Wkstkopp — Earthworhs and Ring -walls in County Limerick. 491 



central platform all round the edge. This in many forts I have visited 

 implies the former existence of a dry-stone wall.^ 



There is a small pillar about a foot square and 3 feet 6 inches high. 

 Larger examples are not infrequent upon tumuli ; it may be a " scratching 

 post " for cattle, but its position is in that case unusual, and it is too low for 

 the purpose. Low pillars stand not only upon other cairns and mounds, but 

 even in the interior, as at Newgrange and at Carrowkeel. The first had once 

 a pillar on the summit. A pillar with reputed ogmic scores (probably 

 natural) is on Knockastoolery platform fort, near the cliffs of Moher, 

 Co. Clare. What may be the character of the Eagle Mount, is at 

 present doubtful," I incline to regard it as sepulchral or ceremonial, as 

 the Bruglh at Newgrange was " white-topped," and the inauguration mound 

 of Magh Adhair had a wall round the summit. We are not bound to consider 

 Lissadeocha as necessarily residential, still less as military, though even 

 Magh Adhair was besieged and stormed in a.d. 877 by King Flann Sunach. 

 Sepulchral and ceremonial tumuli and residential forts have all such features 

 in common, and even fosses and rings give no evidence of any particular 

 usage. 



The other works seen by me round Bruree are very low, usually with a 

 fosse and an inner and outer ring. One at Knockfenora is oblong, a platform, 

 5 feet high to the west, rarely rising 3 feet above the field. It is about 

 100 feet wide and 200 feet long, and is (I believe) called Knockmore fort. 

 The only other one I need notice lies beside the road from Bruree to 

 Kilmallock in (I think) Ballygubba North. It is a low, green mound, 

 rounded in plan and section, of the " Rathnarrow type,"" but larger than those 

 which I have seen in Clare and Kerry ; it is surrounded by a fosse, within 

 which it hardly rises above the field level. The use of these curious 

 earthworks is very problematical. 



Forts between Bkuree and Knockainey. 

 bulgadeen (0. s. 40). 



Bealgadan was the site of a legendary battle where the High King 

 Fiach 1-abraind fell before Eochaidh Mumho about " B.C. 419." At least the 



1 This is implied in older Irish literature by such terms as " white-capped," applied 

 to tumuli, e.g., Newgrange " Bru^'h barraglieal na Boinne " (Glenbard Collection of Gaelic 

 Poetry, p. 78), and certain allusions to dumha, or dingiia, with glittering top, in the 

 Dindshenchas, ifcc. 



- Even in early literature the sidh and the dun, or the dumha and the dim, are 

 confused ; see Echtra Nerai, Rev. Celt., vol. x, p. 221. Nera comes to the Sidh to fetch 

 his wife, and calls, " Arise out of the dun." 



^ Journal Roy. Soc. Antt. Ir. , vol. xxxvi, p. 421. 



K.I.A. PROC, VOr.. XXXTII, SECT, c. [68] 



