Westropp — The Ancient Forts of Ireland. 271 



English colony in Tradree.^ It figures as the place of inaugui-ation 

 of the Dalcassian princes from 877, when King Flan Sunach was 

 defeated on its green, to 1313, and is a good example of the simple 

 mote. This is not only mentioned in the Annals, but in the 

 pre-Norman " Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill." 



5. The type of such motes is prehistoric. It occurs in Austria 

 and Bosnia with Early Bronze Age "finds." A bronze axe was found 

 near the mote of Dromore, County Down, aud early urn-burials in 

 the mote of Skeirk, Queen's County, not in the mount, but in the 

 "bailey." I fully recognise the great difficulty in Ireland (if not 

 elsewhere) of disentangling the sepulchral elements. For example, 

 there is no reason either to doubt that a pre-existing sepulchral 

 tumulus may have been adapted for residence and defence by the 

 addition of a bailey and fosses, or that the practice of burial in resi- 

 dential forts was so little unusual, that the discovery of sepulture in. 

 a mote (as at Greenmount) in no way disproves the residential nature 

 of the earthwork." 



6. If English antiquaries are right in applying the fact of the 

 ascertained Norman "origin" of English motes to Ireland, there 

 should be evidence forthcoming in the abundant records^ of the early 

 Norman colonies. This is not so: save for the "motes" of Trim 

 and Slane — and I may add a third example (not given by the Eng- 

 lish writers), the mote at Eoscrea — the evidence rather runs to the 

 contraiy. English antiquaries have apparently made no use of the 

 most obvious and, in this matter, most reliable authority, Giraldus 

 Cambrensis. He was a contemporary, a relative of some of the chief 

 actors in the Norman invasion of Ireland, and visited the country 

 during the events he records in 1183 and 1186. He mentions the 

 erection of many forts and camps : the Normans use an ancient fort, 

 or make fortifications of sods, and boughs, stakes, &c. ;^ but he only 



' Save for the short-lived Castle of Quin, 1280-85, the nominal English lands 

 north of Dromoland, and beyond Finlough, were nncolonised and lay waste. See 

 C.S.P.I., 1287, and " Wars of Turlough." No English castles, save Quin, Clare, 

 and Bunratty, are recorded in that part of Thomond ; no mote occurs at their sites 

 or in the English settlement. 



^ For biu'ial in various types of forts, see my paper, Trans. K. I. A., section 44. 



3 The making of only one mote appears (so far as I have found) in the great 

 mass of records cited in the " Cal. Doc. relating to Ireland," and at the Dublin 

 Eecord Office. 



*Gii-aldus' (Ed. Bohn) "Topography," p. 194; "Conq[uest," Book x., 

 sections xi* aud xiii. 



