350 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



another murder. It was so completely defaced that we do not find it 

 again inhabited till the Friary was founded in the following century.^ 

 The most southern of the English fortresses — Bunratty — was 

 built by Bobert de Musegros before 1253, repaired by Thomas de 

 Clare in 1276, destroyed by O'Brien and Macnamara in 1333, and 

 does not re-appear till Tudor times. We hear vaguely of "many 

 towers" destroyed in the eastern parts of county Clare by Prince 

 Turlough O'Brien in 1281, and that brave soldier built two stone 

 castles, one on an island in Inchiquin Lake, of which the base and 

 portions of doors and windows were recently unearthed by Dr. George 

 U. Macnamara and another at Clonroad, of which we only possess a 

 sketch by Thomas Dyneley in 1681 showing it to have been a peel 

 tower. Finally, the same ""Wars of Turlough" mentions "a massive 

 fighting stockade of felled trees," called the " Dangan " of the 

 O'Gradies, signalised by a ghastly massacre of the women and children 

 of that tribe by the Macnamaras in 1314. It will be noticed that 

 during all these wars only actual strongholds were built, while in the 

 fifteenth century (which in county Clare at least was less war vexed) 

 a number of these strong houses was constructed. 



The Rentals akd Inqtjisitioks. 



The very important rentals made for O'Brien and for Maccon (great 

 grandson of Cuvea) Macnamara about 1380 do not suggest, still less 

 record, the existence of a single tower, though several cahers are 

 named. The list of founders of castles in that part of Clare seems, on 

 the other hand, to commence with Rossroe at about that very date, 

 and must be in the main reliable, for whatever diminution we make 

 for the inaccuracies apparent in our copies (in which several of the 

 entries are contradictory), the architectural features, and the negative 

 evidence of the elaborate rental coincide with its testimony. In the 

 early rentals we have theoretical assessments in ounces of silver for the 

 support of the chiefs and their wives, but in the later document the 

 "Inquisition" of 1586, we find the old tribal lands are now Mac- 

 namara's "lawful inheritance," while mention occurs of "his owne 

 towne of Quin, gardens, &c.," lands subject to the support of his horses 

 and grooms, and "to MacNamara's rent"; lands acquitted of rent 



1 Waste, in 1287, Inquisition post mortem of Thomas de Clare. Richard de 

 Clare occupies Quin Church (not castle) on his way to Dysert, 1318. There is a 

 plan of the Norman Castle of Quin in " The Story of an Irish Sept" (hy Dr. N. 

 C. Macnamara). 



