Ирландияның орта ғасырлық дөңгелек мұнаралары

Irish mediaeval stone tower beside a church or monastery

Irish round towers (Cloigtheach (singular), Cloigthithe (plural); literally 'bell house') are early medieval stone towers of a type found mainly in Ireland, with two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. As their name Cloigtheach indicates, they were originally bell towers, though they may have been later used for additional purposes. A tower of this kind is generally found in the vicinity of a church or monastery, with the door of the tower facing the west doorway of the church. Knowledge of this fact has made it possible, where towers still exist, to determine without excavation the approximate sites of lost churches that once stood nearby.

Surviving towers range in height from to , and to in circumference; that at Kilmacduagh being the highest surviving in Ireland (and leaning out of perpendicular). The masonry differs according to date, the earliest examples being uncut rubble, while the later ones are of neatly joined stonework (ashlar). The lower portion is solid masonry with a single door raised two to three metres above, often accessible only by a ladder. Within, in some, are two or more floors (or signs of where such floors existed), usually of wood, and it is thought that there were ladders in between. The windows, which are high up, are slits in the stone. The cap (roof), is of stone, usually conical in shape, although some of the towers are now crowned by a later circle of battlements.

It is likely that the primary reason for the round tower was—as the name cloigtheach indicates—to act as a belfry. The Irish word for round tower, cloigtheach, literally meaning bellhouse indicates this, as noted by George Petrie in 1845. The Irish language has greatly evolved over the last millennium. Dinneen has suggested that the towers were originally high status royal chapels, citing how two of them (Kells and Duleek) were scenes of regicide. He also suggested that the windows were arranged clockwise to imitate the order of relic carrying procession from the elevated door to the very top. Another possible purpose would be for taking shelter during raids. The mostly enclosed top floors and stone rooftops would make for terrible belltowers. The elevated doorway could have had a ladder that would be drawn up during raids, and the thick stone walls could withstand most attacks. Since the doors always face where a church stood, this also adds weight to the theory they were where monks would evacuate to. The oldest reference to a round tower (the one at Slane, see below) records its use as a refuge however in this case it was burnt by the Vikings, killing everyone inside.

Daniel O'Connell's tomb at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin had a round tower built above it after his burial in 1847. At what is now the Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig in County Wexford, there is a 19th century copy of a round tower. It was erected to the memory of the Wexford men who fell in the Crimean War. Adjacent to St. Mary's church, Ballygibbon, County Cork, the Waterloo Round Tower is an architectural folly bell tower that was built in the 1840s to resemble mediaeval round tower. At St. Ita's Hospital in Portrane, County Dublin, there is a replica round tower built in 1844 as a memorial to George Hampden Evans by his wife. In the Knockmealdown Mountains in County Waterford is another memorial in the form of an 18m high round tower. It was erected in 1935 on the spot where Liam Lynch, military leader of the anti treaty Irish Republican Army during the Irish Civil War is thought to have fallen in 1923. The Ulster History Park in County Tyrone has a replica of a round tower. St Patrick's Church of Ireland church in Saul, County Down has a round tower, built in 1933. The Chaine Memorial Tower in Larne County Antrim is a lighthouse done in the style of a round tower. It was built to commemorate James Chaine, a former MP for Antrim.

Another "revival" round tower was built in 1997 in the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Belgium, as a war memorial to the soldiers of the island of Ireland who died, were wounded or are missing from World War I. The 110 feet (34 m) tower is in the traditional design of an Irish round tower and is partially built with stone from a former army barracks in Tipperary. At Saint Mary's Cemetery in Milford, Massachusetts a round tower was built of Milford granite in the late 19th century as a memorial to central Massachusetts' Irish immigrants, of whom thousands are buried there. In 2003 Tony Ryan, a native of Thurles, County Tipperary, built a round tower at his Castleton Lyons Stud in Kentucky. The second church to be built on the site of St John the Evangelist Catholic Church in East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, completed in December 1900, features a 13 metre Irish round tower on its eastern side. The tower is based on the entrance to King Cormac's Chapel on the Rock of Cashel in Tipperary, built in 1137. The structure is now part of the Catholic Leadership Centre, operated by the Catholic Education Office Melbourne.