68 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



and instructive one which encourages me the more to try and reconstruct it, 

 so far as possible, from the existing remains and the maps of 1S39. 1 The site 

 lies in the townland of Castlefergus, the ancient Ballyhanan or " Agnan " or 

 " Agnay." So far as I can judge, the large townland was split into the Gastle- 

 quarter, Derreen, and Carrownieer of Ballyhannan and two other portions 

 called Ballyhannan Xorth and South, which preserve its ancient name. Close 

 to the peel-tower and later house of Castlefergus, an early settlement lay on 

 a craggy ridge. It consisted of two large oval forts with three smaller ring- 

 walls to the south and one to the north. The railway to Ennis was run 

 through these in a deep cutting almost obliterating the two chief forts. 

 Small portions of their foundations, with the facing blocks, lie just witliin 

 the wall to the south of the railway for which most of their material was 

 removed. Three (if not four) were linked together by massive walls : the two 

 others were probably detached. The northern one, impenetrably overgrown 

 in the wood to the north of the cutting, lay about 300 feet away from the 

 southern forts, while these were crowded into a space hardly 500 feet each 

 way. The south-eastern ring- wall is not shown on the maps, so was probably 

 levelled before 1S39. Its wall is rarely 2 feet high, but is 9 feet thick, the 

 garth about 45 feet across, a mere house-ring. The southern ring-wall is 13 

 feet to 15 feet thick of large, facing blocks and filling, entirely overthrown 

 in great heaps, many of its facing blocks in situ. 51 feet across the garth with 

 three inner walls forming a Y in plan ; to the south-west the wall forms a 

 confused heap. The chief fort is 33 feet to the north-west, and is joined to 

 the last by a wall 15 feet thick. Close to the west end of this joining 

 wall another wall, still 5 feet high, runs towards the N.N.E. for almost 

 exactly 70 feet to the larger oval fort. These joining lines had faces of large 

 blocks, rows of which remain for reaches of 10 feet to 20 feet. To return to 

 the last-named eathair, the heaped ruin is 4 feet to 6 feet high, the wall about 

 16 feet thick, and the craggy garth 60 feet across, without foundations ; an 

 enclosure 27 feet each way adjoins both it and the long wall. Another 

 joining wall runs up to the railway wall and once evidently joined the oval 

 fort. It is 21 feet thick at present, and widens to 27 feet a little south from 

 the modern wall. At 18 feet from it, and from the south eathair, is the faint 

 foundation of a circular hut, 12 feet over all The thickness of the wall cannot 

 be fixed. 15 feet farther is the only remnant of the large oval fort, 24 feet deep 

 and 50 feet long, of large, carefully laid blocks. Save this small segment, all 

 the rest and the enclosed souterrain have been removed by the railway-cutting. 

 I saw no traces beyond this ; but the shrubs and brambles are thick, and the 

 maps imply that it was wider than the cutting. Of the eastern oval fort, 



1 Plate V. 



