take refuge in a round tower for the night. While I watched videos and read about round towers, there’s something about going inside one that really makes a difference.

Imagine how pleased I was to hear that Kilkenny had its very own 9th century round tower, right beside St. Canice’s Cathedral. When I learned that it was only open until 5:00 p.m., I asked my fearless archaeologist guide to drop me off back in Kilkenny. He did, and I made it with about half an hour to spare. Just me and my round tower. And there was great happiness throughout the land.

The iron ladder leads up around 12 feet high to the entrance. People in need of sanctuary could use either a wooden ladder or a rope ladder to ascend. Originally, round towers were used for many purposes. Monks kept the entrance high off the ground for protection from both humans trying to steal religious treasures and to avoid moisture damage. Another purpose of the round tower was much simpler. It was a show of strength and power. Anyone can see a round tower for miles around. To think that this round tower was over eleven hundred years old is just staggering. A third reason for the round tower was to sound the canonical hours. Bells might have been hung from the top to alert the common folk.

Inside the round tower were multiple levels. I think I counted around 8 floors total. The interior is narrow in diameter, about 10 feet wide with thick stone walls. Although wooden stair-ladders were presnt here, I’ve heard that rope ladders were also common to reach the 6 to 8 floors typical of a round tower. There are also almost no windows on the lower floors. Near the top, I counted 6 windows. The wind was really powerful up near the top, and the temperature was much cooler. This round tower was missing the top (I’ll show you a completed round tower at the Rock of Cashel in my next blog post) and so the locals made it into an observatory of sorts. You could see the entire city of Kilkenny from the very top.

That night, we tried to find a pub with traditional Irish music. One thing we learned was that most Irish music doesn’t start until 10:30 p.m. Due to the higher latitude of Ireland, it’s actually light outside until almost 10:00 p.m. It’s nice during the summer, being able to enjoy so much sunlight. After a full day of touring, we were usually dead on our feet, but this time we thought we’d try to stay up. (You know you’re getting old when 10:30 is considered way past your bedtime. It’s a hazard of parenting toddlers. You take sleep whenever you can get it!)

But this time, only one pub was playing music and the singer was pitch-challenged. Oh well. I finally made it inside my round tower, and that’s what counts, right?

By the way, there’s still time to enter my Halloween Contest on the For Readers page. Good luck!