194 Mr. Petrie on the History and Antiquities of Tar a Hill. 



It would be absurd to receive as a historical evidence, a bardic poem which 

 only pretends to record the floating traditions of circumstances more than six 

 hundred years anterior to the period of its composition ; neither should a docu- 

 ment of such undoubted antiquity be wholly rejected as a poetic fable, without 

 some inquiry as to the possibility of its having at least a groundwork of truth — 

 and particularly if in those statements respecting the size, &c., of the buildings, 

 which the existing ruins enable the investigator to test, they should not be found 

 wanting in veracity. Now it is remarkable that the only disagreement between 

 the measurements of this building, as given in the poem, and in the present re- 

 mains, is that the latter are actually more than twice the length stated, namely, 

 near eight hundred feet ; for respecting its alleged height there is nothing to 

 awaken scepticism ; and even the apparent disagreement just noticed may be 

 explained by a plausible if not natural conjecture. Those measurements may 

 be true as applied to the Hall, or Place of Assembly, while the remaining space 

 on each side might have been occupied by apartments of lesser importance; and, 

 indeed, the triple names applied by the poet to this building seem to require 

 such a subdivision, for the Hall of Assembly could scarcely be called with 

 propriety the House of the Women, nor the House of the Flans, or common 

 soldiers. At all events the disagreement, such as it is, does not tend to stamp 

 the poem with the character of exaggeration ; and its statement of the number 

 of persons, which this " great house of a thousand soldiers" was capable of 

 accommodating, is well supported by the cautious remark of the prose account, 

 that it would seem true, for, that as many men would fit in it as would form 

 the choice part, that is, the chiefs, of the men of Ireland. It is not easy, how- 

 ever, to avoid considering as a poetic fiction the statement of the number of 

 one hundred and fifty resting or sleeping apartments, with fifty soldiers in each — 

 or in all seven thousand five hundred — which sleeping places are stated to have 

 been about or around the house ; yet it is evident that considerable accom- 

 modation must have been necessary for the military attendants of the provincial 

 and other princes who came to the assembly ; and it may not perhaps be puerile 

 to remark, that a very ample space on each side of the Hall, and in which such 

 apartments may be supposed to have existed, was unoccupied with any monu- 

 mental remains at the time when the descriptive accounts were written. Such 

 apartments were evidently of timber, and therefore no vestiges would be found 



