Скачать или смотреть ☘️Old Kilcullen Round Tower & Graveyard – Architecture and History 🏛️

Wander the hilltop ruins of Old Kilcullen, a 5th-century monastic site with a damaged and ruined round tower, high cross, and sweeping views of County Wicklow.

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:10 Round House
0:55 Churchyard
1:09 High Cross
1:31 Thank you

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Old Kilcullen is a compact but powerful early-Christian site on a hill outside Kilcullen village, County Kildare, dominated by a partly-ruined round tower, two High Crosses, and a walled graveyard — with sweeping views toward the Wicklow Mountains. In this brief video I fly over and walk through the site.

Round Tower
The round tower that dominates the site now stands at about ten metres high and is built of limestone, but it wasn’t always this small. It was stabilised after it was damaged during the 1798 conflict. The round towers served as a bell-towers and possibly as a refuge and secure storage. Old Kilcullen’s tower is a good example of a damaged but stabilised tower. The entrance sits around 2 metres above ground (a classic round-tower feature used to keep the interior secure). Tradition links Old Kilcullen to early Christian activity (Saint Isernius and Saint Mac Táil) in Ireland and even St Patrick’s era.

Attacks
The settlement became an important ecclesiastical site from the 5th century and in later centuries it was significant enough to be targeted by Viking raiders – it was plundered in 937AD with 1000 prisoners taken and again in 944AD by Amhlaoibh of Dublin and his Viking clan. The monastery was burned in 1114. These raids show that Old Kilcullen was more than a lonely chapel and that it was part of a larger settlement. Archaeology and aerial photography show features beyond the current churchyard, suggesting a sizeable medieval community clustered around the monastic site.

Crosses
Within the walled churchyard there are two high crosses and the bases of others. One decorated cross with biblical scenes survives only in part. The church foundations and the cross fragments show centuries of weathering, but they also map the continuity of worship from early Christian times through the medieval era. The graveyard is atmospheric, with outstanding views, and there are graves from different centuries.

Battle
The "Battle of Kilcullen" was a series of engagements in County Kildare on May 24, 1798, during the 1798 Rebellion. The battle involved Irish rebel forces and British troops, with fighting occurring at both Old Kilcullen and the Kilcullen turnpike. The initial phase at Old Kilcullen resulted in a rebel victory, but the fighting later moved to the turnpike, where the British trapped and routed the Irish rebels, causing significant damage to the area, the church and the round tower which was reduced in height (it is thought that 3 windows were lost).

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