Scattery Island Round Tower

Situated within the monastic site on the E portion of Scattery Island c. 20m W of the cathedral (CL067-024008-). The tower (H 26m; diam. at base 5.08m) is complete except for the very top of the cap but is closed over internally. There are no floors or ladders remaining and entry through the ground-floor doorway (Wth 0.66m at base narrowing to 0.61m at the top; H 1.8m) gives a clear view to the top. There appear to have been six floors originally with slight offsets at each. The ground-floor doorway is only paralleled at Castledermot, Co. Kildare (KD040-002002-). The door head is formed by corbelling in three stones on either side with the gap between them closed by a short lintel. It faces ESE towards the door of the cathedral. The windows are all small and square-headed facing in ascending order to N, S, SE, WNW and N with four slightly larger at the top facing N, S, E and W. The walls (Wth 1.34m at base) are constructed of roughly coursed sandstone masonry generally comprising small stones but occasional larger rectangular stones are interspersed. A large crack virtually from cap to base was recorded in 19th-century photographs and was later repaired. The tower has a suggested date of the 10th to the 11th century. (Westropp 1897, 282-4; Barrow 1979, 64-6; Lalor 1999, 117-18) This is a national monument in state care, no. 10.