[ 58 j 



IV. 

 TYPES OF THE RING-FORTS REMAINING IX EASTERN CO. CLARE. 



Part IT. (Cm elusion). 

 (CLONLARA, BROADFORD, CULLATJN, AND CLOONEY.) 

 By THOMAS JOHNSON WESTROPP, M.A. 

 Plates IT-TI. 



Read Ju>t: 23 ; published August 7, 1913. 



It now remains to close, rather than to complete, this survey of the more 

 interesting forts in eastern Clare hy giving the descriptions of a few remain- 

 ing on the skirts of the districts we have examined. I do not propose passing 

 the line from Quin to Spancel Hill, as the rest of the barony of Bunratty 

 Upper is rather a portion of Central Clare ; and, indeed, there is little from 

 Doora to Crusheen in any way dissimilar from what I have described. 1 That 

 the forts of so large a portion of Tulla Lower are passed over in silence, 

 however, demands some explanation. 



The great mass of hills and mountains, some rising to Dearly 1750 feet 

 above the sea, and but little less above the plains at their feet, extends from 

 Lough Derg and Bodyke southward to Cratloe and Clonlara, leaving com- 

 paratively narrow reaches of level country between it and the Shannon, 

 from Killaloe southward. It was doubtless in primitive times, as till after 

 1655, a tangle of primeval forests and dense thickets along the flanks and 

 bare undesirable moors on the summits and plateaux. It is therefore 

 not wonderful that, save in a few of the valleys, forts rarely occur. The 

 population, even still, has hardly spread into the uplands. This great mass 

 of hills, with large gaps running into them, was appropriately called Slieve 

 Bernagh ("SI. Behernagh," about 1590, in the Hardiman map, T.C.D.), "the 

 mountain of the gaps." The great mass of sandstone, overlying the lime- 

 stone plain, is nearly cut through by the deep valley from Broadford eastward 

 past the old church of Eillokennedy. Unfortunately, instead of opening like 



1 The raised oblong platform on which O'Brien's Castle stands is really a natural knoll, 

 cut and linked up into shape. It has a ramp leading up to the west, and was walled 

 round. The lower apparent platform seems wholly natural. 



