206 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



filling. This we may regard as a late form, occnrriug, as it does, only in the 

 slighter stone-forts and in annexes,' notably those of the lesser ling-walls in 

 the Burren. The more marked mound measures 62 ft. to 63 ft. across, 

 practically circular in plan, but it may have extended northward to the set- 

 stones, making it 80 ft. long. This, standing in an oval enclosure, makes the 

 breadth of the surrounding garth so variant. There are large blocks of the 

 local dark -grey slate round its edge, but the masonry of the preserved 

 portions is of smaller stones, well-fitted, not showing the regular courses of 

 the limestone-built cathaii's. There are no traces of inner walls ; the outer 

 fence has an earthen core, but was faced with rather small masonry, probably 

 tUl recent times ; now only patches remain. Much of the facing of the eastern 

 segment embodied in the field-fence may be comparatively modern. Two tall 

 old hawthorns to the south-west grow on the ring, and give the only landmark 

 to locate the Grianan in distant views. Below it lies a field called " Pare an 

 each," or horse-park, where Brian Boru (according to local tradition) kept his 

 steeds. 



The palace was evidently a lai-ge timber house, circular, and girt hj a dry- 

 stone wall, with an outer court, in which probably a ring of wooden huts lined 

 the outer wall. 



The Banshee's residence is a bold crag, Craganeevul, jutting from the hill- 

 side, on the western side of Craglea. Aibhinn, or Aibhill, was the tutelary 

 spirit of the Princes of the Dal gCais. Brian, when refusing to escape from 

 the enemy in 1014, told his imploring attendant , " Oh God ! thou boy, retreat 

 becomes us not, and I myself know that I shall not depart alive, for Aibhell, 

 of Craglea, came to me last night, and she told me that I should be killed 

 to-day." Ages of belief probably lay behind the monarch's fatalism. She 

 may (like the Gaulish Catabodva) have been " Bodbh of Battle," when the 

 fierce Lugaid invaded Clare over six centuries before.' She is still believed in 

 at present, nine centuries after Brian, and was a commonplace in death-poetry, 

 even usurping the Sybil's place, in unexpected partnership with King David, 

 in an Irish version of the " Dies Irae."' Her well is still extant, as fresh and 

 abundant as ever; but the new Ordnance Survey Maps only mark it as a 

 " site." 



(9) Bealboeuma (O.S. 45). — Bealboruma, or " Ballyboroo," as some call it, 

 rises near the end of a long drift spur, relic of the great glaciers of early Clare, 

 which once doubtless dammed back the Shannon into its former river-bed, past 

 Scariff and Lough Breeda, southward. The ridge is of very artificial 

 appearance, seizing on which fact popular story told how King Brian was 



1 Folk Lore, vol. xxi., p. 186, giyes the references. i'MSS. Eoy. Ir. Acad., 23. M. 47. 



