258 Proceedinns of ihc linj/al Irish Academy . 



at best, based on mirage and fog-bank. This may be modified, should it be 

 proved that the Porcupine Bank (which so closely corresponds in position with 

 Brazil) has been above water even in an early human period. If it be not 

 Brasil, " the Deep says, It is not in me " ! However, even the nine thousand 

 years before the time of Solon may be inadequate to bridge the abyss of time 

 between us and the sinking of the sea-bed through which the Erne and 

 Shannon cut their ancient channels, now deep beneath the waves. 



2. The traditional islands along the coast, which are represented by actual 

 reefs, were very probably actual islands down to a late period. The case of 

 Mutton Island, split into three parts' between 799 and 803, shows that the 

 deep hollows now found between the fragments belong to merely 1100 years 

 of denudation. Other cases occur, such as the entire removal of Cankeeragh 

 Head in Korth Kerry, behind the earthworks that defended it ; the isolation of 

 Dun Briste in North Mayo after the dry stone-wall and gate were built ; the 

 denudation of drift-capped rocks, like Glassillanadun, at Bofin and Caherrush 

 in Clare, the comparatively recent opening of Bealachglas Sound at Aehillbeg, 

 changing the promontory fort of Dunnaglas to a detached islet. Anyone who 

 has studied the ancient remains along the coast can readily believe that 

 churches and towers and the very islands they stood on could be swept away, 

 even since ihe Norman invasion (the latest page of old Irish history), and tidal, 

 or even submerged, reefs alone remain. Take with these the vast inroads of the 

 sea elsewhere within the last thousand years, at the Godwin Sands, the Channel 

 Islands, the east coast of England, Heligoland— why extend the list ?— and 

 Lyoness, Kilstuithin, and Monaster Ladra all seem possibly to have been no 

 "baseless fabric," but real lands, in no remote geologic past. Everywhere 

 " the strong-based promontory " and shore islet have yielded to the waves. 

 Submerged forests and bogs, it should be noted, are found near the alleged 

 sites of the Islands at Bally heige, the Clare Coast, Aran, the Mullet, and 

 elsewhere, bearing out the belief in fairly recent subsidence.' 



3. Of folk-lore, the power of fire to disenchant and fix firmly any phantom 

 island is a cardinal article of belief ; so is the appearance of these lands at 

 intervals of seven years. 



4. Some islands, though possibly none on these coasts, may have been 

 upheaved and sunk by some volcanic outburst, as at Huitserk, near the great 

 loculs of Iceland, and the islands near Terceira and St. Michael, not to look 

 beyond the nearer Atlantic. Very possibly some such event originated the 

 tradition of the vast continent sunk in the waves of which Plato told. 



I hope that this attempt to concentrate our knowledge may lead other 



' See vol. xxxi, Proc. E.I. A., part ii, pp. 4, 74. 



