At the summit of the Hill of Allen in County Kildare, a limestone tower rises on ground that is, in more than one sense, precarious. The hill, once heavily forested, has been eaten away on three sides by quarrying, and the mound on which the tower stands sits a mere eight metres from a sheer cliff-edge. What survives is less a hill than a remnant of one, the quarry having removed a considerable portion of the original mass to the south, west, and north. That anything ceremonial was placed here at all, let alone a deliberate Victorian folly, lends the spot a quietly vertiginous quality.

The tower was built between 1859 and 1863 by Sir Gerald George Aylmer of Donadea Castle, a few miles to the north. Its limestone was quarried and cut at Edenderry, transported by canal to Robertstown, and then carted up the hill by Aylmer's own tenants. In exchange for their labour, Aylmer made an unusual promise: that each tenant's name would be carved in stone as what he called an everlasting memorial. The tower has eighty-three steps, and on each one a single name is inscribed, so the staircase functions as an unintentional parish record, preserving the surnames of families many of whose descendants still live in the Allen district today. At the top of the stairs, an inscription reads: "In thankful remembrance of God's mercies, many and great, Built by Sir Gerald George Alymer, Baronet, A.D. 1860." The date is slightly at odds with the broader construction period of 1859 to 1863, suggesting either that the inscription marks a particular phase of the work or that Aylmer simply chose a round year. Beneath the tower, the mound on which it stands is said to occupy the site of an ancient tumulus, one of those low earthen burial mounds common across the Irish midlands, though the quarrying that surrounds it has made any certain reading of the landscape difficult.