286 



use or exigence. In truth, the Irish too confidently rehed upon the 

 nerve of pubHc valour,* while their tyrants not only castled them- 

 selves in these strong holds, but even erected them in many in- 

 stances on ancient raths to be yet more impregnable ; the structures at 

 Clough, Castle-Screen, &c. are proofs of this, but the best specimen 

 of these castles yet remaining, is that called " Reginald's Tower," 

 situated in Waterford, and recorded to have been built about A. D. 

 1003. There is another edifice of this people still standing at Grants- 

 town, in the Queen's County. 



They even in many instances imitated the raths, funeral mounts, 

 and cairns, which we are disposed to think they found in the country. 

 The much greater frequency of their occurrence in Ireland, than in 

 any other country invaded by the Danes, would induce a faith that 

 those mentioned by Olaus, Joannes Cypreus, &c. as erected by them 

 in their native country and elsewhere, were the result of an imitation 

 of what they had seen in Ireland. 



The most splendid monument of this foreign adoption yet disco- 

 vered, is the Cairn of New Grange, near Drogheda. Some of our 

 readers may be surprised that it has not been spoken of at an earlier 

 period of this Essay, but all the evidences and accounts of this curious 

 antiquity, leave the strongest impression in our mind, that it was of 

 Danish construction, and for sepulchral uses. It has been so often 

 described, that any lengthened account of it here would be unneces- 

 sary, perhaps unjustifiable. Suflfice it to say, it is an acknowledged 

 cairn, seventy feet high, of a curvilinear periphery, covering about two 

 acres of ground, and containing nearly 190,000 tons' weight of stone. 

 Around the base is a circle of very large stones, from seven to eight 



* Dunamase, in the Queen's County, appears to be a solitary instance of a rath rudely 

 fortified at this early period by the Irish, as may be concluded from the account of its being 

 stormed by the Danes in 843, "expugnatio Dunimasgli municipii." — See ante, p. 258. 



