Westropp — Fortified Headlands and Castles in Western Co. Cork. 281 



more apposite is the submerged " cromlech," a double circle 8-shaped in 

 plan at Er Lanic in Brittany, dating from the later Stone Age. 1 



Knockeex. — Crossing the fish-abounding stream by an old causeway (or 

 by a strange bridge of timber and concrete on the point of collapse), we go out 

 to the point opposite Dunraanus Castle, and find a very remarkable earthwork 

 and castle site in Knockeen townland. 



Old people about Dunmanus tell how the castle at Knockeen was intended 

 to be the actual castle of the district. While it was being commenced 

 a wise man, a stranger, travelling in the district, saw the men at work. 

 Going over the ground he warned them, " don't build the castle there, for the 

 sea will come there." The builders consulted the chief, who took the wise man's 

 advice and founded Dunmanus Castle upon a rock opposite. A somewhat 

 similar legend is told in an early Life of St. Senan about the selection of 

 a grave site, 2 and St. Patrick is said to have denounced a fort site which long 

 proved useless because of the badness of the soil. 



The remains 3 consist of two crescent mounds. I do not attempt to decide 

 whether the inner was once a circle, but the outer certainly abutted on the 

 steep, grassy bank of the low cliff, and its ends are intact. Perhaps little has 

 been cut away during the centuries ; changes in such sites take place very 

 suddenly — a fire or heavy rain strips off the grass where it grew for ages, and 

 if the bank does not get clothed with new vegetation it continues to crumble. 

 I have met instances where more change has occurred in the last five or six 

 years than before that time in the memory and tradition of the oldest people. 

 Dunnaglas and Dookeeghan in North Mayo, Dunnagappul and Dunallia in 

 Cliara, Kilmore and Porteen in Achill, Illaunadoon in Co. Clare, the Stack 

 fort and Lisheencankeeragh in Co. Kerry, and Portadooneen near Courtmac- 

 sherry, and Dunsorske in Co. Cork, are striking cases in point ; nearly all 

 were fairly uninjured in 1838 ; most have undergone extensive denudation 

 since 1875. The rock bases at Knockeen, like those at Porteen and Doonah, 

 with which I close this paper, probably long protected the clay bank from 

 the waves ; it is the destruction of the grass that causes that of the 

 cliff-edge. 



1 Prehistoric Britain, p. 133. Etudes Antiques d'Archeologie Prehistorique. 

 Rev. R. A. Gatty, "Pit Dwellings at Holderness" (Mar. 1910, 48j. Mature, 1912, 

 excavations at St. Helier. "Guides to Barrows, &c, in Brittany," W. C. Lukis. 



- " Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore " (ed. W. Stokes), p. 212. 



3 Lewis, " Topographical Dictionary," notes the remains of a castle " on the shore of 

 the lake of Dunkelly." Canon O'Mahony says Dunmanus is built on the site of an old 

 dun ; but for his mention of Knockeens in the same sentence, we might suppose he alluded 

 to it, as there is no trace of a ring round Dunmanus. Cork H. and A. Journal, xv, p. 73. 



R.I.A. PEOC, VOL. XXXII., SECT. C. [44] 



