SNIPPET: "It may be folly, yet when you and I have passed away, the Irish in America will make a pilgrimage to the Irish round tower in Milford, Massachusetts." These were the words of Father Patrick CUDDIHY, a man who translated his boyhood memories of Ireland into dignified granite reality in his adopted home. Labeled as agitator by the authorities in Ireland, Fr. Patrick found welcome in the United States. The Franciscan priest's legacy - the only Irish round tower in America - still rose above St. Mary's Cemetery in Milford, MA, per article by Peter F. STEVENS in the Summer 1998 issue of "The World of Hibernia" magazine. Per the article -- Historians believe that Irish monks erected round towers to hide away from rampaging Vikings and other invaders in the Dark Ages. When such attacks were imminent, the monks would ascend the towers through a series of ladders that they would pull up behind them. The round, reinforced design of the towers made them nearly impenetrable by battering ram, and because they were made of stone, the towers could not be burned down. They also served as excellent lookout posts. Round towers can be found throughout Ireland, especially along the coast and near rivers. Long since abandoned, the structures symbolize an age in which monks, according to author Thomas CAHILL, "saved Western civilization" by hiding priceless manuscripts and books in round towers to rescue them from destruction. Of course, Father CUDDIHY, born in Cashel, Co. Tipperary, in 1809, did not have to worry about Viking invaders. In fact, he grew up in the shadow of the sacred mount known as the Rock of Cashel, where St. Patrick received his holy orders. Atop the high rock of Cashel sits a cathedral as well as one of Ireland's most famous round towers, which may have been in the inspiration that led him the priest to build a similar structure in a nation an ocean away. He came of age in a nation prostrate beneath British rule following the failed Irish uprisings in 1798. A highly intelligent youth, he was sent to the Continent to prepare for the priesthood and in 1831 was ordained a Franciscan priest in Rome. Upon taking his vows, he returned to his homeland, where he tended parishes in Limerick, Clonmel, and Waterford. Often his sermons proved far more political than those of most adherents to the gentle tenets of his order's founder, St. Francis of Assisi. During the early decades of the 19th century, CUDDIHY became friendly with Daniel O'CONNELL, a crusader for Catholic Emancipation and Repeal of the Union. His support for O'CONNELL put him under the Crown's suspicion as an agitator. Yet O'CONNELL's movement was doomed to failure. And with the collapse of that effort, officials in power in Ireland informed CUDDIHY's superiors "that Ireland would be more easily ruled after he (Cuddihy) left it." He did not leave without a fight, however, serving his desperate parishioners throughout the Great Famine. Finally, in 1852, the 43-year-old priest was assigned to Boston, arriving "with the prestige of a political martyr," according to an 1897 New York Times article, 'Sixty-six Years in the Priesthood,' that went on to claim that at several postings in Massachusetts, CUDDIHY characteristically took on any Yankees, "industrial, political, and religious (who) he thought were acting in a manner detrimental to the interests of his parishioners." CUDDIHY was able to channel his energies elsewhere when he was sent to the heavily Irish town of Milford, MA, in 1857. A decade after his posting there, he laid the cornerstone for his new church, St. Mary of the Assumption, whose pink-granite walls had been hewn from a nearby quarry. As that church community grew, the need for a new Catholic school became evident, and by 1896 his mostly Irish parishioners had lugged and crafted stone from the quarry to establish St. Mary's School. With the two functional buildings completed, he was ready for another construction project - an Irish round tower. Paul CURRAN, a Milford historian and expert on CUDDIHY's tower, has documented that the Irish priest built the tower so that his fellow immigrants and their descendants would remember their homeland. The April 20, 1894, issue of the Milford Gazette reported: "Fr. CUDDIHY has commenced work on construction of a large tower in the new section of the Catholic cemetery. The tower, as we understand it, is to be modeled after one seen in Ireland by the venerable preacher on his travels." By May 1894 it stood 55 feet tall. Local craftsman's chisels, hammers, and strong backs were shaping pink granite similar to that of the towers the workers recalled from their native counties. 'A Short History of the Irish in Milford,' published in the summer of 1894, reflected -- 'When the tower is completed, no more picturesque spot will be found ... Milford's round tower ... will stand there for ages like a sentinel watching over the city of the dead (St. Mary's Cemetery).' Fr. Patrick prowled the site during the construction, scrutinizing each stone and consulting architectural books; he reportedly enlisted the technical guidance of a RI architect, who showed up at the site on several occasions. Although a number of historians and architects would pronounce that the model for the tower was the stately round tower of Glendalough in Co. Wicklow, CURRAN has challenged that contention. On a voyage to Ireland in 1896, the aging priest is said to have told his friend Alfred WEBB that the Milford tower mirrored the one on Devenish Island in Co. Fermanagh. Completed in the fall of 1895, it was 14 feet in diameter at the base and rose 73.6 feet to a coned roof crowned by a cross. Four windows graced the tower's top. Two narrower windows were cut farther down its walls. The structure differed from traditional Irish towers in that its doors opened at ground level - permitting access without the use of a ladder. CUDDIHY remained a man of "'mental vigor and not a little physical strength," right up to his death in 1898, eulogized a friend. He was, the tribute continues, "a fine old Irish gentleman and a good old priest." As was his wish, the priest reposes not far from his cherished round tower, in a crypt beneath St. Mary's. Fr. Patrick believed that his round tower would become an Irish-American shrine for those wanting a glimpse of the Auld Sod in America. Although people did not flock to the tower, the very existence of the monument on American soil was his legacy. For more than two decades, CURRAN has led a fight to preserve the tower from the elements and was attempting to seek the assistance of the Massachusetts Endangered Historic Resources Program at the time STEVENS, article went to press. (A nice photo of the tower circa 1940 by George MORTE, and a painting of the Father accompany the article). A unique piece of architecture and an enduring legacy of the Irish in the United States, Fr. Patrick CUDDIHY's tower's only enemy at that time was not the Vikings, but neglect.