186 Mr. Petbie on the History and Antiquities of Tara Hill. 



south to the north. The section from east to west, which is on a scale of 60 f. 

 to an inch, shews thus : 



From these sections, as well as from the ground-plan on the map, it will be 

 seen that in the preceding accounts of this building there is nothing stated 

 which is not fully corroborated by the ruins still existing ; and it may be again 

 remarked, as a curious proof of the accuracy of the prose description, that the un- 

 certainty as to the number of doors being twelve or fourteen remains a diflSculty 

 at the present time. 



There is, however, another ancient account of this building, also preserved in 

 the Dinnseanchus, which enters into details more likely to awaken scepticism, 

 namely, the poem of Kineth O'Hartigan, written about the middle of the tenth 

 century ; and, certainly, if the object of this investigation were any other than 

 the discovery of truth, it might, perhaps, be most prudent to follow the example 

 of the Irish literati, by allowing it to slumber in the darkness of its ancient lan- 

 guage. But as this document is the sole authority from which the Irish writers 

 of the two last centuries have drawn their startling accounts of the magnificence 

 and splendour of the regal palace of the Irish monarchs, it is necessary that its 

 statements should be exposed to rational investigation without any partial sup- 

 pression, or mutilation ; nor should those parts, which receive corroboration from 

 existing circumstances, be hastily rejected in consequence of their being associated 

 with traditional details dressed in the garb of bardic exaggeration, and which, 

 viewed even as fictitious, are still valuable as evidences of the notions of civiliza- 

 tion prevalent at the time. 



It must, indeed, be confessed, that while the garbled extracts hitherto given 

 from this poem have helped to bring the early Irish authorities into disrepute, 

 they have also led to conclusions which it by no means authorizes. A remark- 

 able example of this result occurs in the second volume of Mr. Moore's able 

 history of Ireland, incomparably the best which has yet appeared. In recording 

 the death of the poet, Kineth O'Hartigan, Mr. Moore adds: "A poem of this 

 writer is still preserved, descriptive of the beauty of the celebrated hill of Tara, 



