Henry O'Brien

Henry O'Brien (1808–1835) was an Irish antiquary. Born in County Kerry and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he entered the Royal Irish Academy's competition of 1830 on the origin of the round towers of Ireland with an essay arguing that they were pre-Christian temples of an Eastern cult brought by the Tuath-De-Danaans. The prize went to George Petrie, who held the towers to be medieval bell towers, and O'Brien published his essay in enlarged form in 1834 with an angry preface. He died in London the following year at twenty-seven. His book has been reprinted several times as a curiosity of speculative scholarship.