Westropp — -Earthworks and Ring-Walls in Co. Limerick. 25 



Eental (now preserved at Newcastle), in 1701 (p. 4), calls it Dongonyweell, 

 granted to Mr. Edward Tannerj for £30 per annum, with the manor dues of 

 wheatmeal, oatmeal, 1 hogg, I mutton, and to keep 12 men for the public 

 service, with 12 garrons. The heriot was the best beast, or £4. Evidently 

 Dunganville was a place of some importance on the Manor of Newcastle. 



The fort' is carved out of the bank of the river, and is well preserved ; it 

 was probably crescent-shaped in plan from the first. The central fort is 

 nearly circular, with two rings and fosses abutting on the bank, on the edge 

 of which is left a causeway, showing that the ditch went no farther, and 

 gives no evidence of the cutting away of the bank by the stream. The map 

 of 1839 show's its outer ditch as circular,' but, so conventional is the 

 marking of forts on those maps, I see no reason to regard it as true. There 

 seem to be no existing reaches of stone facing, but other forts of Connello 

 are nearly all faced, and the "great steepness of the banks (though the 

 earth is tough clay) may prove that such facing formerly existed here. The 

 rings are thickly covered with hawthorns and elder, and the only entrances 

 through the outer ring and fosse are by irregular cattle paths. The outer 

 ring is only 4 feet high, but looked far loftier from its high bracken and 

 plumes of foxglove. It is 10 feet thick. The fosse is from 6 to 10 feet 

 wide below, and 4 to 5 feet deep. The next ring is 9 to 10 feet thick, and 

 about 5 feet high over the outer fosse, but 13 feet over the great inner one, 

 and 15 feet thick at its base. The main fosse is 15 feet wide below, and 

 (save where filled up to the west by the inner rampart) it is almost uni- 

 formly 13 feet deep, and is wet even in dry weather. Where it is partly 

 filled it is 6 feet deep for a short reach, but rapidly deepens to 9 and then to 

 12 feet. It is from 42 feet to 45 feet wide at the field level. The garth is 

 16 feet above it, the summit of the central rampart 20 feet to 26 feet, or 

 4 feet to 10 feet higher than the garth. It is 26 feet thick at the platform, 

 and 9 feet on top. The interior is 140 feet across inside, and 174 feet 

 north and south, to 199 feet east and west, over the rampart. The whole 

 earthwork measures 325 feet east and west, and 252 feet north and south. In 

 the centre is a low mound of stones 9 feet wide, its south wing 27 feet, and its 

 east wing 57 feet long, |_-shaped in plan. A similar mound, parallel to the 

 south wing, and 21 feet from the east one, lies to the north. The peasantry 

 believe that there are caves under these, but that they were never open in 

 the oldest memory. From the summit is the fine outlook of those gentle 

 hills westward and to the ring of blue mountains in Clare and east Limerick — 



1 Plan, Plate IV. 



^ If correct, this would be very like Glenfoyle rath (Kilkenny Soc, R. S. Antt. Ir., 

 vol. i, p. 246), which, however, had no river to cut away the lower garth. 



Jl.I.A, PEOC, VOL. XSXIII., SECT. C. [41 



