156 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
the inner circle, was a thin floor of ashes, and margining it, or lining 
the inside circle, were ‘‘firestones,” in places very evenly placed, 
like a pavement. Evidently fires had been lit from time to time 
inside the inner circle, while the ashes were thrown cut to the two 
sides (A and B, fig. 3). No implements or the like were found, except 
at the top of the ashes a piece of a glass bottle and a stone disc, which 
had apparently been used as a quoit. Both these had a modern look, 
and may have been of the time of the patrons, which were held here 
up to about the year 1798. 
Thirty-three yards south of the circles are irregular low heaps of 
ashes mixed with roasted sandstone shingle. 
Twenty yards north-west of the circles, in or about the year 1877, 
James Bains, of Cummer, when building a fence, had occasion to raise 
a flag at the surface of the ground, which he found to cover a kist- 
vaen, that appeared to be full of ashy clay ; but on driving down his 
spade into it he broke an urn that was in the centre of it. This urn 
appears, from the fragments, to have been about twelve inches in 
diameter at the inside of its mouth, and about nine inches high. It 
was of a different shape and differently ornamented from any of the 
urns in the Academy collection, its greatest peculiarity being the flat 
lip, about two inches wide, around the mouth. 
James Bains states that between thirty and forty years ago, while 
removing a fence to the westward of the circles, he also found, in a 
row, three kistvaens, with urns in them. In the two outer kistvaens 
there were urns somewhat like that just described; but in the middle 
one, Inside a similar large urn, was a small one. The latter he had 
in his possession till a few years ago, when it was stolen from 
him. 
Running nearly due north from Cummer village, for 270 yards, is 
a wide rocky passage, locally called the ‘‘Causey.”” At the north 
end of this, in the angle formed by the junction of two county roads, 
are some standing stones. These were formerly much more numerous, 
forming circles and other figures, paths, &c., but most of them have 
been carried away recently, especially during the building of the 
Monaseed church in the neighbourhood. These stones were locally 
called ‘‘ The Loads,” the people having a story that when the castle of 
Ferns was being built carts of stones going to it broke down here. 
This, however, seems to be a modern invention, as the stones were 
evidently placed systematically and by design. <A little further north, 
in Cummerduff, south of a spring, are stones that appear to be the 
ruins of a small cromleac. 
Different explorations were made about the village of Cummer, 
but without finding a new kistvaen, and it seems probable that all, 
except those in the fences, were removed long since, while tilling the 
land or building the houses, more especially as many of the stones in 
the walls of the houses are like the flags used in the kistvaen last 
discovered. Evidently Cummer was in old times a place of note, a 
feartha being situated near the south spring: while on the ridge, 
