470 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



-lake, Loch bo (evidently the marshy ground below Kilfinnan where tlie glens 

 abut) ; the three mounds were probably those of Cush. To the east of the 

 lake was Fininis, to the west Cnoc na haeire ; to Patrick's left was a fort on 

 a mountain (Mortellstown), which he passed later going to Finntulach or 

 Ardpatrick. The topography is most exact. ^ 



The Dind Shenchas of Cend Febrat^ says there was a " branch " of druids 

 of the Tuatha De Danann established on that mountain. This is an important 

 statement, as it possibly accounts for the unusual mass of legend preserved 

 there from the third to the early fifth century, none seeming later than the 

 reign of Eanna Airigthech, circa a.d. 410. 



No legends attach to the Kilfinnan fort ;'' it very possibly was never the 

 residence of the Kings of the Dal Cais, and owes its shadow of " royalty " to a 

 claim never enforced. In the well-known list of royal forts in the Book of 

 Eights* we have embodied a poem attributed to St. Benean in the fifth century, 

 but far more probably of the period nearly five centuries later when the claims 

 of the Kings of Cashel became prominent, but before the Kings of the Dal 

 Cais were making their revolutionary claims to the Kingship of Cashel. In 

 this venerable mnemonic poem we read of Dun Eochair Maighe, at Bruree, 

 and "Drumfinghiu of the wood, with itTreada na riogh," the triple-mounded 

 fort of the Kings. This is unmistakably Kilfinnan.^ The early English records 

 call it Keilfinny and Keilfinane, and imply an earlier form, Coill finghin, 

 Finghin's wood (not cil or " church ") ; name-groups are not uncommon with 

 the same terminal (as we saw at Sliabh and Dun Claire), so there may have 

 been a Drum-, Coill-, and Cil Finghin here. The epithet "of the wood" is 

 most appropriate; the place was hemmed in by forests, even after 1655. The 

 barely penetrable oakwood in the Mcsca Ulad between it and Knockainey, the 

 " Great wood " of Coill more, Killmore or Killcuaige, Coillcuaige, Kilquoige, 

 and Kilcruaig lay near it in 1657. Cloghnotfoy, or Castle Oliver, and Bally- 

 urigane, near it, were at that time " well supplied with fireing and other 



' Agallamli, Silva Gadel., vol. ii, p. 123. 



- Metrical Dindshenchas (Todd Lecture Series, vol. x), p. 231, line 69. 



^ However, the Coir Anmann, and other early documents, purporting to copy from the 

 Saltair of Cashel, .say that an ancestor of the Eoghanacht tribe of Cashel, Iralech or 

 lutiagh, of Imlech fir Aeudairti in CliuMhaill Mic Ugaine (Emlygrennan, near Kiluiallock 

 and Kilfinnan) " there first was his fort dwelling '' (reputedly circa 550 B.C.), " first m:ide 

 trenches of forts" (Classa duine). Miss Dobbs collects the corresponding entries, Journal 

 R. Soc. Antt. It., vol. xlvi. Imlech descended from the god Nuada Argetlamh. 



^ Leabhar na gCeart, " The Book of Rights," ed. O'Donovan, p. 93. 



** O'Donovan, O. S. Letters (14 E 9), vol. i, p. 207, regards Kilfinn.ai Mote as Dun 

 Cinn Abhrat, erected by King Brian. The "Treada," however, speaks for itself. 

 We have an equivalent in "Treduma," but this is more probably three conjoined 

 mounds, not concentric rings. 



