20 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



is who " they " were whose statement, that so indubitably archaic a structure 

 was Elizabethan, Dr. Pococke aud his editor so readily received. 



The fort was first described by John Bernard Trotter,' who visited it 

 October 4th, 1817. He mentions the rocks thrown up by the sea in storms, 

 and continues : — " Doonamoe point presents to the curious the spectacle of a 

 very old and massive wall drawn across it with an entrance left, and a kind of 

 large guard-house within on one side. In front stone stakes, of great height 

 and size, had been driven in after the manner of the chevaux de frise. The 

 nature or cause of this antique fortification is unknown to all the people of 

 Erris." He recognized its likeness to Bawinbian, but considered it far more 

 ancient, and possibly Danish. He does not mention the ring-fort, which had 

 probably been levelled even before the time of his visit. 



P. Knight, C.E., in 1836, barely mentions " Doon a nioa " in a list of forts 

 in Erris. He took no interest in such remains save " as showing the former 

 importance of the country." In an appendix he gives from his sister's notes 

 a very artificial and evidently " touched-up " legend, but possibly based on a 

 real tradition. The owner of Dun Domhnaill, Donald Doolwee, reserves for 

 himself " the peninsula on the west coast where the beautiful Doon a moa 

 still stands. "- 



John O'Donovan ' gives us a most valuable study of its remains in 1838. 

 Less aptly than Trotter, whose account he quotes, he compares it to the 

 Norman fortifications at Pdndown, on Lough Eee; but he had evidently 

 at that time seen no other actual promontorj' fort. He continues : — " The 

 wall extends across the neck of the Rinn.* . . . The military wall of Dunamoe 

 is in the secondary cyclopean style— that is, built of rude stones, without 

 cement, but not of the massy character which distinguishes the age of the 

 giants. It is 8 feet high, and seems to have been originally 15 feet high. 

 It had a door or gateway in the middle, which is now entirely disfigured and 

 destroyed ; and, on the outside, there is a trench of considerable depth sunk 

 in the earth immediately under it and parallel with it. Inside this wall 

 there are three small enclosures of oblong form (built of stone and lime-and- 

 sand-mortar), and one larger than either outside it ; but they are not ancient 

 or coeval with the large wall (p. 254). 



" Near the south-eastern extremity of the Itinn are some slight traces of 

 what I concei^'e to have been a round stone fort ; but its stones are so dis- 

 placed by the Atlantic storms, which have thrown up among them a vast 



' " Walks through Ireland" (1812-1817 ; published in 1819), pp. 503, 504. 



- " Erris in the Irish Highlands." 1836, p. lOS ; appendix, p. 167. The story is retold hy Otway. 



^ Ordnance Survey Letters, Co. Mayo (WSS. E.I.A., 14. e. 18), toI. i., pp. 251-25G. 



^His usage of the term " Rinn" shows how Rindown }iad impressed him. 



