Kinneigh : Round Tower

CountyCork
Grid RefW 327 573
Longitude8° 58' 29.73" W
Latitude51° 45' 50.85" N
ITM east480366
ITM north584435
Nearest TownDunmanway (10.7 Km)
OS Sheet86
UTM zone29U
UTM x449041
UTM y5761192
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Visit Notes

Sunday, 23rd June 2002

Maybe this should be a not quite Round Tower. This is because the bottom 6m or so are actually hexagonal - the only one like it in Ireland.

It has been reduced to half height and then at some stage converted into a bell tower - it now sports a little roof. Inside there are traces of the unusual stone flagged floor.

The sign next to it says it's 10th century.

Click Thumbnail to View Full Size Image

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Sunday, 13th April 2003

I didn't think I'd been here before, because the place seemed totally different. It just shows what a difference a wet rainy day can make to a place. I knew I'd been to a tower with a hexagonal base before and something in the back of my mind was saying "I thought there was only one like that!" ... well there is!

The round tower is built on a large rock outcrop, giving it obviously extra stability and strength. The doorway is a very poor one - perhaps chosen from the budget accessories range - and has a very weak looking thin and scrappy lintel.

Round Towers are found all over Ireland. They are very tall towers associated with early monastic settlements. Their purpose is one of much debate: were they bell towers, look-out towers or were they defensive structures, built to protect the sites relics and books during Viking raids? Maybe they were all three! The high-set doors certainly give the impression that some element of defense was considered in their construction.

Internally they had four or five floors, each accessed via a ladder from the floor below. Not every floor had a window, but the top floor usually had four windows which aligned to the cardinal points of the compass. The one at Kells (County Meath) unusually has five windows on the top floor which point at the five gates to the town.

Not many of the eighty plus examples left are full height these days. Many crumbled and were taken down for safety purposes. Some, however, are still very impressive inded with Kilmacduagh (County Galway) reaching an incredible 35m tall.

Originally all of them would have had a conical roof and those that still possess this feature give the impression of being ready to blast off into space.

Like this monument

Marked Sites

Random Gazetteer

A Selection of Other Round Towers

About Coordinates Displayed

This is an explanation of (and a bit of a disclaimer for) the coordinates I provide.

Where a GPS figure is given this is the master for all other coordinates. According to my Garmin these are quite accurate.

Where there is no GPS figure the 6 figure grid reference is master for the others. This may not be very accurate as it could have come from the OS maps and could have been read by eye. Consequently, all other cordinates are going to have inaccuracies.

The calculation of Longitude and Latitude uses an algorithm that is not 100% accurate. The long/lat figures are used as a basis for calculating the UTM & ITM coordinates. Consequently, UTM & ITM coordinates are slightly out.

UTM is a global coordinate system - Universal Transverse Mercator - that is at the core of the GPS system.

ITM is the new coordinate system - Irish Transverse Mercator - that is more accurate and more GPS friendly than the Irish Grid Reference system. This will be used on the next generation of Irish OS maps.

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