86 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



mentioned in emphatic language. The " Colloquy of the Ancients " 

 tells of the severe winter when "the stag of frigid Echtge's summit 

 catches the chorus of the wolves."^ The " "Wars of Turlough" again 

 and again relate how the Macnamaras and O'Briens fled to the old 

 woods, when the Clan of Brien Eoe and its English allies, the De 

 Clares of Bunratty, proved too strong for them. In 1277, the 

 Macnamaras flee into "Echtge's dense forest and leaf y foliage " ; it 

 afforded them safety in 1280, and again in the severe winter of 1315, 

 " by Echtge's shortest tracks, in the fast woods they made their close 

 set camp ; in this stress and jeopardy, they passed the cold-winded, 

 dark-visaged winter." At last fortune changed, and their enemies in 

 their tm'n sought the friendly shelter in their wild and harassed retreat 

 under Brian Bawn from Burren to the fords of Killaloe in 1316, 

 "until in Echtge's blue ridges, wind-tormented, cold, and with 

 buttressed sides they found a resting place." 



To Echtge's forests Prince Murchad O'Brien and his adherents 

 carried the cattle spoil of the I^ormans, and from them they made 

 their forced march a few days later in May, 1318, to complete the 

 destruction of the army of Sir Eichard De Clare, at Dysert O'Dea. 



The rental of the Macnamaras, about 1380, mentions only ten out 

 of the ninety townlands of the parish, and even these lie chiefly round 

 Feakle and Eahy, where traces of ancient occupation occur. Indeed, 

 till the latter half of the last centxuy, no English or Irish families of note 

 seem to have fixed their residence in the lonely valleys ; nevertheless, 

 the dolmens and rock-markings of Dromandoora already described in 

 these Proceedings^ the cists at Corracloon and the townland noted in 

 this Paper, together with a few forts, show that, in very early days, a 

 few adventurous mortals dwelt in the recesses of the forests. 



Driving up the pass we get a beautiful glimpse of the distant 

 Lough Graney, the ancient Lough Bo Grirre - embosomed in the wooded 

 hills of Caher, and note the blocks of the defaced dolmen of Corracloon 

 rising above the thick furze bushes on the rotmded hill to our rights 

 We cross the little mountain stream and winding valley of Grlen- 

 bonnive, and then ascend the fields to the summit of the ridge, finding 

 a rude track used by turf-cutters which brings us to the boggy basin 

 where these dolmens lie, in the townland of Ballycroum. 



This Paper is mainly intended to correct a vague and misleading 

 description, and a fanciful theory set forth in the Ordnance Survey 



1 " Silva Gadelica." " Colloquy of the Ancients," vol. ii., p. 192. 

 - Silva Gadelica, vol. ii., p. 126. 



