PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY 



PAPERS READ BEFORE THE ACADEMY 



I. 



A STUDY OF THE FORT OF DUN AENGUSA IN INISHMOKE, 

 ARAN ISLES, GALWAY BAY: ITS PLAN, GROWTH, AND 

 RECORDS. 



By THOMAS JOHNSON WESTROPP, M.A. 



(Plates I.-III.) 



[Read Decembek 13. Ordered for publication December 15, 1909. Published Febrvaby 17, 1910] 



Sections : 



1. Legendary Origin. 



2. Problems of the Legend. 



3. The Plan. 



4. Records of its Featui'es. 



5. The Fort in 1909. 



Appendices : 



A. Bibliogi"aphy and Views. 



B. Unpublished Descriptions before 



1880. 



C. Published Accounts to 1880. 



Of all the early forts of Ireland we may say that only one has appealed to 

 the imagination, and even to the affection, of the nation, as a buildini;, anil 

 become, with most antiquaries, the type and symbol of the countless similar 

 structures, all subordinate to it in interest. At Emania and Tara it is the 

 sentiment and tradition, not the remains, that so appeal ; but at Dun Aengusa 

 the site and the building affect even the coolest mind as no blaze of mythic 

 or historic association could do. It is easy to see how this pre-eminence 

 arose. Many of us still remember the sense of almost inaccessible remoteness 

 that attached to " the Aras of the Sea." All who have visited the spot feel 

 the " repellent attraction " of the gigantic precipice and the swirling abyss 

 over which the fort is so airily poised. Then there is the pathos — no less of 

 the legend that made it the refuge of a doomed and hunted race than of its 

 own inevitable destruction — that invested the broken grey wall.s ou the 



R. I. A. PROC, VOL. X.XVni., SECT. C. [1] 



