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town, and to guard the ancient road from the borders into the 

 pale which crofTes the chtu"ch hill, as on this fame ridge of 

 ground, better than a mile diflance weflward, ftands the ftrong 

 caftle of Larah, clofe to another high road from The Woods, 

 which it ihut up and commanded, preventing any pofhbility of 

 a body of men coming into the pale from this quarter. But 

 this caftle I take to be a later work, and an advancement of the 

 borders of the pale ; and I believe the word Larah fignifies the 

 border. 



Having ventured to mention the fort of Ardnorcher as one of 

 the frontier forts of the pale, I ihall here offer my reafons for that 

 affertion : And firft, I will obferve, that many of the Irifli fam.ilies 

 beyond this point remained in poffefhon of their lands for feve- 

 ral centuries after Hugh De Lacy's time, and fome of them con- 

 tinue in pofTeflion to this hour ; but that not one Irifh family 

 have any landed property within it ; and that befides, in Abbe 

 Mac Geoghegan's map of Ireland, the delineation of the Englifh 

 pale will be found to run near this diredlion. 



The river that comes from the northward to Ardnorcher I 

 fuppofe to have been the boundary of the pale, becaufe at the 

 ford on this river, at the green of Donore Geoghegan, where 

 another road enters the pale from The Woods, there is a ftrong 

 fort on the Englifh fide of the river, commanding the ford and 

 the road, and rendering the paffage this way an enterprize of 

 danger ; and becaufe that, from this point northward, as far as 

 my eye could reach, I traced through a low fwampy bottom a 



wide 



