1 00 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



states that the eastern point of Castlehaven was " called Galleon Point, on 

 which are the remains of an intrenchment cast up by the Spaniards, and the 

 ovens used by them are also still to be seen." I greatly doubt the story ; 

 nothing remains to mark the ruins of the " intrenchment " and the " ovens '' 

 as anything different from the early forts and huts ; and the peasantry often 

 attribute such structures to late persons, who, at most, only occiipied them. 

 The term "oven," too, may have been a corruption of " ouan," i.e. uamh (a 

 cave), as in the case of " The Ovens," a village in the same county on the 

 Bride. 1 The fort consists of two very shallow, straight fosses with an inter- 

 vening wall and an iuner one revetting a mound. The outer " fosse" is perhaps 

 merely the shallow hollow one sees round some ring-forts, merely to supply 

 sods for completing the fence. It is ill-defined, 21 feet to the south and 

 9 feet at the gangway, and hardly 2 feet deep. The next wall is irregular 

 and probably modernized, bending out for 24 feet and abutting against a low 

 ridge down the hill. Then it runs for about 42 feet to the entrance at the 

 gangway, 9 feet wide and on for 51 feet, bending out again for 18 feet at the 

 north cliff, and thus concave to the land. It also covers the path to two 

 springs bursting out of the low ridge below the fort. Both facts seem to 

 mark it as late. The inner space was a fosse, straight, and now nearly filled 

 with the debris of the wall. It is irregular, 11 feet for most of the line, but 

 widened to 21 feet at the south, and 17 feet at the north, by the bending of 

 the outer wall. The old narrower hollow, 11 feet wide, is seen at the north 

 end. The outer mound had stone facing of small flags, and was from 9 feet 

 to 12 feet thick, and now only 3 feet to 4 feet high. The inner wall was of 

 stone, nearly all removed. It runs from the southern ledge to the cliff, lying 

 N.N.W. and S.S.E. At 51 feet from the south is a gap 9 feet wide,, and 

 another reach of 51 feet long to the cliff; then it turns sharply westward 

 to fence the edge of the garth. The facing is of well-laid slabs rarely 3 feet 

 long. There are no hut-sites in the garth. 2 



The " Spanish Ovens " seems to be a small hut with two oblong rooms ; 

 the northern is 6 feet wide and 8 feet 6 inches long, whence a narrow door, 

 2 feet wide and 3 feet deep, leads to the cross-chamber southward. The latter 

 cell is 9 feet long, lined with slabs set on end ; one angle is cut off by an 

 oblique slab. The ruin lies 90 feet up the slope from the fort which is at the 

 end of a shallow hollow. 3 



Bochestown (O.S. 137).— On a low reach of drift-capped cliffs at the 



1 See Joyce, "Irish Names of Places," Part iv, chapter iii, formerly Athnovan, ford of 

 the cave (Ath nUamhain). For the caves at the latter place, see Smith, " Cork," vol. i, 

 p. 212. 



2 PI in, Plates X, XI. 3 Plan, Plate XI. 



