2 51 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



the venerated object. I was told in Inishturk that the holy stone on the 

 alter of Caher Island was taken by a French ship, which met with such 

 stomis that they threw it overboard, when the wind and the sea abated, and 

 the stone was soon afterwards found on the beach of Caher Island. One version 

 says it was the lamp-stone that did this. The same tale is also told of 

 St. Leo's Bell, at Inishark, by the people of Inishbofin. The first published 

 account by Mr. T. YT. Eolleston gives the notes written by O'Donovan. 

 It may be found in the Journal, Roy. Soc. Ant. Ir„ vol. xxx., p. 257. 



Caherpateick. — There is a small house-ring or Cathair, called Caher- 

 patrick, on the 1839 maps. It is of coarse granite and other boulders, the 

 wall only about 4 feet thick and high. It is D-shaped in plan, the corners 

 lying to the north-east and south-east. The garth measures 39 feet east and 

 west, and 36 feet north and south. Iuside there are no hut foundations. It 

 stands upon a knoll. The gateway faces the south. An ancient way leads 

 from it to the little lake of Kinkeel. 



Beside it runs an old track eastward to the sea. It was called Botliar na 

 naomh, the saint's road, in 1839, and was believed to rim under the sea 

 towards the Beek. The saint (Patrick) was said to have emulated the miracle 

 of Moses by dividing the sea, when, driven in his chariot by St. Mionnan 

 (Bionnan or Benen) and followed by a number of holy men, he visited the island. 



Mr. Eolleston noted a walled headland, but would not decide whether it 

 was an early promontory fort or not. It rims across the neck of the beetling 

 headland of Kinrawer at the north-west end of the island. The rock runs 

 back along the south or landward side, with a shallow little lake, and seems a 

 tempting site for a fort-builder. Probably the exposed and narrow ridge, 

 where, on the day of my visit, it was hardly possible to stand upright against 

 the breeze, was too unsheltered, though indeed many of the fenced headlands 

 are equally wind-scourged. The fence is barely 3 feet thick, irregularly concave 

 to the land. There is no debris, and the site is evidently not a cliff-fort. 



The coast names are Porttarift', Ooghnalura, Ooghdoul, Ooghatulskaun, 

 Gubacappul, and Turlinveagh. "We found the foundations of two huts. The 

 southern, at the end of Porttarritf (Bull port), was a grassy house-ring, 29 feet 

 over aU, the wall little over 4 feet thick ; the sea has cut away the drift-bank, 

 on which it stands, to the west. Mr. Praeger noted another exactly similar 

 and of the same size, behind the smaller creek at about 300 yards farther to 

 the north. It is sheltered from the sea by a beach of upcast stones. The shore 

 is rarely much over 20 feet high at the south shore of the island. Many 

 old enclosures are traceable, but the island has been uninhabited since 1839. 

 The fields were laid out in the curiously various " lazy beds " with C and S 

 curves, common on Clare Island. (Plate VI. i 



