Conleth Manning investigates a valuable 19th-century record of Irish round towers now believed to be in the USA.
This collection of forty-four watercolours of Irish round towers painted in the mid 19th century is known only from colour slide copies made in the 1950s before the originals were sold to an unknown American buyer. While the quality and colour of some of the slides is good, the colour in others has faded and some have suffered fungal damage. Despite this it is clear that the originals were of good quality and are an interesting and important record of these monuments before conservation work was carried out on many of them by the OPW.
