270 Proceedings of te Royal Irish Academy. 



utilised in making and patching the line of road that runs underneath, 

 from Synge's lodge to the Hand road." 



I now propose to trace back, a little more in detail, the existence of 

 tins curious structure, as far as the notices known to me will allow. 



Kennedy's reference to it is contained in a copy of a letter ad- 

 dressed by him from Limerick to Mr. Denis O'Plynn of Cork, dated 

 1st August, 1814, and preserved among the MS. collections of the late 

 John "Windele (in the Library of the Academy, Supplt., Yol. III., 

 p. 335). In this letter Mr. Kennedy gives an account of his pil- 

 grimage, on the 14th of the previous July, to the Stone of Conan. 

 He describes the scene as excessively solitary, and dwells on his 

 bodily fatigue and trepidation of mind in penetrating that recess of the 

 mountain. He does not, in the body of his letter, make any allusion 

 to an altar ; but he appends a map or terchart of the surroundings 

 of the monument of Conan, and, in the margin of this, refers, by a letter. 

 to a note appended, in these words : — " C. Back here of this summit 

 ('back of being equivalent to 'back from') is the Altar of Sacrifice, 

 and Buile na Greine" The position indicated is in the direction 

 of that assigned by Professor O'Looney as the site of Altoir na Greine. 



The next notice, moving backward in point of time, is that in 

 Gough's Camden, published in 1789, citing the words of Wilson, 

 which I subjoin from the Post-Chaise Companion, published in 

 Dublin, in 1786, (cols. 176-7) :— 



" In the year 1784, there was a very curious tombstone discovered by Mr. 

 0' Flanagan on Callan Mountain (in Irish, Altoir na Greine, or Altar of the Sun), 

 aboiit eight miles "W. of the town of Ennis, on which is the following inscription, 

 which is itself curious, yet becomes interesting by the degree of authenticity which 

 it seems to stamp on the early Irish MSS. : — 



Pmi Lit) a pCA Con An. 

 CoLjac Cor-obnroA. 



i.e. Beneath this flag is interred 

 Conan the turbulent and 

 swift-footed. 



" This remarkable stone is of granite, in length between seven and eight feet, and 

 from three to four in breadth, and is placed upon a kind of tumulus, and was erected 

 to commemorate Conan, who was one of the Connaught knights, who fell in battle. 

 In an historical tale written, as is supposed by Ossin, about tbe year 296, the author 

 thus apostrophises : " But the intrepid hero Conan was not at this bloody battle, for 

 going to the adoration of the sun the preceding May, he was cut off by the Leinster 

 troops, though he but a single knight of Connaught ; and his body lies interred on 

 the N. W. side of the dreary mountain of Callan, and over a flag is his name 

 inscribed in the Ogham." (The Ogham was a character sacred to the Druids, the 

 alphabet of which is still preserved.) This stone has long been celebrated in the 

 County of Clare. On the S. side of this mountain is a very large Dmidical 

 altar about twelve feet by four; tbis altar, the most regular of the kind now 

 remaining, and of the highest antiquity, stands about half a mile distant from the 

 high-road leading from Ennis to Ibrican, on the right hand. 



