On a fabled hilltop in Kildare town, in a churchyard that has seen its great cathedral rise from ruin many times in its 1500 year history, sit two stone structures, the yin and yang of Irish architectural symbolism, or possibly the yoni and lingam. The restored foundation of St. Brigid’s Fire Temple recalls the most significant woman of Early Christian Ireland, or perhaps her pagan namesake. It still serves today as a pilgrimage destination for spiritual women from the ranks of Christians and neo-pagan alike. The adjacent—and better known—Kildare Round Tower was in the 19th century believed by some to also be an example of a pagan temple: its tall, ramrod-straight form, with its original conical cap, revealing its ancient use in homage of what one 1834 reviewer termed “a certain particular division of the [male] anatomy, which the refinement of modern civilization has excluded from decent language.3

In the virtual-reality environment above you can click on the hotspot on the stairway to enter the round tower. Once in the doorway, look up to note the Romanesque carvings. Then enter the tower and click on the hotspot on the ladder to ascend to the observation platform at its summit. There you can then look out onto the panoramic bird’s eye view of Kildare. The other hotspot in the graveyard will lead you to the reconstructed foundation of St. Brigid’s Fire Temple; additional hotspots there will take you inside the structure and allow a close-up view of some items left by her pilgrims.

Kildare’s Cathedral Church of St. Brigid today is largely the result of a 19th-century restoration of the Norman structure of 1230. In legend, the hill on which it sits was in prehistory the site of a pagan temple to the Celtic goddess Brigid (see below). There was a Christian church here from the end of the fifth century, a simple thatched-roof structure, built under an oak tree, and named by St. Brigid Cill Dara, the Church of the Oak, from which derives the modern name of the county and city of Kildare. This church evolved to an early medieval stone structure with a defensive as well as a religious function. It was attacked and devastated some 16 times between the years 835 and 998. It was a ruin when Ralph of Bristol became the bishop in 1223. He finished its reconstruction in its present gothic style by 1230, but the building was again partially in ruin by 1500 and abandoned by 1649 (see the Dawson and Seymour prints below).

Completely restored in 1896, it currently serves a small local parish of the Church of Ireland and houses a small museum, closed to tourists during the winter months.4

The Round Tower

Think of Ireland, and you’re likely to conjure first a shamrock, then perhaps a harp. Or a Guinness. But close behind the list of symbols that are forever Irish would be the iconic but enigmatic round tower, with its doorway positioned high off the ground. These old structures, though always located within ecclesiastical sites, have nevertheless been the topic of generations of speculation divorcing them from any Christian connection. Even today, newly minted theories about the purpose of the round towers are still coming out of the stonework. It should not be surprising that such imposing structures, with no contemporary records of their construction,5 should be seen as a mirror on which some in each generation can see reflected their own mythic ideals. To many of the 19th-century antiquarians, “a Round Tower of two or even three thousand years’ standing was twice as satisfying as one of a mere eight hundred years…” 6

Archaeologists today largely agree that the Irish round towers were constructed as monumental belfries and perhaps places of temporary refuge or for storage of valuables. The Irish term always used to describe them is cloig-theach, or bell-house. They may date from as early as the sixth century, with their construction continuing through the 13th century.7 The contemporary reviews of Henry O’Brien’s book (see quotation at the top of this page), which proclaimed the towers to be built a thousand years before Christ, constructed primarily as sites for phallus worship, were very harsh. O’Brien gained his notoriety largely because his bizarre theories could not be mentioned in polite society. As Joep Leerssen put it:

“O’Brien’s name was made famous by becoming the subject of scandal and ridicule; his theory was given exemplary status by being so memorably unmentionable in polite society…” 8

Most reviews of O’Brien’s work were so scathing that they likely contributed to his insanity and death at the age of 27 in 1835.

Quite aside from the speculation of this tragic 19th-century antiquarian, some of the Irish round towers have been the focus of more traditional indigenous folklore. In a common tale, the tower at Cloyne (Co. Cork) was “built in one night by St. Colman to safeguard his relics.” 9

At Aghagower (Co. Mayo) the legend has it that after the tower’s cap and bell were blown a half mile away by a bolt of lightning, the old people could still hear the bell “giving tongue” from beneath the bog where it landed.10 Another tower where the bell was magically thrown into a nearby lake was at Kilmacduagh in Co. Galway (see photo in gallery).

One legend is that all Ireland’s round towers were constructed by a single builder known as the Gobán Saor. These tales may have evolved from the mythological exploits of Goibniu, the smith of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Whatever the source of these tales, the similar construction of all the round towers points to the likelihood of roving teams of builders, moving with their architect from site to site.11

In the tourism literature the Irish round towers are reputed to have served primarily as a type of fort where monks might retreat with all their treasures when an attack from the plundering Vikings was imminent. Although some towers may have served as temporary places of refuge, it is unlikely that they were built solely for such a purpose. The wooden doors and floors of these tall chimney-like structures would have presented inviting targets for the flaming arrows of the Vikings. Indeed, some towers show evidence of fire damage around the entrances, and there are accounts of people being burned to death in the towers.12 Furthermore, some of the round towers were constructed within the areas of Viking townships, an unlikely place to construct a refuge from the Danes.13

Prior to the arrival of the Normans in 1167, the round towers may have been the only noteworthy buildings constructed of stone in Ireland, at a time that the first church structures were made of wood.14 They may have been constructed with round sides simply because using stone rubble to construct a rounded building was relatively easy; it was more costly to transport and dress the stone blocks needed for a building with corners.15 The doorways in these towers, which could be six meters, or almost 20 feet from the ground, were positioned above a lower story entirely filled with rock rubble for stability.

There may have originally been some 120 round towers in Ireland. Most of the 65 now remaining are in a ruined state, with less than 20 in good condition. Only one retains its original conical cap, at Clondalkin, near Dublin. Kildare can boast five round towers, the most of any county in Ireland.16