54 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



reconstructed — in comparatively recent times for other than military 

 purposes. 1 Hence perhaps the absence of some features usually observed in 

 large dry-stone cathairs. But it is quite certain that the vast number of 

 stones which, in spite of known depredations, still remain in the walls of 

 Eathgall, were never collected there for any modern purpose, and the large 

 stones at the base of the outer circles have all the appearance of primitive 

 fortification. The reputed burial-place of the King of Leinster. with its rude 

 stone circle, must be provisionally regarded as pre-Christian. Scientific 

 excavation might he expected to throw light on the question of date, or, at 

 least, of stage of culture, and to afford more certain inferences of origin and 

 use : and it is to be hoped that some competent person may be encouraged to 

 undertake (with permission) such an investigation. Meantime, as far as my 

 judgment goes, I see nothing in the remains to negative the early period 

 suggested for the origin of the fortress. 



The substitution of the name Eathgall for Dun Galion, at a time when 

 the Galians had ceased to be a distinguishable people, is easy to account for. 

 "We have seen the derivation of the latter name given in the Book of Leinster, 

 and though the etymology is unscientifically stated, it is perhaps in its main 

 element substantially correct, and at any rate it indicates the tradition of the 

 foreign origin of the people. In his " Studies in Early Irish History" Sir 

 John Bhys has made some interesting remarks on the Galians and the return 

 of Labraid the Exile, whom he compares to Dermot Mac Murrough. He there 

 says : — " The name of the Galeoin seems to be of the same origin as TaXarai 

 and Galli"; 1 and in a note he observes: — "Galli itself, as a loan-word in Goidelic, 

 probably began at an early date to take the sense of Irish Gdill, ' strangers.' " 

 It is therefore readily intelligible that the name Dun Galion, ' the dun of the 

 Galians,' at a time when the Galians were no longer distinguishable, should 

 become Eathgall, ' the rath of the strangers.' Indeed I feel no difficulty in 

 supposing that there was an intermediate period when, as suggested in my 

 former paper, the fort was called Dun Bolg. I am now, however, inclined to 

 interpret this name as the " fort of the Builc " or Fir-bolg ; for the name 

 Fir-bolg, as Professor MacXeill has pointed out, " was extended in the Irish 

 history-legend at an early period, so as to denote the whole or main 

 population of Ireland before [or, as I would put it, other than] the Goedil." 

 I suggest, then, that the simplest explanation of the fort-names involving bolg is 

 that the forts to which such names were applied were regarded as, in origin, 

 forts of the Fir-bolg — i.e. non-Milesians. 



1 It is used as a bull-paddock, a purpose for which, to the eye of a cattle-rearer, it is 

 admirably suited. 



- Proc. Brit. Acad., vol. i, pp. 40, 50. Sir Joan Rhys derives all three names from a 

 stem ijal, meaning ' bravery,' ' valour.' 



