330 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



alternate sections of perhaps 12 feet in length, of earth and stones. The 

 search for the latter by road-makers has exposed this peculiarity of con- 

 struction. Here also I nptieed two funnel-shaped pits dug in the surface of 

 the top of the vallum. They are at present about 8 feet deep and about 

 9 feet wide at the mouth. They were filled with briers and bushes, and I 

 had no opportunity of exploring them. 



We will now follow the river up stream, west from the Dun proper. From 

 the point of Ardanaffrin we can recognize fragmentary continuations of earth- 

 works round the bend of the river, but much defaced by the excavations and 

 other works at the embouchure of the canal which here enters the Shannon, 

 as well as by the carrying of the Kilmore road over a portion of the ancient 

 embankments. But behind the deer-park wall a series of entrenchments in 

 fair preservation recommences, following the river-bank up stream for about 

 1200 yards (nearly three quarters of a mile). Their ground-plan and size is 

 much simpler than that of those we have been considering, and consists of two 

 parallel ramparts of moderate size, which run at a short distance from the 

 shore bounding an intermediate roadway. Where an outcrop of natural rock 

 intervenes, the sheltered roadway has been excavated through the strata, and 

 the stones piled up to raise the frontal embankment. And where higher 

 levels subtend the shore steep-to, an embankment 6 to 7 feet high leans 

 against the base of the slope, which is scarped steeply, and a hollow or 

 protective trench is left at the foot behind the embankment. At one or two 

 points of the stream shallow reaches exist, no doubt more easily fordable 

 before a deeper channel was excavated during the progress of the Shannon 

 Navigation works. Wherever these shallows existed the earth-works 

 opposite were of greater size and importance. I have already alluded to 

 another interesting feature which is to be found at the east end of the deer- 

 park where its wall runs down to the river-bank. It is the provision of a 

 breast-work close to the water's edge, built of large, unhewn stones, raised 

 about 4 feet high (where it is best preserved), and like a broad dwarf wall. 

 This construction follows the contour of the margin of the water, at a little 

 distance in front of the entrenchments, and was evidently designed to shelter 

 the defenders while assailing waders or swimmers with sling- stones or spears 

 during their passage through the ford. As above stated, these defences 

 extend up stream for only about three quarters of a mile above the embouchure 

 of the canal. 



Thence for some two miles the water runs broader and deeper as far as 

 the townland of Corry, where at the foot of the farm of Phil Conlan an 

 extensive shallow existed, a channel through which was excavated by the 

 Shannon Navigation Commissioners. Large boulders dredged from the river- 



