"Westropp — The Fort of Dun Aengiisa in Inishnore, Aran. 43 



require description. The account and views of Dun Aenghusa (the latter 

 the only photographs known to have been taken before the Eestoration) are 

 in volume i., " Notes on Irish Ai~chitecture." The sketch of the door of the 

 central fort is also given. The plan is only a sketch-plan from the " Ordnance 

 Survey Letters," which the writer follows largely for dimensions. He saw 

 " no trace of imier platform ; there was a chamber or passage " in the central 

 fort. He alone describes the perfect gateway in " the outermost wall," the 

 " interior covered with flags, the wall being 8 feet high, and 5 feet thick." 

 I have to thank the kind courtesy of the publishers, Messrs. George Bell & 

 Sons, for permission to reproduce two of the photographic views of this work. 



The other accounts are rarely of any independent value. That of 

 Martin Haverty (1859) for the British Association Handbook is very brief, 

 hardly filling two pages,' while fourteen are devoted to the picnic and long 

 speeches, but little to the point — much sack to but little bread. 



There are two other widely known accounts which have given many (as 

 the earlier gave the writer of these lines) their first interest in the fort. The 

 one, dating 1867, is by Lady Ferguson in " The Irish before the Conquest " ; 

 the other, by Miss Margaret Stokes, is a preface to her " Early Christian 

 Architecture," 1876 ; both are excellent and impressive general descriptions, 

 but do not give details of the ruin. 



Accounts by English Weiters. 



There are two papers on this fort in " Archaeologia Cambrensis," which, 

 as being published in Great Britain, are perhaps more studied by antiquaries 

 outside Ireland, and call for some comment to correct the strange mistakes 

 made, especially in the first. 



Charles H. Hartshorne (vol.- iv., new series, p. 296) gives a very 

 picturesque description of the site of the fortress in 1853. He then gives 

 details : " The area includes half an acre ; this is partly surrounded by a 

 triple wall of most unusual character, and beyond ... by a glacis, two 

 ditches, two concentric walls, which gradually die out to the south-east on 

 the naked rock, and lastly, on the north side, by a chcvanx de fi'ise." He 

 gives the height of the walls as from 20 to 50 feet ; mentions the portal of 

 the entrance to the south-east ; " on the north side is a much larger entrance, 

 with a parallel sallyport running underground. The lower part of the 

 interior wall at about half its height forms an ' alure,' on which people can 

 walk all round " ; it " is reached by steps running to the top of the wall, which 



' Haveity gives the size of the inner fort as 144 feet on the clifE, and 160 feet north and south; 

 he calls it " the Acropolis of Aran — the palace fortress of the days of Queen Maeve." 



