Westkopp — Types of the Ring-forts of Eastern Co. Clare. 59 



a gate towards Killaloe, it bends almost at right angles up to G-lenomera 

 House ; and it is only up long slopes that the two long shallow valleys past 

 Trough are to be reached. They run parallel from the high grounds above 

 Hurdlestone and at Formoyle, nearly to Trough 1 ; and then the eastern, 

 joining a cross-depression, turns and meets the western, the streams joining 

 to swell the Blackwater, 2 between Trough and Clonlara. 



The ancient tribal divisions in these hills were : — (1) Ui gConghaile, 

 still Ogonnello parish, with a strip to the south along the north-east ; 

 (2) gCineidi, now Killokennedy and its valleys ; (3) Ui Thoirdhealbhaigh, 

 the eastern flank, from Killaloe southward; and (4) Ui Aimrid, from about the 

 line of Kilkishen southward. The hills were held by a confederacy of tribes 

 called, from a supposed ancestor Blocl (circa a.d. 400), the Ui mbloid, and 

 were roughly represented (and the name, as so often, preserved) by the rural 

 deanery of Omullod. The chief of this group, the O'Kennedys, claimed 

 descent from Cenedigh, father of King Brian. They took a leading part 

 against the Clan Thoirdhealbhaigh in the civil wars with Clan Briain ruadh, 

 from 1275 to 1318, and, on the collapse of their cause, fled beyond the 

 Shannon, where the last prince of Clan Brian contrived to hold his own as 

 O'Brien Ara. The Ui Thoirdhealbhaigh derived their name from a prince of 

 the then obscure Craglea line, chiefly remembered as father of St. Flannan 

 of Killaloe; from his eldest son Mathgamhan the later rulers derive their 

 descent. The MaaNarnaras of Clann Cuileann, main prop of the Clan 

 Thoirdhealbhaigh princes, came to be overlords of Ui m bloid from 1318 till 

 the great changes of the sixteenth century. It is interesting to observe that 

 the last of these who ruled under the ancient conditions, John, son of Teigie, 

 the "MacrTamara Fynn," in 1586, held as his "proper and special inheritance" 

 lands at some of the chief forts described in this survey. These are, for 

 example, Mowhane mac Gillymoyle (Moghane), Bamollane (Eathfollan), 3 and 

 Cahershagenis (Cahershaughnessy 4 ). He got a special rent off Tawnaghe 

 (the site of the place of inauguration at Magh Adhair) and off a fort, described 

 later, Cahairgreddane (probably the cathair north from Clooney), Lyssenrynke 

 (unidentified) and Ballysallagh. 



The general history has been as fully treated as my present knowledge of 



1 Hurdlestone is probably the " Baile na glias " (Baile na gcliath) of the 1390 rental, 

 and is Baile na cliath in the MacNamara rental of 1584, and Ballynaglie in the Book of 

 Distribution, 1655. Trough is " Triuchaoaed ombloit, the ' hundred ' of Omullod. 



- The Blackwater is the Dubh Abhann, given as the bound of the sees of Killaloe 

 and Limerick in the acts of the Synod of Rathbreasail, 1110. (Heating's "History of 

 Ireland." Irish Texts Society, vol. ix, p. 305.) 



3 Supra, vol. xxvii (C), Moghane, p. 218, and Rathfollan, p. 228. 



4 Infra, p. 74. 



[9*] 



