310 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



The cave at Lucan, Co. Dublin, is partly broken down ; it is said 

 to contain six circular chambers, only one of which is at present acces- 

 sible. It is entered by a passage which is continued at the opposite 

 side of the chamber to that at which it enters. After this point it 

 becomes wider, but is filled nearly up to the roof with rubbish. 



This cave is on top of an eminence to the left of the road from 

 Lucan to the G. S. W. Railway station of that name. It is about 200 

 yards from where the steam-trams stop. 



The cave at Bective has been thoroughly investigated by Mr. God- 

 dard Orpen, whose account of it is published in the Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.^ 



At Moat, a few miles from Oldcastle, the entrance to a cave in the 

 side of a large moat is visible from the road, but I hear that the pas- 

 sage is stopped up a few feet in. 



The Newtown (Killallon) cave is also in a large moat, and was 

 open some years ago, but is at present closed, and I have been refused 

 permission to re-open it. 



It is a remarkable fact that all these caves are quite close to 

 existing roads, which probably occupy the same lines of communica- 

 tion that were in use when the caves were made. 



It is also noticeable that all the caves in the district of the Slieve 

 na Cailliagh, except those at Moat and Killallon — both of which are at 

 a distance of some miles from the rest — have their entrances above, 

 while that at Moat is in the side of the mound, which I think is also 

 the case at Newtown. It would seem as if these two moat caves were 

 not built by the same people who constructed those round Slieve na 

 Cailliagh, or else that they were made at a different period. 



In this Paper I have not ventured on any theory as to the age of 

 these caves, as I do not think enough of them have been investigated 

 to enable one to assign them to any particular period, but I hope that 

 before very long enough material may be got together to make it 

 possible to do so. 



^ Proc. Roy. Soc. of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. xxi. p. 150 (1892). 



