Wkstropp — Types of Ring- Forts remaining in Eastern Clare. 211 



came to abuse their king, who told him all. Then Brian was very sorry, and 

 he carried the young man up on the hill where he could see Leinster, and set by 

 him till he died, and he buried him there." There were two divergent endings 

 as to Brian's meeting with his fiendish wife. " He ran and broke her head," 

 and " she ran away to the Danes when he offered to beat her." The colouring 

 from the " Wars of the Gaedhil " overlays the original picture. 



Firt Fintain was a famous monument "above Tul tuinne, over Lough 

 Dergderc," according to the Book of Leinster and other sources. Ton tuinne 

 was on the wave-beaten foot of the hill, whence the name spread to the peak 

 above it. A wild legend was told how Fintan^ slept unharmed there under the 

 waters of the great Deluge. The Lacht may be really this monument, so note- 

 worthy, yet of such a forgotten past, that later writers could only express their 

 belief by dating it " before the Flood." 



Below this on the island at Derry Castle, Conchobhar Ua Briain, King of 

 Thomond, in the early twelfth century, built or owned a stone ring-wall or 

 cathair, whence he was named " na Cathrach." Some suppose it to have been 

 at Caher Island, on the Clare shore of the lake ; but a deed' in giving a list of 

 the lands of Murchartach O'Brien of Ai'a, Protestant Bishop of Killaloe 

 {1570-1613), mentions "the castle of Cathair Conchubhair," unmistakably in 

 Co. Tipperary, where also a map of the same period shows, about 1590, Lough 

 Derg, Castlan Logh McEbriue, and Oarcrowghore O'Brian on this shore. No 

 trace of the stone fort survived the building of the castle. It was 

 evidently a "stone crannog" Hke Cahersavaun in the Burren and other 

 lake-forts ; the name Caherconnor is locally remembered. It is unfortunate 

 that it and Clonroad do not survive as late dated examples of their ancient 

 and far-spread type of defences. The Tipperary shore has numerous small 

 earthen rings. I only record the larger and more remarkable com- 

 plex fort of Eoolagh. It lies in a field to the north of the old road past 

 Templeachalla Church, and is very like Lisnagry, above named, and the fort 

 of Drumbaun, near Quin. It consists of two ring-forts within one fosse, and 

 measures over all nearly 200 feet E. and W. and 350 N. and S. The larger 

 enclosure is to the north, and is somewhat pear-shaped, 160 feet long by 

 about 115 feet across. The type is found at Tara in the conjoined Teach 

 Cormaie and Forradh ; whether this marks it as used for ceremonial or even 

 for worship our knowledge is too rudimentary even to suggest. 



1 The famous antediluvian "bard, Fintan, slept, says ancient writers, on that mountain so soundly 

 that the waters of the Flood did not drown him. He used subsequently to awake at intervals, telling 

 the history of the past, and gathering up that of the later generations, heiug accredited as the main 

 transmitter of the remote tale of Ireland. He also used to collect legends from other reliable 

 authorities, such as " The Old Eagle of Achill." Book of Leinster, 4 ; Stowe MS., E.I.A., d. 2.2. 

 56b, and Book of Lecan, 543. 



-T.C.D. M.S, H. I. 7. See also Hardiman Map, No. 68, temp. Elizabeth, in same collection. 



