Westropp — Larger Cliff Forts of West Coast of Co. Mayo. 1 9 



blocks, with which the entrance passage is also lined ; the filling was also of 

 stones and earth. The bottom layer of the face is laid as stretchers ; the upper 

 part as headers. The wall is from 9 feet at the passage to 10 feet thick; 

 the entrance is 3 feet 9 inches to 4 feet wide, and looks towards the E.S.E., 

 dii'ectly towards the old road-way which leads in that direction from the end 

 of the neck up the slope of the shallow valley to the plateau. Inside the 

 gangway on the glacis, just below the gateway, lies a slab of stone, very 

 probably the Kntel of the gateway ; it is 5 feet 2 inches long, sufficient to 

 span the opening, which is only 3 feet 9 inches wide— a mere "creep entrance." 

 Inside we see that the garth was fenced with a thinner wall, from -i to 5 feet 

 thick, of earth and stone. The space within the gateway is 29 feet 6 inches 

 wide, the gateway being 6 feet from the soiithern, and 21 feet from the 

 northern, of these fences. The narrow space widens into a broad garth on 

 the simimit of the head, faUing in a fairly steep slope to the gate. The garth 

 was tilled, and so no traces of huts or inner di^dsions remain. At about 136 

 yards from the gate the sward ends and only a bare rock-surface — the earth 

 washed away by storms — and heaps of rocks remain beyond. 



DUNNAMO (0. S. 9). 



Dun na mbo, "the fort of the cows," as Owen Heenaghan, of Emlybeg, wrote 

 in 1821,' for, according to tradition, the people of the Mullet secured their 

 cattle in its ambit during the terrible battle of Cross — a conflict unrecorded 

 in history, but which set its mark deeply on the traditions at Termoncarra.^ 



The first to notice the fort, but not by name, was Dr. Pococke' (soon after- 

 wards ordained Bishop of Ossory), in 1752. In that year he went from Achill 

 to the MuUet. He called on Mr. Anthony O'Donnell, at Termon Carra, and 

 rode along the sea-shore to the " IST.E." (KW.) of that place. He " observed 

 a small detached rock wlrieh had some fortification on it (Dunaneanir), and, 

 going further, saw a little head which was defended by a modern fortification 

 made across the neck of it in Queen Elizabeth's time, as they say, in order to 

 deposit goods that were shipwrecked, that they might not be plundered. 

 I went on further, and returned, seeing a little to the westward (south- 

 westward) a passage underground from the sea where the tyde goes in aboiit 

 50 yards, and is seen from a large hole^ over it." The main interest in this 



' Letter fastened into a copy of P. Knight's " Errisintbe Irish Highlands," E. I. Acail. Library. 

 O'Donovan (O.S. Letters, Mayo, vol. i., p. 251) says: — "The name is locally pronounctd 

 Dun na mbn, as if signifying Iliin of the Cows," but snggests ihat the correct form is Dnn niodha, 

 from the chief of the Clan Huanior. 



- See " EiTis and Tyrawley " (Rev. Caesar Otway), p. S9. 



3 Dr. Pococke's Tour in Ireland, 1752 (ed. Eev. Dr. G. Stokes), pp. 90, 91. 



' Poulnashantinna, between Dunnamo and Dunaneanir. 



R.I.A. PROO., VOL. XXIX., SECT. C. [4] 



