Situated on a hillside between Swinford and Bohola in county Mayo stands Meelick’s 10th century round tower. It is believed the tower dates between 923 and 1013 AD and is the only remains of an earlier ecclesiastical site attributed to St Broccaidh. The tower measures around 26 metres in height and would have had five or six floors, its conical cap is missing. The impressiveness of the tower is amplified by its positioning at both the highest point of the hill but also the highest point of the burial ground that surrounds it. The doorway stands 3.5 metres above the ground and an early gravestone with a carving of an interlaced cross stands at the base of the tower. This cross bears an inscription in Irish dating from the 10th or 11th century, it starts ‘ór dogr…’ or ‘ór dogri…’ this translates as ‘Pray for Gr…’, the name sadly now illegible. The National Monuments Service website alludes to a souterrain that once existed in the cemetery and was uncovered in 1967 by workmen digging trenches for the wall of the ‘new cemetery at Meelick’. It was a dry-stone construction with lintel roofing, some bone fragments and sea shells were recovered from it before it was covered over again, and its exact location is lost to time. The scant remains of two portions of the south wall of a church were recorded as recently as in the ordnance survey letters of the 1830s, it was located South-East of the tower, these are no longer visible. Usually in folk history the building a lot of the round towers and ecclesiastical structures of the west of Ireland are ascribed to a character known as the Gobán Saor, however interestingly in the case of Meelick there are several records denoting the builder as the ‘Cailleach Béara’. The ‘Cailleach Béara’ was a hag, wise woman or a witch depending on your world view and the Schools collection states she built the tower as a way of getting into heaven! Also as with many Irish historic sites its history alleges that the bold Oliver Cromwell and his soldiers fired at the tower, marking it, but unable to destroy it! The tower at Meelick is certainly an impressive structure and well worth the visit if passing through central Mayo.
GPS: 53.92152, -9.02006