204 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



A French traveller, De Latociiaye,' late in the eighteenth century, next 

 noticed the site. It is interesting to see how he gives the correct view as 

 to the probable nature of the "palace," while in the last quarter of a century, 

 if not now, several of the clergy and other " antiquaries " speculated as to the 

 romanesque doors of the cathedrals of Killaloe and Limerick being " the door- 

 ways of the O'Briens' magnificent palaces." He writes that he saw " one of 

 these round forts, so common in Ireland, near Killaloe. They call it 

 0' Bryan's Palace : tradition teUs us how 0' Bryan Bohrom, who defeated the 

 Danes at Clontarf and perished in that battle, made it his residence. It is 

 fairly well situated for defence at the place where the river issues from the 

 lake. The fort is not so large as several which I have seen, but the parapets 

 seem higher and the ditches deeper. I am unable to imagine what kind of 

 palace . . . they could build in such an enclosui-e unless they were wooden 

 barracks or tents." 



John Windele was led to visit the place in August, 18.38 ; a certain 

 Mr. Willes had " found in the circular rath of Kincora, three miles from Killaloe. 

 a stone, the angle of which has a few Ogham letters. X.I.h. and III on a flat 

 siu-face 2 inches long." Windele says that the fort was the parlour and kitchen 

 of Brian, and gives a sketch of the moimd and fosse. Kincora lay where the 

 steamboat station " now " is. There were two long galleries across the flat ; 

 the servants passed the plates up one to Balboru and returned them down 

 the other. There was also a wooden bridge. The rath was earthen, cu-cular, 

 with one rampart and a cUtch, partly filled up ; the exterior circumference 312 

 paces, the ramparts 20 feet high ; inside it was 8 or 9 feet high and 36 

 paces, 118 feet, across. His other notes are of small value ; he seems to regard 

 the early oratory on Friar's Island as " a castelet of the same size and date " as 

 the castle at the bridge ; he renders the name Killaloe as " the temple of the 

 two altars," which he supposes to be a fane dedicated to Ehea, whence Lough 

 Eee, the Hindoo Doui-ga, whence Lough Derge !" Then after this belated 

 display of " VaUanceyan erudition," he returns to the fort, which he now 

 describes as 780 feet to 650 feet roimd, 80 feet across the vallum, and 10 feet 

 high, which disagrees with his former notes and the facts. 



Lastly, O'Donovan, in the " Ordnance Survey Letter " of 1839,^ says of 

 Kincora, " Not a trace of the walls .... no field works are visible." He had 

 written in the same letters in 1834 ; " The ruins of Kincora are not totally 

 levelled .... its walls were circular and built of large stones, without cement." 

 This e%'idently was derived from some correspondent who held the common 



' '* Promenade dans I'lrlande " (1797), p. 153. 



= MSS. E. I. Acad., 12. c. 3, pp. 614, 627, 635, and 688. 



^ Co. Londonderry (1834), p. 26. Co. Clare, vol. ii., pp. 346-7. 



