It was 120 feet high, built mostly of a dark marble: the door faced the west door of the church. It was esteemed the finest in Ireland, but being neglected fell to the ground 1771. Mr. Smith imagines this tower was intended for lodging penitents. It is much more probable that it answered the purpose of a Turkish minaret before bells were introduced, or perhaps of a watch-tower."-vol. iii. p. 492. From these two extracts it appears that the tower had been "neglected"-a matter to be the more regretted, as almost all agree that it was the finest in Ireland. Dr. Beaufort, in his "Memoir of a Map of Ireland" (1792), says "the round tower, which had stood there [Ardfert] for ages, fell a few years ago, tumbling at one crash into a heap of ruins." -p. 92. Here it seems that the tower fell all at once. At p. 141 he states that the tower fell in 1770. Seward, in his "Topographia Hibernica," says " opposite the end of the church are the ruins of one of the antient round towers, it was 120 feet high; a great part of which fell down in 1770."-article "Ardfert." O'Halloran, in his "Introduction to and an History of Ireland," published in 1803, a quarter of a century after the date of his work before quoted, writes" near this fine church [Ardfert] was a lofty anchorite tower, which partly fell to the ground some years since; but from the known taste of Lord Brandon, it can hardly be supposed that he will suffer so fine a piece of antiquity, and such an ornament to his improvements, to be lost, especially as all the materials lie on the spot." -vol. i. p. 85. Here, as well as in the anonymous Tour, and Seward, before quoted, we see that only a part of the tower fell in 1770, or 1771, for these two dates are given; but, alas! for the credit of my county, O'Halloran's sanguine expectation from Lord Brandon has never been fulfilled, and even "all the materials" do not now lie on the spot! Sir Richard Colt Hoare, in his "Journal of a Tour in Ireland, A.D. 1806" (Lond. 1807), observes:-"But this venerable pile of monastic buildings [Ardfert cathedral] has lost much of its grandeur as well as interest, by the fall of a stately round tower [in the year 1771] of 120 feet in height, which stood near the west front of the Cathedral."-p. 63. Lewis, in his "Topographical Dictionary of Ireland," published in 1837, says "an ancient round tower, which formerly stood near the cathedral, fell about 60 years since.". article "Ardfert." If Lewis reckons from the date of his publication, this would make the fall of the tower to have taken place in or about the year 1777. In the "Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland" we find "near the west front of the cathedral stood a slated round tower, 120 feet high; but this fine adjunct of the edifice's grandeur and interest, and noble specimen of the unique class of antiquities to which it belonged, fell in 1771."-article "Ardfert." This extract is curious, as mentioning that the tower was slated. In an interesting article on the then apparently forthcoming, and indeed much wanted, new edition of Smith's "History of Kerry," which appeared in the Tralee Chronicle of May 4, 1844, the Round Tower of Ardfert is

said to have been as much as thirty feet higher than any of the measurements above given!" At Ardfert, anciently the capital of West Munster, there had been one [Round Tower], which is sup'posed to have been the loftiest in Ireland. In the time of the late Sir Maurice Crosbie, it was found, by Dr. Pococke, to measure 150 feet in height!" These widely differing accounts of this single tower, particularly of its height (100, 120, and 150 feet), show us, I think, how important it is to have, in the first instance, correct descriptions of all our Round Towers. One writer copies from another, and so error is often propagated. The "site" of the Round Tower of Ardfert is fortunately marked on sheet 20 of the Ordnance Survey of the county, a little to the west of the "cathedral," which is not built quite east and west, as most usual. In the same enclosure, or immediate vicinity, we find "Templenahoe" and "Templenagriffin," and farther to the north-east, in the demesne, are the splendid ruins of Ardfert abbey.

It affords me much pleasure to have to state here, that active steps are now being taken for the restoration of the cathedral of St. Brendan, Ardfert, adjacent to which, as we have seen, one of the finest Round Towers in Ireland so lately stood; and were the men who have associated themselves for this laudable purpose in existence before the tower fell, I have no doubt we should not now have to deplore its loss.2

According to the map of Ireland published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, in 1845, which I believe contains the best published list of the Round Towers of Ireland, Kerry had

I have been unable to find out from whence this statement of Dr. Pococke is derived. As he was bishop of Ossory, I thought that either of the Honorary Secretaries of the Kilkenny Archæological Society could help me; but upon the Rev. James Graves informing me that he was unable to supply the required information, I addressed the following letter to the editor of the Tralee Chronicle, which, with his obliging reply, appeared in his paper of March 4, 1853:

"Trinity College, Dublin, Feb. 25, 1853. "SIR-You will much oblige, if you can inform me from whence the statement of Dr. Pococke, bishop of Ossory, as to the height of Ardfert Round Tower, which appeared in the Tralee Chronicle of May 4, 1844, has been derived. I cannot find it

in a position to give the information required by our respected correspondent, who has devoted so much of his attention to our archæological records. The article to which he refers was, if our memory serve us right, from the pen of our old and lamented friend, the late John T. O'Flaherty, whose papers, we regret to say, have either been scattered to the winds, or remain in the hands of parties who think they will enhance the value of the manuscripts by hiding them under a bushel. Probably, the library at Ardfert abbey contains some records giving at once the height of the Round Tower and the reference to Dr. Pococke.]"

2 Time works changes! Whilst preparing these notes for the Transactions, I have learned that the praiseworthy design set on foot for the restoration of the cathedral bas been abandoned! We yet want in Kerry a

in any of his works in the College Library. spirit similar to that which has originated

"I am, Sir,

"Your very obedient servant,
"R. HITCHCOCK.

"[We regret that we are not at present

and executed the noble design for the ju. dicious repairs and preservation of the fine old ruins of Jerpoint abbey, in the county of Kilkenny.

1

formerly no less than four of these monuments-viz. Aghadoe, Ardfert, one on an island in Lough Currane, and Rattoo. The tower of Aghadoe is marked "s, only the stump;" Ardfert, "f, foundations only;" Currane, “i, imperfect;" and Rattoo has nothing after it. I can find no account of the Lough Currane Round Tower in any other work, nor have I noticed any remains of it on any of the islands in that lake when on some of them myself, in April, 1848. It was probably one of the "Round Towers of other days," which can only be seen "in the wave beneath us shining." Lewis, in his "Topographical Dictionary of Ireland," article "Kerry," in enumerating the Round Towers of the county, mentions only three there. His words are:-"It [Kerry] had formerly three of the ancient round towers, of which the one that stood near the cathedral of Ardfert fell in 1771; of another, at Aghadoe, there are about 20 feet remaining; and the third is still standing nearly entire at Rattoo." The accuracy of the list published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge is questioned in Hall's Ireland, vol. iii. p. 191, where it is said that it is "exceedingly incorrect," and where a "revised" list of the "existing Round Towers" is then given, in which only three in Kerry are mentioned, viz. Aghadoe, Ardfert, and Rattoo. The "Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland," however, seems to make further mention of a Celtic or pillar-tower on one of the islands in Lough Currane:-"Several islets variegate the bosom of Lough Currane; and on the largest of these, called Church Island, are some ecclesiastical ruins and the remains of what is termed a Celtic tower." -article "Currane." "One pillar-tower occurs at Rattoo; another in an island of Lough Currane; part of another at Aghadoe; and the site of a fourth in the neighbourhood of the cathedral of Ardfert.”— article "Kerry" (Antiquities).

With the exception of the list published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, above mentioned, I know of no one good list of our Round Towers. True, indeed, Ledwich, in Vallancey's Collectanea, vol. ii. pp. 141-2 (1786)-Dr. Beaufort, in his Memoir of a Map of Ireland, pp. 138-141 (1792)-the Anthologia Hibernica, vol. i. pp. 90-91 (1793)—Ledwich, in his Antiquities of Ireland, pp. 167-8 (1804)-Hoare, in his Journal of a Tour in Ireland, pp. 288292 (1807)-Bell, in his Essay on Gothic Architecture in Ireland, pp. 77-98 (1829)-Hall's Ireland, vol. iii. p. 191 (1843)—and Wilkinson, in his Practical Geology and Ancient Architecture of Ireland, pp. 69-81 (1845)—give lists of the Towers; but they are anything but complete or accurate. For instance, Hoare does not mention one at all of the Kerry towers in his list, and Wilkinson sets down Rattoo as in the county of Clare, &c.! Some few years ago, I amused myself in compiling a list of all the Round Towers of Ireland, either existing or known to have formerly existed (which, according to the list of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, number no less than 118), adding a note of any remarkable feature belonging to

the respective towers. On submitting this list, in its rough state, to the inspection of my friend Mr. Windele, he was so good as to render it more valuable, by making some corrections and adding several interesting notes. I afterwards sent the list to Dr. Petrie, for the same purpose, but have never since got it back from him, he having, unfortunately, mislaid it. I hope, however, that he may yet be able to lay his hand on the list, and return it to me.

It only remains for me to apologize for the length to which these notes have extended, and to state that I have been compelled to throw them together in a very short time, and in the midst of other labours. This will, I trust, help to account for any errors they may contain, and it may also elicit correction, which I earnestly invite, from some of our Kerry members, many of whose names appear on the Society's list of members. At all events, if my communication, dry and uninteresting as I am sure it is, shall tend to keep the importance of collecting and recording accurate descriptions of the Round Towers of Ireland before the Kilkenny Archæological Association, and if it shall, in any degree, however small, help to produce other and better written papers on the same subject, the chief end which I have had in view in compiling the present "notes" shall have been attained.

ON CERTAIN

OBSOLETE MODES OF INFLICTING PUNISHMENT,

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF

THE ANCIENT COURT TO WHICH THEY BELONGED.

BY MARK S. O'SHAUGHNESSY, ESQ.

In a communication made some time ago to the Society, by one of the Honorary Secretaries, respecting the "Ancient Corporation ByLaws of Kilkenny," mention was made of resort being had, for the punishment of certain offences, to an engine therein termed the tumbrell," and also the "swingling stool" and "cucking stool."

66

1 Transactions, vol. i. p. 47. A compa. rison of the ancient Kilkenny corporation regulations with some of those old Scottish laws, to be found in Skene's collection, would repay the curious reader. Take, for example, "regulationes de panibus et piscibus vendendis de regratariis (hucksters) -de brasiatore, carnificibus et pistoribus, &c.," among the Leges et Consuetudines Burgorum, editæ per D. David Regem Scotiæ ejus nominis primum apud Novum

Castrum super Tynam. In the Statuta Gilda also, many similar regulations appear. The Iter Camerarii also contains regulations about fishermen, hucksters, cobblers, forestallers, &c., as do the Statuta David II. and the Stat. Rob. III. In the Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, published under the direction of the Re. cord Commission, the prices of cows, horses, and many other saleable commodities, are regulated.

It may not be without interest to the Society to have before it some information respecting this instrument and the old laws and customs which regulated its use. Such information may, perhaps, give some aid to a better understanding of old records, the examination of which cannot fail to present to the mind clearer views of the periods when the means of repressing social disorders were sought for principally in the infliction of bodily suffering,' even as the arbitration of every dispute was referred to physical strength;2 and such inquiries will also enable us to watch how, as the spirit of early and fiercer times was passing away,3 a growing conviction of the unfitness of such punishments was perceptible in their gradual disuse, and will teach us to rejoice that our days have fallen in these later and wiser times-as Homer says

Ημεις του πατέρων μεγ ̓ ἀμεινονες ευχόμεθ' ειναι

We boast to be far better than our fathers

the spirit of whose penal legislation seeks more anxiously the reclamation of the offender than the satisfaction of the outraged, and wisely perceives that such beneficent ends would be utterly frustrated by modes of punishment which a brutal spirit of vengeance alone could dictate, and by which there must be aroused in the sufferer a fierce hatred of the power which inflicted such indignities upon him.

"Corporal punishment," says Lambard, Eirenarcha, lib. i. cap. 12, "is either capital or not capital.-Not capital is of divers sortes also, as of cutting off the hand or eare, burning (or marking) the

1 There is much curious information as to punishment in cases criminal in Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, cap. 31.

Although the practice of judgment by their peers, in the case of barons, is expressly stated in the Grand Coustumier (cap. ix. f. 19), and though Dugdale says that trial by jury was undoubtedly the most ancient form of trial, having been ordained by the law of king Ethelred, made at Wanting, yet, notwithstanding the inhibition of the church, as for example the popes Nicholas I. and Celestine III., we have Selden remarking-" but the English customs never permitted themselves to such clergy-canons, always (under parliamentcorrection) retaining, as whatsoever they have by long use or allowance approved, so this of the duel."-Original of Duels, cap. 5. Brady (Hist. of England, book ii. part 1) asserts that the twelve thanes or freemen (mentioned in Ethelred's law as above) associated with the præpositus, hundredary or reve, were not jurymen but judges or 46 As to Trials by Combat in

assessors.

Cases Civil," see Dugdale, Orig. Jurid., c. xxvi., &c., and in Cases Criminal, c. xxviii.

3 The institution, by Henry II. (as Dugdale believes), of the "Trial by Great Assize" in place of trial by combat in civil cases (on which see Glanville, lib. xxvii. cap. 7), is indicative of this; as is also the abolition by special precept, of trial by fire and water ordeal by Henry III., in the third year of his reign. See Montesquieu's views, Esprit des Lois, livre xxviii., especially in the chapter (17) entitled "Manière de penser de nos pères," and some subsequent chapters in the same book. Sir Matthew Hale (History of the Common Law, chap. vii.) says "in all the time of king John, the purgation per ignem et aquam, or the trial by ordeal, continued, as appears by frequent entries upon the Rolls; but it seems to have ended with this king, for I do not find it in use in any time after. Perchance the barbarousness of the trial, and persuasives of the Clergy, prevailed at length to antiquate it, for many Canons had been made against it."