But it is obvious that towers would have been built in a different fashion had such been the object of those who erected them.
The late Mr.D'Alton has been the most moderate and judicious advocate of their pagan origin.

He rests his theory (1) on certain statements in our annals, which, if true, must at once decide the dispute.

The Annals of Ulster mention the destruction of fifty-seven of them in consequence of a severe earthquake, A.D.448.

He adduces the testimony of Giraldus Cambrensis, who confirms the account of the origin of Lough Neagh by an inundation, A.D.65, and adds: "It is no improbable testimony to this event, that the fishermen beheld the religious towers (_turres ecclesiasticas_), which, according to the custom of the country, are narrow, lofty, and round, immersed under the waters; and they frequently show them to strangers passing over them, and wondering at their purposes" (_reique causas admirantibus_).

This is all the better evidence of their then acknowledged antiquity, because the subject of the writer was the formation of the lough, and not the origin of the towers.