648 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Subsequently I visited half a mile of earthworks marked, I think, erroneously 

 in the Ordnance Map " The Pale." Mrs. Chaloner of Ardnaree (Kingsfort) 

 gave me the clue to this, and on examination I recognized the characteristics 

 of the familiar earthworks of the Black Pig's Dyke. It starts close to KeUs 

 from the northern hank of the Blackwater near the weir opposite the Hill of 

 Lloyd, and traverses the townland of Piathbrack to the road which crosses 

 it transversely, and from that runs through the lands of Ballinamona in the 

 direction of Maperath. At a farm house near the river I was told that the 

 structure was called "The Black Pig's Valley," and that it ran to Lough Eamor. 

 It consists of a central vallum or rampart bordered on each side by a fosse. 

 That on the eastern side was much filled up, but the other was in some places 

 10 feet deep and 20 feet wide. The total width from out to out at present 

 from the enter edges of the fosses is about 15 yards, though one of them is 

 much reduced in size. At the other side of the road which transects it the 

 ground rises steeply in the townland of Ballinamona. The vallum there is 

 massive, and rises some 14 feet above the ground level, with a width of about 

 21 feet, and the fosse at its foot is about 8 to 10 feet in depth. The works 

 can be traced northward towards Maperath Cottage for about a half a mile, 

 but much defaced. Again, at the townland of Farnadoney on Mr. Chaloner 's 

 property, it ran downhill to a sti'eam, but as the high-road was made through 

 it, only on one side part of the rampart can be traced. But on the far side 

 of the stream on the left-hand side of the road in Shancarn, a high rampart 

 about 160 yards long, planted with fir trees, is said also to be part of the " Black 

 Pig's Pace," and that the trenches formerly ran into Lough Eamor at Kyefield. 

 The route, therefore, of these earthworks seems to correspond with a frontier 

 of Ulster as given by Connellan in a note at p. 337 of his edition of " The 

 Annals of the Four Masters." " The boundaries between the Kingdoms of 

 Meath and Ulster were the River Boyne from Drogheda to Slane and Navan, 

 and the Eiver Blackwater from Navan to Kells, and to Lough Eamor near 

 Virginia, and a portion of the baronies of Clankee and Castierahan bordering 

 on Meath." No further indications of the exact boundary west of Virginia 

 are given, nor any indication of the period at which this formed the north 

 frontier of the " Kingdom " of Meath. But it is unnecessary to point out 

 that it in no wise tallies with the boundary given by Keating, which we have 

 traced as No. 3, and which is evidently considerably later than the time of 

 Tuathal Teachtmar, so much so that Father Walsh is inclined to treat that 

 whole story as a fable. West from Lough Eamor I have not been able to trace 

 any earthworks, but there can be little doubt that they ran N.W. through 

 the barony of Castierahan toward the neighbourhood of Crosskeys, and are 

 believed to have passed close to Ballyjamesduff. But the indications pointed 



