157 



Some of the large entrenched inclosures may have been Danish 

 as well as Irish, since they appear to have been merely fences 

 thrown up to protect the camp ; and it is not unlikely that during 

 the four hundred years of repeated invasion, these foreigners may 

 have adopted the plan, have raised some mounts, and occupied 

 others, which they seized from the natives. But there can be no 

 doubt, with the above exceptions, that they were customary erec- 

 tions of the Irisli, because the Brehon laws have provided very mi- 

 nute regulations concerning them ; and these laws were written and 

 in force in Ireland centuries before the northerns invaded the coun- 

 try.* It is also a striking fact, that throughout the western part of 

 Scotland and the Hebrides, all the works attributed to the Danes 

 are of stone, none being of the nature of the earthen mound. And 

 the circumstance of one among so many of these tumuli in the 

 county of Kilkenny, being distinguished, as Lis-terling, the Lis or 

 Fort of the Easterlings, means to point out, that their raising or pos- 

 sessing even one, was an uncommon occurrence. It may also be 

 suggested, that the veneration with which these forts are regarded 

 by the people, could hardly have sprung up for, or been yielded to 

 the works of their hated oppressors. 



The earth-works may be classed under different heads, as the 

 Barrow, the Lis, the Dun, the Rath and the Moat. 



The small sepulchral mount in England called Barrow,-^ but for 

 which no appropriate and distinctive Irish name appears in the dic- 



likeness to each other, tliat the error may easily have arisen from thence.— (-Philosophical Survey, 

 p. 24.7. 



• O'Reilly on the Brehon Laws. Transactions R. I. A. XIV. 



f In the Hebrides they are called Barpinin. — The words Barp and Barrow are originally Nor. 

 wegian. Macpherson on Antiquities of Scotland, p. 288. 



