354 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. x. 



the Bronze age, just as the habit of using crannoges is 

 also a survival. The same remark applies also to the 

 round beehive huts of the Orkneys and the North of 

 Scotland. The relation of " cloghauns " to the raths or 

 forts, which abound in Ireland as well as in Britain, is 

 shown by an appeal to the habits of the Irish in the six- 

 teenth century. " So late as that time," writes Sir William 

 Wilde, 1 " the native Irish retained their wandering habits, 

 tilling a piece of fertile land in the spring, then retiring 

 with their herds to the ~booleys, or dairy habitations 

 (generally in mountain districts) in the summer, and 

 moving about where the herbage afforded sustenance to 

 their cattle. They lived, as Spencer describes them in 

 the reign of Elizabeth, ' on their milk and white meats ' 

 (curds, cheese, with meal, and probably calves' flesh, etc.), 

 and returning in autumn to secure their crops, they re- 

 mained in community in their forts or entrenched 

 villages during the winter. The remains of thousands 

 of these forts or raths still stud the lowlands of every 

 county in Ireland, notwithstanding the thousands which 

 have been obliterated. They are earthen enclosures, 

 generally circular, and varying in extent from a few 

 perches to an acre or more, and afforded protection to 

 the inhabitants and their flocks against the ravages of. 

 beasts of prey with which the country then abounded, 

 or against the predatory incursions of hostile tribes either 

 in war or during a cattle raid. A breastwork of earth 

 from four to eight feet high surrounded the enclosure, 

 being the material ready at hand, and the most easily 

 worked, and was probably surmounted by a stake fence. 

 In some a ditch surrounded the earthwork. Upon some 

 of the plains, as well as the hill-sides, stone fortresses 



1 Cat. R. Irish A cad., i. p. 99. 



