360 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



which they make their beds in summer, and straw in winter. They 

 put the rushes a foot deep on their floor and on their windows, and 

 many of them ornament their ceiling with branches." This corre- 

 sponds with Cuellar's account, that in 1588 the Irish had no furniture 

 and slept on the ground, on a bed of rushes, wet with rain or stiff 

 with frost. 



After the reign of Elizabeth more than one family often occupied 

 a tower. To select from many examples. The Patent Eoll of 1605 

 contains a grant to John King of " the upper chamber and a moiety 

 of the cellar and bawn of Castletown ]\rogrossy, near Spancil Hill." 

 Conor O'Brien held other portions of the same castle fi'om 1604. In 

 1606 Daniel O'Conor died at Glen Castle, near Ennistyraon. He was 

 found to hold "the cellar, chamber, middle room, and half the 

 porter's lodging " (probably the small room near the porch). In 1615 

 CumaiTa Maenamara and James Roche held Cratloekeel and the 

 custom continued till the civil war. 



During the latter period we get some curious accounts of the 

 occupants of the Clare castles, but none that throw much light on 

 the buildings. Tromroe was taken by Captain Edmund O'Elaherty, 

 in a sea excursion, from Aran, and its owner and his wife were slain, ^ 

 while Bally alia stood two sieges of six weeks each, and only surren- 

 dered to hunger and tbirst. It seems wonderful how this little turret 

 could defy a considerable force of Irish for so loug, until we see the 

 great hesitation of the besiegers to approach its walls, and the childish 

 apparatus brought against it, including a " sowe " (or testudo), with 

 augers to bore holes in the door, and a " lethren goon," which " only 

 gave a great report, having 14 pounds of powthar in her and let fly 

 backward, the bullet remaining within. "- 



After the war, the Cromwellian Commissioners dismantled the 

 majority of the towers in 1654. Daniel O'Brien, for example (whose 

 humanity saved many of tbe settlers twelve years before this time) 

 petitions that his little castles of Dough and Ballinalaeken may be 

 spared, " your petitioner is af eared that the said masons out of malice 

 or gain will fall doune the sd stearcase of Dough." This method of 

 dismantling the castles accounts for tlie almost invariable destruction 

 of the spiral stairs. Indeed it has even been carried out in several, 

 which were retained as barracks by the Puritans. 



The following among the peel houses were used for garrisons at 



' See Appendix to H'lar Connaught. 



2 Cuiie's Journal of the siege; Camden Societv's Publications. 



