Westropp — Earthworks and Ring-walls in County Limerick. 475 



Forts between Kilfinnan and Kilmallock. 



mortellstown (0. s. 48). 



On a conspicuous rounded hill, scarred by a great red quarry and guarding 

 the mouth of the pass between Kil finnan and Ardpatrick, stands the fort of 

 Cahir Mortell.^ This " mote " is a strong, well-preserved ring-fort, and was 

 an actual cathair or ring-wall, but based on a mound or earthen platform. 

 Little of the stonework remains save some of blocks 18 inches square, and 

 large ones 2 feet 6 inches by 3 feet, near the gateway. The fort has an outer 

 ring once mainly of stone, 3 feet to 4 feet 6 inches high over the field, 14 feet 

 to 10 feet wide. The fosse is usually 12 feet wide below and 18 feet to 20 feet 

 at the field. It is 8 feet deep, the central ring rising over it 18 feet to 20 feet 

 high to the west and north. The crowning wall was 12 feet to 18 feet thick ; 

 the garth measures 68 feet east and west, 81 feet north and south inside, or 

 96 feet to 1 Go feet over the wall. It has a noble view up the pass, and of 

 Seefin and Sliabh riach, Kilfinnan with its mote, and the endless plains 

 below. The gateway was to the east, with a gangway 6 feet high, 25 feet long, 

 and 10 feet wide, built of very large blocks, perhaps taken from the wall in 

 later days ; many are over 4 feet long. The gate was about 5 feet wide ; 

 portions of the old piers are traceable.^ If Windele be not speaking of 

 Kilfinnan, in his confused notes on it and Mortellstown, he says that 

 " passages led to it " — the conventional legend. As he copies the note as 

 referring also to Kilfinnan, he probably heard that the forts were connected 

 by passages. The records give us no help ; they begin (so far as I have 

 noted) in the Plea HoU (No. 119) of 10 Ed. II and a Memoranda Eoll (m 81), 

 where in 1317 Martellstown juxta Gosiston is named ; it is Martes or 

 Mortallstown in 1410, and Capell Mortell in Bishop O'Dea's Taxatio 

 Procurationum, 1418. 



Ballygillane (0. S. 48). 



I take this as a fine and typical " square fort," several others being of 

 little interest ; it lies between Ardpatrick and Kilmallock. It is called the 

 " mote of Ballygillane," and is very probably of Norman origin. Popular 

 legend near it tells of strange lights seen in it at night, fl.ashing and forming 

 into a ball, flying up into the air, and the sound of crying in the mote. It is 

 slightly irregular ; the entrance is to the east, and the fosse is deep and full of 

 water to the south-east, but nearly obliterated, and marked by yellow 

 "flaggers" (iris] to the north, though fairly preserved to the west. It is 



1 Windele MSS. (12 C 3) 918. "' Plan and section, Plate XL. 



R.I.A. PROC, VOL. XXXIII., SECT. C, [66] 



