Q, 74 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



an irregular, dry-stone cashel, somewhat oval, 60 feet east and west by 45 feet 

 north and south ; the entrance was 3 feet wide, and to the north-east. It was 

 entirely defaced before Dr. Browne described it. 



Stations. — There are fourteen religious stations marked as " monuments " 

 on the maps. One of them is a granite boulder, with a bullan or basin in it. 

 The natives, after performing rounds at the stations and praying at the well, 

 sometimes sleep in the clochdn. I found no record of the patron, St. Leo ; his 

 festival is on April 11th. The map marks a " Cloghancongleo," a ruined hut 

 on the south-east point of the island. It resembles a defaced cairn or house- 

 ring as seen from Bonn. 



Other relies of Leo are his footprint when he stepped down on to a slab 

 after completing the roof of the clochdn, and his cave. The latter is called 

 Uaimh Leo and Fuo.th Leo, lying south from his church in a creek. His well 

 is not in the cave, as stated in the Ordnance Survey Letters, but at the head 

 of the cove. 



The chief relic was, however, the belL "Flaherty, as we saw, recorded its 

 existence in 16S4. It was of " brass," probably bronze or bronzed iron, but a 

 bad custom arose of cutting off a portion as an amulet for those emigrating, 

 and by 1S46 the bell had been entirely broken up. A few portions are 

 said to have been kept concealed with jealous care by old people in Bofin. 

 Legend said that the bell was once carried off by some Trench sailors, who 

 were so vexed and endangered by storms that they turned back, one 

 version says, " from the Bay of Biscay," and restored the bell, or, as others 

 say, cast it into the sea. It was soon afterwards found on the shore by 

 seaweed-gatherers. The same story was told me in Inishturk, but it was 

 about the holy stone of Caber Island. 



7. SPECTRAL ISLANDS. 



The story that Inishbofin was once a floating island till fixed by a spark 

 of fire' is a form of one of the most interesting legends of the west coast of 

 Ireland. Unlike so many beliefs, it rests directly on visible facts, the mirage 

 and the evidence of the submergence of the coast. Science has traced the old 

 river-beds of the Shannon and Erne far under the sea, and has recognized the 

 sinking of the Porcupine Bank and Piockall : but the sunken bogs and tree- 

 stumps told everyone what had taken place in the past. For many centuries 

 it has been embodied in early Irish literature. The " Voyage of Maelduin," 

 probably far older than its earliest extant copy about 1100, tells of roofed 

 duns and an inhabited country seen under the waves and of the "thrice fifty 



1 Supra, p. 58. 



