CRANNOGES OF -IRELAND. 



121 



answer to an inquiry from the Government, as to what castles 

 or forts O'JSTeil hath, and of what strength they be, states 

 (May 15, 1567) : ' For castles, I think it be not unknown 

 unto your honors, he trusteth no point thereunto for his 

 safety, as appeareth by the raising of the strongest castles of all 

 his countreys, and that fortification which he only dependeth 



Section of a Crannoge in Ardakillin Lough, Roscommxm, 



upon is in sartin freshwater loghes in his country, which 

 from the sea there come neither ship nor boat to approach 

 them : it is thought that there in the said fortified islands 

 lyeth all his plate, which is much, and money, prisoners, and 

 gages : which islands, hath in wars to fore been attempted, 

 and now of late again by the Lord Deputy there, Sir Harry 

 Sydney, which for want of means for safe conducts upon the 

 water it hath not prevailed/ ' 



Again, the map of the escheated territories, made for the 

 Government, A.D. 1591, by Francis Jobson, or the "Platt 

 of the County of Monaghan," preserved in >the State Paper 

 Office, contains rough sketches of the dwellings of the petty 

 chiefs of Monaghan, which "are in all cases surrounded by 

 water." In the "Annals of the Four Masters," and other 

 records of early Irish history, we meet with numerous in- 

 stances in which the Crannoges are mentioned, in some of 

 which their position has not preserved them from robbery 

 and destruction ; and we need not, therefore, be surprised to 

 find that many of the Swiss Pfahlbauten appear to have been 

 destroyed by fire. 



