The BBC has reported on how, in the grounds of a grammar school in Northern Ireland sits what locals has believed for years to be the remains of a 17th Century windmill, but has now been identifies as a genuine Irish Round Tower.
The BBC writes:
Lumen Christi College contains the stump of what archaeologists from Queen’s University Belfast have now revealed to be an early medieval monastic round tower. It is highly probable it is part of the site of St Columba’s monastery. Stephen Doherty, who has been a staff member at the school for almost 20 years, came up with the theory that the windmill was in fact a round tower over a decade ago, and since then has been working towards proving it. ‘I remember having a cup of tea with a colleague of mine, and I just happened to say that I was convinced that it was actually a monastic tower in our school grounds,’ he said….
Five years ago Mr Doherty and his colleague brought a group of historians together to form the Derry Tower Heritage Group (DTHG), which ultimately led to an archaeological excavation by Queen’s Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork on the site in 2016. It was then that Mr Doherty had a discussion with the director, Dr Colm Donnelly, that would really get the research off the ground. ‘I mentioned to him, that in 2013 when the Northern Ireland Environmental Agency was doing a restoration and securing the tower to make it safe as a scheduled monument, I asked one of the stone masons to extract a mortar sample from the structure,’ Mr Doherty said.’I still had that sample in my possession at the time, so I gave it to him to take back to the university.’
Dr Donnelly took the sample to a colleague, Dr Gerard Barrett, who was trying to work on the radiocarbon dating of mortar using ‘cutting-edge’ technology, and after running the necessary tests, he got back to the group with the news that the sample was in fact a medieval date. The suggestion is that the tower could have been constructed as early as 1170 and the DTHG have said that the monument could have been anywhere between 80 and 150ft tall – making it one of the highest on record….
There are 15 known examples of round towers in Ulster, two of which are still standing – one on Devenish Island (County Fermanagh) and The Steeple in Antrim (County Antrim). Drawing from evidence of other monasteries that have survived, the round tower discovery indicates that it was the central point of St Columba’s monastery, because the towers were always the main feature. Dr Donnelly believes opportunities to excavate in and round the area should be taken…’
