30 Proceedmg-s of the Royal Irish Academy. 



4 feet deep, with a stoue-faeed earthwork inside, convex to the land. The 

 mound is about 20 feet thick and 9 feet high ; much of it only retains the 

 facing for about 4 feet up from the fosse ; but near the northern, bend' is a reach 

 8 to 10 feet high, well built of carefully laid slabs, with a regular batter of 

 1 in 4 to 1 in 5 —a rather unusual slope. This rampart is 138 feet long, and 

 has fallen with the cliff at the southern side, but runs along the northern cliff 

 (a steep, grassy slope), and meets the ring-fort. The gateway faces the east, 

 and is 6 feet wide, lined with set slabs like those in the evidently very early 

 forts of Moghane and Turlough Hill. 



Entering the forecourt we fLad, at 36 feet from the inner piers of the 

 gate, a kerb-like row of blocks runniug KlsT.W. and S.S.E. ; its object is not 

 apparent. 



At 65 feet fi-om the outer gate we reach a fine rhig-fort.^ There is no 

 trace of an outer moimd ; and the fosse is nearly filled to the east. A gate- 

 way faces the outer gate, which it exactly resembles in design and width. 

 The mound is earthen, and was once stone-faced all round, though little of 

 the masonry remains. It is 20 feet thick and rises 4 feet to 6 feet over the 

 garth ; and to the west it is 18 feet thick and 9 feet high above the ditch. It 

 measiu'es 259 feet over all, east and west, and 220 feet inside, the northern 

 part haATng fallen with the cliff; the garth is only 150 feet across, north and 

 south. The western fosse is 6 feet wide below, 1 feet at the field-level, and 

 3 to 5 feet deep. It still holds water in wet weather, as we had every 

 opportunity of observing in the late August, so destructive, by its endless 

 stonns and rain, in County Mayo. There is a gangway 3 feet wide, 45 feet 

 from the northern chff, opening westward ; thence there is for 18 feet a deep 

 cutting into the ring, with set slabs, and long since grassed over. The ditch 

 is 4 feet 6 inches deep for 96 feet, and more shallow for 114 feet to the edge 

 of the south cHff, which is munjured, and forms a steep, grassy slope. 



In the garth is an early bnrial-groimd called Kilmore; no trace of a 

 chm-ch remains, but there are numerous graves lying east and west in a low 

 rectangular mound, hardly a foot high, measuring 43 feet east and west, and 

 25 feet north and south. There are also some small cist-Uke enclosures of 

 slabs, and a round, low slab pier or altar, 3 feet high and 6 feet across at 

 16 feet from the east gateway. A similar " altar " lies outside the mound at 

 54 feet to the west of the last, and 100 feet from the north cliff. Each is 



1 Plate YI., figure 2. 



- The osciirrence of a riag inside a promontory fort is not unprecedented. Besides Dunnamoe in 

 Ireland, the two promontory forts at Appenay sm- BeUeme (Ome), France, have each a lo\r ring- 

 fort or mole, 6 feet high, the earthworks lising nearly 11 feet over the fosse ; they yielded worked 

 flints and fragments of vases. The fosse is nearly 56 feet deep. (Bulletin Soe. Prehist. de France, 

 1910, p. 32.5.) 



