476 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



5 feet deep at the last point, and the mound 12 feet high ; the bank steep and 

 perfect, 12 feet thick and 8 feet high ; the corners very sharp ; evidently, 

 therefore, the stone facing was removed in comparatively recent times. The 

 sides measure from corner to corner — the east 105 feet, north 135 feet, west 

 126 feet, south 153 feet, diagonally north-west and south-east 150 feet ;' they 

 are a garden of hartstongues and other great ferns, and are set with ash trees 

 and hawthorns. The place is held in more awe than the neighbouring forts. 



Ballingaddy (0. S. 48). 



This lies near the churcliyard of Ballingaddy, or " thievestown," between 

 Kilmallock and Kilfinnane. It is a steep-sided fort, terraced up 10 feet over 

 the field to the south and south-east, but only 5 feet to north. It is 123 feet 

 across the ring, which was 12 feet thick. The stone facing is entirely 

 removed, and there is no trace of a fosse. A few forts, low and as a rule more 

 or less levelled, lie between it and Ardpatrick, like Gotoon and the Lisheen, 

 and two forts in a marsh, over which they rise barely 2 feet. They lie to the 

 west of the road. 



EiAN BO (0. S. 56). 



The " Slug of St. Patrick's Cow," made when the unruly beast ran away 

 from Ardpatrick, was called by Irish speakers Bian ho Phaclhruig, as I was 

 told on my visit in 1877. The long fenced road from Ardmore through 

 Co. Waterford bears the same name, and similar long entrenchments, even 

 the huge works so well described by Mr. De Vismes Kane in Ulster, are 

 attributed to supernatural animals like the Black Pig, or monsters like 

 the Mata or the Bull of Cualnge, the Glasgeivnagh cow's tail, and the 

 serpent of the " Worm Ditch." Early literature attributed them to gods and 

 heroes like the " Track of the Daghda's fork " ia the " Second Battle of 

 Moytura," and the track of Cuchullin — " like a mearing were the two dykes 

 the wheels of Cuchullin made."- It is an old roadway, leading from the 

 utterly defaced church and round tower of Ardpatrick,^ slightly to the 

 west, north-west. Part of it has been cut, by nature or man, into the rock 

 for a depth of over 8 feet, and 16 feet to 20 feet wide ; part is only fenced. 



1 Plan, Plate XL. 



-See " Ancient Forts of Ireland," sects. 21-149, seqq- Revue Celtique, vol. xii, p. 87, 

 vol. xiv, p. 417. " Fled Bricrend," p. 45, and " Tain Bo Cualnge" (ed. Faraday), p. 141. 

 Senchas Mor, vol. iv, p. 145. Even the Boyne Valley was made by the monster Mata. 



3 For Ardpatrick excavations, see Windele MSS. 12 C 5, pp. 203, 363, 413 ; Topog. of 

 Kerry, &c. (12, C 3), pp. 371, 161 to 902, Sept. 10, 1841 ; M. Leuihan's "Limerick," 

 pp. 731-2 ; this gives Windele's notes without acknowledgment, unless the reference 

 " Wakeman " be intended for " Windele." 



