[ B5 ] 



VIIT. 



DOLMET^S AT BALLYCEOUM, NEAR FKAKLE, COUJ^TY 

 CLAKE. By T. J. WESTROPP. M.A. 



[Read Apuii, 23ud, 1900.] 



jS'orth of the village of Feakle, in tte ancient district of Tuath 

 . .Vughty, forming the southern region of the hilly district of Slieve 

 Aughty, between the counties of Galway and Clare, lie three dolmens, 

 the snhject of this Paper, ^ 



They are reached by a road winding tip the green slopes of the 

 liills, to the north of the parish church of Eeakle, and commanding a 

 line open view across the plains of Clare to Slieve Bernagh and the 

 tShannon. The parish of Eeakle (Eechill, 1302) is not rich in anti- 

 quities, and probably the facts of its unusual size, and the absence of 

 any ancient church in the beautiful and extensive valley south of 

 Lough Grraney, implies its wild and scantily peopled condition in early 

 Christian times. This evidently continued to later days as is shown 

 by the unusual scarcity of the peel towers, so common in other 

 districts, only one site remaining in the parish which is in extent 

 about 8 miles square. The numerous names compounded of Derry and 

 Dun-a, lying along the flanks of the hills, tell of numerous and 

 probably nearly unbroken oak forests. Indeed, the district must have 

 been thickly-wooded fi'om the days when huge elks were engulphed 

 in its bogs down to the last centujy. 



Early legend connects the name Aughty with " Echtge the 

 awful," a lady of the Tuatha de Danann, daughter of Nuad Silver 

 Sand, 2 who was a lover of the cup bearer of Sengann and Gann, the 

 tribal ancestors of the Siol Gangain — the Ganganoi of Ptolemy's Atlas. 



Oux annalists state that the lake of Lough Graney burst out with 

 numerous other lakes in other places, about 700 years before our era. 

 In the historic period no events of much importance occurred in its 

 borders, and in its few records its loneliness and wildness are usually 



1 OidnaQce Survey Map, County Clare, No. 19. 



2 " Silva Gadelica," vol. ii., p. 126. Caeilte also mentions a place, Cuaille 

 €hepain, south of Lough Graney, where Chepan Mac Morna fell. 



