172 



is no ditch immediately surrounding tlie wall, the ground being 

 very rough and rocky. 



A detailed account of the Staigs, being in so late a volume of the 

 Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,* it would be useless to 

 repeat that description here ; it will therefore be a more advisable 

 course to advert at once to the various conjectures which have been 

 made concerning the purpose for which the Staig-fort was erected. 



General Vallancey was of opinion that it was a Phenician am- 

 phitheatre.f On this Mr. Bland observes, that the cells are too 

 small to admit of wild beasts, and that there does not appear to 

 have been any contrivance for closing the entrance. It may be 

 added, that we have no account of such shows occurring in this 

 country, or among those tribes from whom we claim descent ; 

 neither was it likely that places of exhibition should have been seated 

 in these remote parts of the island, and in no others. 



It has been regarded by others as a place of defence ; and its 

 strength, from any direct or close attack, would have been of some 

 avail, surrounded as it was by a wide and deep fosse ; but its utmost 

 height is so moderate, and it is commanded so closely by the adja- 

 cent mountains, as to have its interior exposed to the arrows of an 

 enemy ; it is to be also observed, that it does not appear to have had 

 any protecting parapet or breast work. 



Mr. Bland tliinks it was a sort of depot for the goods belonging 

 to some foreign colony which came in search of ore. But for this 

 purpose the vast thickness of the walls, and the regularity and pe- 



* Vol. XIV. 



t The walls of the Staig-fort are constructed in the manner called Pelasgic ; that is, of large 

 uneven stones, with the interstices filled so closely with small pieces as to give the whole the 

 firmness of a rock. 



