Si 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



stones. The ancient primitive fortifications of the 

 Irish are called Baths, Moat a or Moats, Duns, 



\ 



Fig. 62. Doorway of Caher, Inishmore (Aran), Galway Bay. 



Fig. 53. Plan of ditto. 



Fig. 54. Fosleac, or Flag-dwelling, Burren, co. Clare. 



IBI \ 



Fig. 55. Plan of ditto. 



Cahers, and Liss. Of these names, Moata seems to 

 be an introduced word from the English, and is 



applied to some of the royal forts or Baths. Hath 

 properly should only be used to denominate a royal 

 residence, but it or its diminutive Raheen, is applied 

 very generally by the ! English-speaking people to 

 all forts. Dun, properly, is a round steep hill, but 

 as many of this class of hills were fortified, the 

 word came to be used for large forts. Caher sig- 

 nified an inclosure, with a stone fortification or 

 rampart. Many large cahers are called " Duns," 

 while the royal cahers, in the annals, are nearly 

 invariably called " Raths." A Liss is an inclosure, 

 surrounded by one or more clay banks, associated 

 with trenches or fosses. In the Burren, all the 

 cahers observed are round or slightly oval, and in 



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Fig. 56. Cromleac at Castlewellan, co. Down. 



general consisted of one thick stone wall or rampart ; 

 in some, however, around the outside of the main 

 fortification there was a lesser one, probably prin- 

 cipally used as a stockyard for cattle, to preserve 

 them from the wolves. The main fortifications arc 

 of different diameters, and most of the large ones 

 seem to have had chambers in their walls. These 

 were about five feet high, four or five feet wide, 

 and of various lengths. In the large ones there 

 was a parapet on the inside of the rampart, on which 

 the inhabitants could walk to view the country or 

 defend the fort. One of these cahers, which is 

 situated on the heights over Corrifin, is of a peculiar 

 and rare type, having, as an outer defence work, 

 a remarkable chevaux-de-frise, made of long lime- 

 stone flags, stuck in the ground thickly together, 

 obliquely sloping outwards, so that even at the 

 present day it is hard to approach it. This defence 

 was from two to three hundred yards wide, while 

 the entrance to the caher was reached by a narrow 

 serpentine path. The doorway to these cahers was 

 of a similar type to fig. 52, which represents the 

 outer portions of a doorway of a caher that once 

 existed near Dunoghil, on Inishmore (one of the 

 Aran Isles), Galway Bay, but the rest of it, and the 

 entire wall of the fort, have long since been taken 

 away by the occupiers of the land. A very charac- 



