What is recorded here

Kellistown East lost its round tower before the nineteenth century, leaving only ruins for sketchers and a church belfry built above the forgotten foundation. The transfer of height from pagan marker to Christian bell may have felt like justice to the men who hammered the new stone, or like theft to the ghosts who watched. Either way, the tower stopped being a tower and became a room for noise, its old purpose buried under the weight of ceremony.

The Anthologia Hibernica (Vol. IV., p. 105 July - December 1794) contains a sketch of a Round Tower in ruins at Kellistown (JKAS 1933, 271-7). A drawing by J. Saunders TCD, believed to date to c. 1797 also depicts the round tower in ruins. The OS Letters (O' Flanagan 1934, 44) note that the Belfry of the chuch (CW008-038001-) was built where the round tower stood. Reference: O' Flanagan, E. (typescript) 1934 Letters containing information relative to the Antiquities of the County of Carlow collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Compiled by: Claire Breen Date of upload: 19 August 2011

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