Glendalough Roundtower — Attraction in The Municipal District of Wicklow

Glendalough Glendalough is pretty, serene, sacred and well worth visiting. That means that it gets a lot of visitors but it is a large campus and can take the numbers without seeming crowded. Gleann dá Loch, the valley of two lakes, is one of Ireland’s best known monastic sites. It is associated with Saint Kevin and was the seat of a diocese. The diocese of Glendalough no longer exists and its territory was subsumed into the Archdiocese of Dublin in the fourteenth century. The round tower is remarkably intact. As children we were taught that these were built to protect the monastic treasures from marauding Vikings. Funny to think that we believed that a group who could navigate the North Sea could not besiege a single tower! Allegedly it was the monks of Glendalough who attacked the monastery in Tallaght and it was the monks themselves, not the poor Danes, who plundered the manuscripts. Despite their reputation for recklessness, there is no real evidence of the Vikings plundering monasteries. The booty from the Irish monasteries is not in Oslo, Stockholm or Copenhagen – it is in London. So who ransacked Glendalough? On a real historical level, the Church is a cathedral and was staffed by a community of canons. The round tower is called a ‘bell house’ in Irish and this is its most likely function. It also would have served as a focal point for people travelling to Glendalough. With the possible exception of the Caher, a low ring enclosure beside the upper lake, all of the buildings were built by the English-Normans, the Caher might be a Gaelic construction. There was a legend that there is no bottom to the upper lake and that a Lough Ness type monster...

Glendalough Tower is an outstanding example of Irish medieval architecture, symbolising both the religious and defensive functions of the monasteries of the time.

The tower was built in the early Middle Ages, probably between the 9th and 12th centuries, as part of a monastic complex founded by Saint Kevin in the 6th century. Round towers in Ireland, including Glendalough, are considered to have had multiple functions. The main hypotheses about their purpose are that they served as bell towers to call monks and local residents to prayer, and as a refuge during raids, due to the high location of the entrance.

Architecture: • The tower is about 30–34 meters high, making it one of the tallest round towers in Ireland. The circumference at the base is about 16 meters. • The entrance is located 2–3 meters above the ground, which ensured safety: in the event of an attack, the ladder could be pulled inside. • The interior of the tower is divided into several tiers, connected by wooden staircases. It is topped with a conical roof, which is typical of surviving round towers, although many others have had their roofs collapsed over time. • Built of stone, with an internal cavity between the walls filled with rubble...

A beautiful monastery in a picturesque glacial valley. St Kevin founded a monastery here in the early 600’s AD, surrounded by woods, lakes, and the steep slopes of the nearby hills.

The monastery contains a fine example of a round tower, as well as smaller monastic buildings in the vicinity. Some are well-preserved, like St Kevin’s church, others are in a more ruinous state, like the Cathedral. The site was destroyed in 1398 and had declined in importance previously, but it was still remembered and the ruins preserved until modern times.

The monastic centre is well worth visiting, but on sunny days or weekends, it can attract large crowds, and might be best seen towards evening when the crowds are less.

The surrounding areas have many scenic walks, and for those of moderate fitness, the White Trail, around the Upper Lake, provides wonderful views. This also includes the Miner’s Way, where an abandoned village of silver and lead miners...