decided, that in every matter connected with the ancient history of
Ireland, her native historians (many of whom were eye-witnesses of the
facts they relate) are on no account to be credited; and that the safest
way of dealing with those chroniclers is, in every thing, to take for
granted exactly the reverse of what they may at any time assert. In
deference, therefore, to such high authorities, I shall waive any
advantage which I might claim on account of a quotation from the works of
a _native historian_, and proceed to show, from the reasonableness of
the thing itself, that those towers which you state "were certainly never
belfries," were in fact belfries, and were never any thing else.

_First_.--They are all situated within a few yards of _some ancient
church_, and which church is invariably _without a steeple_.

_Secondly_.--It is impossible to conceive, from their slender shape,
their great height, and their contiguity to the church, for what other
purpose they could have been intended, having, to a spectator inside, who
looks up to the top, exactly the appearance of an enormous gun-barrel.

_Thirdly_.--That in all of them now entire, the holes, for the
purpose of receiving the beam to support the bell, remain; and that in one
at least, that upon Tory Island, co. Donegal, the beam itself may be seen
at this day.

_Fourthly_, and which appears to me _more conclusive than all the
rest_, that these towers, in every part of Ireland, are, to this day,
called in Irish by the name of _clogach_, (cloig-theach,) that is,
_bell-house_, and that they are never called (in Irish at least) by
any other name whatever.