Westropp — Fortified Headlands and Castles, S. Coast Minister. 217 



curving line of dark red cliffs, the eyrie of hawks and once of ospreys, runs 

 out to the east. 



Near the two reefs below, the last known capture of a living great 

 auk in IrelaDd took place in August, 1834. The " Gair Fowl " was once 

 very common round our coast, and the middens on the long sand-spit in 

 Trarnore Bay abound in its remains. Mr. Eichard Ussher lent me his 

 unpublished notes, which I may abstract here. A fisherman named Hardy 

 saw a large bird swimming, just below the east face of the fort. It swam 

 towards another man named Kirby, who lured it by throwing sprats (for 

 the bird was very tame), and, getting near it, he caught it in his landing-net. 

 It was a female, in its first year's plumage, and he gave it as a curiosity to 

 Mr. Francis Davis. At first they had to feed it with potatoes and milk ; then 

 it got tamer and fed freely with the poultry, preferring fresh-water fish to 

 sea fish. Lieutenant John Spence of the 89th Eegiment, staying with 

 Mr. Goff of Horetown, was shown the "penguin," and bespoke it for 

 Dr. Burkitt, a Waterford naturalist. It died about ten days later, and 

 reached Burkitt on September 7th, from whom it was procured by Dr. Ball, 

 for the Museum of Trinity College, Dublin. The " Gair Fowl " was finally 

 exterminated in its northern haunts about ten years later, so far as is 

 known. 



Third Type. 



Some of the most picturesque and impressive of the cliff-forts are of 

 the " citadel and entrenchment type." The platform is usually separated 

 by a deep hollow in the neck and, without the landward entrenchment, is 

 found on the four coasts of Ireland. The entrenchment of Island Ikane 

 is the strongest of this type found by me, if we except the mighty Dun of 

 Eask Hill near Dingle in Kerry. One fort of kindred type in France, at 

 Cap Sizun, was proved to be of pre-Boman times. The great fort of the 

 Baily on Howth is similar, 1 but its identity with the legendary Bun 

 Criomthann is more than doubtful. Besides the three greater forts in 

 Co. Waterford, within a range of twelve miles, certain small, but bold, 

 rock platforms at Coolum, Brownstown, and Kilmurrin cove remain, but 

 show no artificial works. 



1 It took advantage of bold natural hollows to adapt them for fosses, fortifying the 

 outer with 2 earthworks, and, I think, a stone wall. The inner fosse was left almost 

 untouched, but was banked and perhaps walled ; finally, on the nearly detached rock, 

 now crowned with the Baily Lighthouse, was a ring-fort of dry stone with middens. 

 Another shell layer is in the east bank of the middle garth, 



