218 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



remarkable fort of Cahernacalla supports the view that the types did not, as 

 has been suggested, arise purely from the nature of the ground. The 

 occurrence of square forts, both of earth and stone, both in the Norman and 

 purely Irish territory, again bears against the narrower views relating to 

 this type. Lastly, the very curious caher of Ballydonohan stands alone to 

 our present knowledge, and supplies several interesting questions which we 

 hope the publication of these notes may help to get answered. 



Newmakket Group, Bunratty Lower, 



The ancient Tradraige or Tradree is well marked territory, meared by the 

 confluence of the rivers Shannon and Fergus, and the little streams of the 

 Eine, or Grissagh, at Lattoon, and the Owennagarney at Sixmilebridge. Of 

 the tribe that gave the district its name legends varied ; one derived it from 

 an early druid Trad ; at one time the tribe regarded itself and the 

 neighbouring Ui Cormaic as Eoghanachts, and a local abbot appealed on these 

 grounds to Felimy, King of Cashel (who died about 845), asking his aid from 

 the oppression of the Corcavaskin, then a most powerful race, whose territory 

 covered all south-western Clare beyond the Fergus. The Ui Neill Buidhe,^ 

 of the Tradraighe, on the other hand, claimed descent from Aedh Caemh, a 

 Daleassian King of Cashel [circa 570), and ancestor of the O'Briens. These 

 contradictions suggest to our minds attempts to secure allies by asserting 

 affiliation with different races powerful enough to support their alleged 

 kinsmen. The Tradraighe must have suffered severely during Brian's wars 

 with the Norsemen, as he made their country the area of his guerilla 

 warfare. The Ui Neill subsisted to Norman times ; but this latter race got 

 possession of the land, first under Ptobert de Musegros in about 1240, when 

 the castles of Clare and Bunratty were built, and then in 1275 by Thomas 

 de Clare and his sons down to 1318; it seems to have formed the mensal 

 land of the O'Brien chiefs, who eventually, as earls of Thomond, made 

 Bunratty Castle their chief residence till 1642. 



MOGHANE (42). It is strange that down to 189.3 this enormous fort 

 remained undescribed, and any allusions to it are grossly inaccurate. It is 

 shown even in one Elizabethan map as Cahermoghna. The Ordnance Survey 

 made a fine and most intelligent plan in 1839 ; this figured conspicuously in 

 all their maps, even in the half-inch " key map." A large scale copy was in 

 the hands of O'Donovan and O'Curry, but they never described the place. 

 Later antiquaries called it an earth-work, as did Drs. Graves and Todd when 



' See " Manuers and Customs of the Ancient Irish," vol. iii., p. 262. 



