488 Proceedings of tJie Royal Irish Academy. 



modem name of Liswilliam. It is a rather large fort, 78 feet north and 

 ■west, aud 100 feet east and west over the garth, being about 300 feet over 

 all, with a fosse and low outer ring. It is lost in a thicket of thorn bushes 

 and brambles. 



The Loaver Castle. — The bawn of this castle is e^identl7 early. It is 

 made of great sandstone blocks, and is D-shaped in plan, which makes it not 

 improbably a fine early cathair, which, to meet later ideas of fortification, 

 was rebuilt with mortar, probably in the thirteenth century ; the towers are 

 probably of the fifteenth century. Belie^'ing it to be an ancient site, I 

 describe fully even its later features, though this has exposed me to frequent 

 criticism, even when describing the fortifications added at promontory forts 

 and other undoubtedly early works. It seems inexplicable why certain 

 antiquaries take so narrow a view of archaeology as to resent any description 

 of later additions to the older strongholds. The castle stands, like the forts, 

 on the edge of the table-land, on the steep old bank of the Maigue, which 

 was evidently once a wider and far deeper river when it was fed by the huge 

 oak forests along the Ballyhoura Mountains, and the plains of Coshlea at 

 their feet. If we could regard the " Mesca Ulad " as authoritative in 

 topography, the plains of south-east Co. Limerick were almost impassable 

 from giant oak trees. Only hill-tops, like Knockainey, were clear and afforded 

 any prospect of the distant mountain-ranges. The house of Mr. Callaghan, 

 whom I have to thank for permission to explore the ruins, occupies the 

 courtyard. As we saw, in 1655 the Castle of Brury consisted of "three 

 small unrepaired castles and a bawn."' FitzGerald, in his History of 

 Limerick, in 1827, teUs us that the third tower was ruined — " three strong 

 castles on the river, one entirely dilapidated," and that the gateway tower 

 was called " O'Donovan's prison.'" O'Donovan also notes, in the Ordnance 

 Survey Letters, when he visited the ruins at the chief residence of his 

 ancestors, in 1840. that the third or southern tower was levelled. 



The castle' is a picturesque building, its tall tui-rets and ivied ramparts 

 being well seen from the railway and roads as we approach Bruree from the 

 north (as Ballynoe Castle is well seen from the station), standing on its high 

 bank in a bold loop of the river. The Gate Tower, or " O'Donovan's 

 prison" — the last probably a rather modern name, as the place was attributed 

 to the De Lacys — is still in fair preservation, about 60 feet high, and 19 feet 

 by 24 feet wide. The outer gate is chamfered and recessed ; it has a pointed 

 arch, with shot-holes iu the left (south) and top blocks. The stone work is 



■ Book of Distribution and Survey, p. 12 ; Civil Survey, p. 84. 

 - History, vol. i, p. 371. 

 2 See Plate XLU, No 3. 



