Rattoo Round Tower

Rattoo Round Tower is the only surviving complete round tower in Kerry. It stands in an early medieval ecclesiastical complex of Rattoo. The complex includes a graveyard with 29 tombs and 16 named headstones, with the earliest dating to 1770, with a further 45 unnamed headstones. The ecclesiastical complex is thought to date to the 13^th century and, with the addition of a round tower, suggests that the site was wealthy. Others suggest that the complex may have been associated with 6^th century Bishop Lughach.

What is known is that in 1210 Meiler Fitzhenry was granted much of this area of North Kerry by King John, after the Anglo-Norman invasion. An Augustinian abbey, correctly named The Hospital of St. John the Baptist (Fratres Cruciferi) and Arroasian Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul, was founded by Brother William after 1200. A charter confirms endowment of North Kerry to Meiler Fitzhenry and it goes on to say – built by Friar William in my lands in Kerry, witnessed by David, Bishop of Iarmuan/Ardfert.

There is a brief account in 1318 that the monks were destroyed and burned by the Irish of the locality. When the site was abandoned is unknown. In 1573, the Earl of Desmond was in possession of a lease of the area and this was renewed in 1576, and it is thought the monks remained until the disastrous second Desmond rebellion when all of the Earls properties became the possession of the Crown. It appears that John Zouche, an English commander, was granted the lands of Rattoo. In later centuries the lands were owned by the Gunn family.

The round tower is one of the finest examples in Ireland. Built of hard quartzose sandstone, dressed and evenly coursed inside and out and to a height of c.29m. An off-set of 20cm from its base to the cornice of the cap allows for a gently and even batter. Its basal circumference is 15m. On the interior, it has six floor sitting on a rising ring of projection corbels.

The round headed door at 2.8m above ground, is the entrance door – accessed originally by a ladder, in the south east side of the tower. The door has a flat moulding, two curved spirals on its top arch with spirals on either side of the door, one spiral going clockwise the other anticlockwise. Above the door is a small pointed window, which is the fourth floor, and a further four windows, north, south, east and west, can be seen at the top of the tower.

On the inner frame of the north window a Sheela-na-gig with pellet moulding was discovered during repair work in 1880-81. The Sheela-na-gig, 30cm from head to foot and 14cm at its widest across the knees, is described as ‘flat figure with big head, pronounced forehead and strangely formed, almost rectangular ears, depression indication eyes and mouth, but no nose, a pointed chin, thick neck. Angular shoulders, no breasts. Arms flexed with left hand on thigh, hands not visible in plaster cast, but extension of arm pointing in direction of pudenda, right arm held at right angle. Thighs and calves of figure well rounded, both feet pointing outwards’. In reference to plaster casting, a plaster cast of the Sheela-na-gig is in the National Museum of Ireland. Typically the Sheela-na-gig are architectural grotesques with a heavy concentration in Ireland. The figures were used to ward off evil, demons and death.

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This national monument is protected in accordance with the National Monuments Acts 1930 to 2014