'218 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Coosadooneen the rock has fallen into a chaos of great masses, still sliding 

 and settling after rain. 



The headland, like its neighbours Dunkelly and Dunrnanus, commands 

 a very fine view of Sheep Head and Muintervary Peninsula, across the fiord. 

 Its namesake on the opposite shore, Dooneen in Garranes (near Kilcrohane, at 

 Foillmore cliff), is clearly visible. It is a high mound 5 or 6 feet higher than 

 the garth, and bushy, being convex to the land. I was told at Dunmanus that 

 it is called Dooneen Island, but it is not an island, being entered by a narrow 

 gangway " only the width of a cart," across the deep ditch. Every bush 

 in the fort and every window in the cottages is visible, and the Dunmanus 

 folk say they can call across the water to their friends on the farther shore. 



Dunkelly (0. S. 13S). 



This is an interesting and curious curved earthwork and fosse on the low, 

 pleasant, flowery coast of Dunkelly townland, about a mile to the west of 

 Dunmanus. There is a souterrain in the garth marked " cave " on the 

 1841 maps. The site shows the very clever adaptation of natural features 

 so usual with the cliff-fort-builders. One of the clear little brooks that fall 

 from ridge to ridge, among the ferns and foxgloves, down the long hillside 

 had cut a deep gully forming a delta near the cliff. The fort-makers cut a 

 fosse convex to the land, and some 10 feet deep, through the triangular 

 platform, shaping the remainder into a crescent mound by scarping and 

 shaping the gullies to the same curve. They seem to have dammed the 

 eastern branch of the rivulet by a slab wall and the mound to turn it round 

 the greatest reach of the fosse westward, but, after the fort was deserted, the 

 stream never rested till it cut through the obstacle and made a beautiful little 

 natural cistern on its site. The fosse is 25 feet wide and 12 feet to 15 feet deep 

 to the west ; the southern cut is 10 feet deep, 6 feet wide at the bottom, and 16 

 to IS feet at the field level. The remaining bank has also been shaped outside, 

 making a double ditch at the apex of the delta. Between the scarping and 

 piling up the earth into a bank 5 to 6 feet above the garth, the inner fort 

 rises 15 feet over the gully to the south-east, and over 23 feet to the west. 

 It measures about 54 feet north and south, and 40 feet east and west. In 

 the north-east corner is the " cave," more like the earth of a fox or a badger 

 than a souterrain ; it has been filled till the ope is barely 1 8 inches across, and 

 the interior made inaccessible. 1 The great earth cap rests on high rocky 

 ledges on the shore, which is sheltered from the great waves by the rocky 



■Plan, Plate XXIV. 



