Martello Tower

Martello Tower--Portmarnock,Ireland
(Photo by Luke Carroll)

     I was with cousins for a couple of days. They live in a town near the Irish Sea called Portmarnock just north of Dublin. A few days ago we went on a walk to the Irish Sea coast and we saw a group of towers called the Martello Towers. There are 50 towers in Ireland and 103 towers in England.

     These towers are the main towers in a group of towers that protected the coast of Ireland and England because they were afraid that Napoleon was going to invade these two countries in the early 1800s.

    If Napoleon's ships were spotted the men in the towers would light a fire on the tower roof and the other towers would see and light their own fires to communicate with each other. The towers were never used because Napoleon never came.