250 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



on the fortified headlands of South Co. Cork, Mr. Eobert Lloyd Praeger very 

 kindly gives me notes on a most singular ease of the walled island. The 

 more eastern of the west group of the Sovereign Eoeks, nearly a mile off 

 shore, before Kinsale Harbour, was fortified by a strong wall of large, well- 

 laid blocks, clinging to the present edge of the summit. What could have 

 led anyone to fortify, or even use, as a refuge, a rock without drinking-water, 

 and so far from the shore is, perhaps, one of the most inexplicable mysteries 

 among the many problems, increasing as the subject of shore-forts gets better 

 studied. Like the minute defences of small spurs, and even rock-shelves 

 (such as occur in Co. Waterford, and at Oughtminnee), it must imply a 

 harrowing fear besetting the early fort-builders, and originating inland. 

 Evidently, too, the fear must have prevailed in summer, for the Sovereign 

 Eoeks and other shore-forts must have been almost uninhabitable save in 

 the more genial months of the year. 



The work falls into four groups — the forts on Cape Clear Island, on the 

 Ivagha peninsula, on the Muintervary peninsula, and those of the Earony of 

 Beare. The first section is concerned with the first two groups. We are 

 still on the Driscolls' territory, but, unlike the islands in Corca Laidhe, they 

 were deprived of the district of Ui Eacach, or Ivagha, many centuries ago ; 

 Clear Island, however, was theirs down to the seventeenth century, and the 

 name is not extinct therein to our day. 



I !ape Cleak Island (Ordnance Survey Map Xo. 153). 



The most southern of the inhabited portions of Ireland, Cape Clear, is not 

 only possessed of noble cliff scenery and interesting ruins, but of a further 

 interest as a very early centre of Christianity. Despite the vagueness of 

 records, it is sufficiently clear that a probable claim on behalf of Clear and 

 Ardmore existed in early times, and maintained its cause against the dead 

 weight of prejudice that asserted St. Patrick to be the first successful 

 evangelist, and almost the sole source of Irish Christianity. Two names 

 stand out before the mission of the son of Calphurn — Declan, of Ardmore, and 

 Ciaran. of Clere and Saighir. Declan is said to have been born of Christian 

 parents, and baptized by a local priest, Colman, about a.d. 347, yet no earlier 

 date than a.i>. -ilij is claimed for Ardmore. All the chronology is doubtful, 

 and the clearest fact is that Ardmore claimed a rule earlier than, and coequal 

 with, thai of Cashel and the Patrician churches. About a.d. 350 Ciaran 

 was born, also of Christian parents, on Clear Island, 1 being of the Corca Laidhe ; 



1 Contradictory accounts of his parentage are given, but his mother, at least, was of 

 the Corca Laidhe. See Miscellany of Ok i.cltic Society (1849), xxi, p. 384. 



