170 



a state of preservation as the latter, while it also varies from it in 

 swne particulars. 



Cahir-Gall,* as the peasants call this edifice, is somevk'hat larger 

 than the Staigs, which is eighty-eight by eighty-nine feet, being a 

 circle of ninety-four feet in diameter : the most perfect part of the 

 surrounding wall is thirteen feet high, but is irregular as if broken. 

 At top it is twelve feet broad, and seventeen feet six inches at 

 bottom ; the outer face of the wall batters regularly in the propor- 

 tion of nine inches in six feet; and round the inside are twelve 

 double pair of steps, arranged in the same crossing mode as at the 

 Staigs ; both the upper and lower tiers of steps are two feet broad. 

 The wall is without cement, but closely and well laid, being built 

 through the whole thickness with solid work of flat stones. The 

 entrance was on the south side, but from the broken down state of 

 this part of Uie wall, its exact width cannot be ascertained ; outside 

 of this breach are indistinct remains of concentric curves or steps 

 up to it. Tiiere is no appearance of cells in any part of the wall. 



In the middle of the area is a circular building of thirty feet in 

 diameter, the wall of which is full five feet six inches tliick, but is 

 not nearly so well put together as the great wall of circumference, 

 with which it scarcely appears to be contemporary, though evidently 

 very ancient ; about twenty-feet in height may remain, but in a 

 ruinous state, and without any appearance of having been intended 



* The white city, as translated by the country people in that neighbourhood. But possibly 

 the original name was Caer, which in Gaelic signifies an oracle, or a place of address. Garden 

 on Circular monuments. Archeo. I. p. 315. This is the more probable, as Cahir-curree is 

 placed upon a mountain top, where no city ever was, or indeed could have been placed. This 

 name has also been three times applied to similar antiquities by Dr. Smith in his History of 

 Kerry. The appellation Caer, an oracle, so repeated, is rational ; that of Cahir (which is pro- 

 nounced as if no h were in the word) is certainly not so. Gall is a rock or stone — Caer-gall, 

 perhaps the stone of the oracle. 



