The second opinion seems most probable, as all over the East they have tall, round towers, with balconies at top, whence a person calls the people to public worship at stated hours. As the Irish had all their customs, &c. from Phoenicia, of course they may have had these towers also, and therefore their use must have been the same as those of the East. It is not an improbable conjecture, that those towers in the ages, when learning had almost attained the utmost perfection in Ireland, may have been used as observatories.

Kilrush, three miles and a half west of Old Kilcullen, had an abbey founded in the thirteenth century; it appears to have been intended as a place of defence, as it was surrounded by a ditch of great breadth, faced with masonry ten feet high. In 1642, the earl of Ormond with three thousand foot, five hundred horse, and five field pieces, was detached into the county of Kildare to destroy the possessions of rebels, to relieve the castles, and to strengthen the loyal garrisons: such were the petty expeditions, which suited the genius and views of the chief governors. On his return to Athy he received intelligence that Mountgarrett, attended by the lords Dunboyne and Ikerrin, Roger Moore, Hugh Byrne, and other rebel leaders of Leinster, at the head of eight thousand foot, and some troops of horse, had crossed the Barrow at Mageny-ford, and were posted

to

to advantage on the high grounds of Bistown, four miles from Athy. It was resolved in a council of war, that, as their numbers were diminished by garrisons, harrassed, encumbered, and ill provided, they should by no means hazard an engagement, unless the enemy should oppose their march to Dublin. Ormond proceeded on his march with every necessary precaution along the high grounds of Russelstown, Ardscull, Funtstown, and Kilrush, whilst the rebel army moved on in the same direction along the high grounds of Ballyndrum, Glassealy, and Narraghmore, and drew up their army most advantageously on the high grounds of Kilrush and Bullhill, thus completely intercepting Ormond's further progress, and a general engagement became unavoidable; the left wing of the Irish was broken by the first charge; the right, animated by their principal leaders, maintained the contest for some time, and retired in good order to a neighbouring eminence, since called Battlemount, but here they broke, fled, and were pursued across the grounds they had marched over in the morning; the line of pursuit is discoverable by the number of human bones turned up at Glassealy, when the earth is stirred a foot deep. This victory was considered of so much consequence, that Ormond was presented by the commons with a jewel, value £500.

Monastereven.

Monastereven. In the seventh century St. Abban founded a sumptuous abbey, and granted the privilege of a sanctuary; St. Evin from South Munster filled it with monks. The consecrated bell, which belonged to this saint, called Bernan Empin, was on solemn trials sworn on, and was committed to the care of the M'Egans, hereditary chief justices of Munster. This abbey, with its appendages, became the property of the ancient noble family of O'Moore; it has been sumptuously repaired, preserving its venerable appearance, and the name of Moore-abbey, by the present marquis of Drogheda.

Here is also a very noble building, the parish church, with a handsome steeple; the church-yard is walled in, and served a party of the rebels as a temporary protection, when three thousand in 1798 attacked and seized on the town; they were soon dispossessed by the gallantry of forty yeomen cavalry, and thirty-six infantry, newly raised' under the command of that experienced steady officer, Frederick Haysted, 'assisted by his relatives of the Bagot family. On this occasion sixty-five rebels lay dead in the streets; the remainder sought safety in flight. Near the close of the conflict, a lad of eighteen, son of Mr. Robert Nicolson, was carried to his father's house mortally wounded; more attentive to his father's consolation, than to his dying pangs, on being told the rebels fied on all sides, he exultingly seized