10 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



proceedings of the societies), and confining themselves to repeating the many 

 times refuted theories, identifications, and catchwords in books half a century 

 behind modern archaeology. People quoted with approval the poem of the 

 race, " taller than Eoman spears," making " their mystic forts," but were too 

 careless to look in old Irish literature and in European archaeology for what 

 would have stripped the epithet " mystic " from the common, practical home- 

 steads of all early and mediaeval periods of Irish peoples. Since 1890 we have 

 had to collect our material from every source— the library, and still more 

 the field, before we had any reasonable amount of matter for generalization ; 

 let this be an excuse for us workers where the inferiority of our general 

 views is criticized. Yet much has been done in Connacht and Munster, less 

 in the other provinces. In Munster much material is available in Clare and 

 Kerry, and round certain districts in Cork, Waterford, and Tipperary.^ Only 

 one county has been too much neglected — Co. Limerick. 



Still, as ever, a pioneer and beginner, I crave the forbearance of the 

 Academy for laying before it an instalment of this necessary work, covering, 

 it is true, most of (if not all) the types of forts, but giving far fewer examples 

 of each than in previous papers on the other counties of the province of 

 Munster. Some make little allowance for an imperfect survey, but hardly 

 anything else is possible in Ireland, and it is most helpful to publish even 

 such a paper. " The best that every man knows dies with him," but some- 

 thing may be saved. The few who take interest in archaeology (as apart 

 from historical, architectural, and linguistic questions connected with it) will 

 perhaps judge hardly a dry survey, not even pretending to give every fort of 

 importance. Others, more interested in weapons and implements, or in 

 ecclesiastical and genealogical questions, may be even more like those of old, 

 who took no interest in the fort-makers : " Ye also made a ditch between 

 two walls for the water of the old pool : but ye have not looked unto the 

 maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago." 

 The inhabitants of each district could make such a survey, but how many 

 persons in Ireland have completed the recording of forts in even one parish ? 

 One living far away, and only getting a week now and again to explore a 

 district, may get much ; but he certainly can never make a " field-to-field 

 survey," as should be done for a parish or county, before even this limited 

 requirement of completeness is fulfilled. Not by "flying over the country" 

 on a motor, but by going on foot over hills and fields and wildernesses, can 

 such work be done. British antiquaries (foreign ones seem more sympathetic) 



1 See an excellent paper on the earthworks round Tipperary, in North Munster 

 Axchaeological See. Journal, vol. iii, p. 5, by Mr. Paul Flynn. 



