of Maidoc or Madoc of Ferns, who died in 624. At one time, the island was named for these sons of Nessan, as Inis-mac-Nessan, and in Latin this naming appears in a Papal bull of 1179, as Insula Filiorum Nessani. The church once had a round tower on top, one of only nine such churches known. The church was at least partly rebuilt by the 12th century. In some accounts, it is said to have been founded by a "St Nessan" but later scholars showed that this was based on misinterpretation, and confusion of two men with this name, St Nessan being a figure from another part of Ireland with no connection to Ireland's Eye. The Garland of Howth The church had one or more scribes, and they reputedly produced a manuscript book of the four gospels, the Garland of Howth, sometime between the 8th and 10th century, a book later stored in the church. The manuscript is now held in the library of Trinity College Dublin, and has illuminated pages for the beginnings of two of the gospels. Shearman, in Historical Collections (1860) reported a local legend about the book, that it had been thrown at a devil by one of the sons of Nessan, splitting the rock of Howth Head to form Puck Rock, and that it was found centuries later by a local fisherman and presented to Peggy (Margaret) Plunkett, wife of the then Lord of Howth. Raids and loss of status The island was attacked by raiders from the Welsh or English coast in either 701 or 702, and a king of Bregia was killed; attacks, by Vikings, continued in the 9th and 10th centuries, with episodes recorded in 897 and 960, for example. The church became inactive in the 13th century, and its status as a prebend of St Patrick's Cathedral was revoked, being granted instead by the archbishop to St Mary's Abbey in Howth in 1235, with the Garland of Howth transferred as a result. Ireland's Eye was a possession of the Bishop of Dublin, and later the archdiocese, as confirmed by Pope Alexander III to Saint Laurence O'Toole. It eventually became an element of the Howth estate, held by the St Lawrence family since the invasion of Ireland. 19th century After centuries when the island was little mentioned, a Martello tower was built in 1803 or 1804 as part of the programme of