Westeopp — Eartlnvorhs and Ring- Walls in Co. Limerick. 33 



very instructive and typical settlement, and brings Limerick into comparison 

 with the better-preserved settlements in Clare and Galway. 



In Ballyclough on a furze-grown bold knoll, on the edge of the slope, 

 another fort stands about 220 feet above the sea. It is a ring-wall, 7 feet to 

 8 feet thick and 66 feet over all, with two faces of coarse masonry and large 

 filling. On the north side of the garth is a hut site, and a large slab like a 

 dolmen cover lies on the slope to the north-west. Three loops of wall adjoin 

 the cathair, making it like a three-petalled flower in plan. 



The forts near the public roads along the foot of the ridge are all greatly 

 defaced. A small, very defaced house-ring is at the cross-road to Old 

 Abbey. A foundation of large blocks, 3 feet to 4 feet long, lies to the south 

 of the road to Rathkeale, near Creeves Cross. The last was once a very fine 

 ring-wall. Fort names abound in the district — Lismeenagh, Duncaha, Bally- 

 doorlis, Dimmoylan, Lisbane, Lissatotan, Lismakeery, Lissakettle, Lismeale, 

 Lissard, LisnaeulHa, Lisnamnaroe.^ 



FoYNES AND Old Abbey Geoups (0. S. 10. 19). 



Going southward along the hill road above Corgrig from Foynes along the 

 ridge crowned by Knockpatrick church and farther on by Shanid Castle, we 

 find several earthworks worthy of study. In Knockpatrick fort the garth is 

 terraced upon the slope rising 3 feet above it uphill and 10 feet down hill to 

 the east. This type is characteristic of the Tulla-Bodyke district in East 

 Clare. The garth is 87 feet across the ring, 12 feet to 15 thick, with traces 

 of a fosse of equal width. Near it is a large oval earthwork caUed Croaghane. 

 The south-eastern part in Sroolane has been destroyed since 1839 by an 

 " improving tenant." 



The fort is more or less levelled, and only to the north-west is the fosse 

 traceable. It measures 390 feet north and south and 470 feet east and west, 

 measured on the garth. Two large ring-forts, one 250 feet over all, the 

 other nearly levelled, lie farther back in the hills in Shanid Lower, and a 

 finely situated one about 150 feet across, 528 feet above the sea in the same 

 townland on the summit of Knoekoura, a normal ring and fosse, 110 feet 

 inside and 200 feet over all ; no fort remains in Doonskerdeen. 



Old Abbey.— This group is centred by the venerable and very interesting 

 thirteenth-century Augustinian Nunnery of St. Catherine of conyU,^ with 



' Inquisitions of Exchequer, Co. Limerick, No. 10. No. 11, ann. xxi and xxvi 

 Eliz., 1578, 1583, mentions a fort Cahergony or Catheryou, or Corgraig. I found no 

 trace of a ring-fort at Corgrig House. 



2 See its history by Professor John Wardell (R. S. Antt. Jr., vol. xxxiv, p. 41. and 

 a description, p. 53). 



K.l.A. PKOC, VOL. XXXin., SECT. C. Tg] 



