Kells Round Tower

Kells Round Tower rises twenty-six metres above County Meath, its sandstone and limestone body marking a place where Saint Columba first settled before monks from Iona returned to rebuild the abbey. The structure keeps five top windows instead of the usual four, supposedly pointing toward every road and gate entering the town. Its cap is gone, perhaps taken by lightning, leaving the tower exposed and blunt against the sky. A king lost his life inside that bell tower in 1076, while ordinary people once climbed wooden steps to reach the door high above the ground.