228 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



one entire, the other more or less crescent-shaped — which we find in 

 Dun Aenghus, Cahercommaun, and many forts in the British Isles, France, 

 Central Europe, and even Eussia on the Ural Mountains in Perm.^ At 

 Cahernacalla, however, instead of abutting on a precipice or steep slope, 

 it runs down into the marshy edge of a shallow lake : the ends of the 

 fosse at one time ran out into the shallows; the usual water-level is now, 

 however, lower. 



The structure had a central circular enclosure, now levelled to the 

 ground with evident traces of burial; it stands on the brow of the bank. 

 From it radiate (if the word can be used of irregular curved banks) a 

 series of earthworks, five in number. The whole is included in an irregular 

 curved rampart, 13 feet 6 inches wide, faced with large stones, and filled with 

 earth and small blocks ; outside this is a fosse of the same width and traces 

 of an outer mound. The caher is 366 feet across at the lake between the 

 horns of the rampart, and about as much at its greatest depth : it is best 

 shown by the plan. The garth between the rings measures 147 feet to the 

 south, 280 feet to the west, and 105 feet to the north ; the outer rampart is 

 over 700 feet long round its inner face. 



Eathfoland (42). — This fort is locally called Eathfolan, or Eaf 51and ; it 

 is called EathfoUane on the maps. The townland has three small raths and 

 its strangely overturned castle,^ the lower vaulted room of which has literally 

 turned over on its side. The largest rath bears the townland name; it is 

 cut through by the road from Kilnasoola church to Moghane, and is on 

 a gently rising ground. It has a slightly raised garth, with a ring and fosse, 

 and an outer ring. Measuring along the road-cutting, the fort is 141 feet 

 through the garth, and 186 feet over all ; the outer ring is 15 feet wide, and 

 4 feet to 5 feet high, the fosse 9 feet wide. The portion to the north-west of 

 the road is levelled. 



The little rath down the slope, to the east of the Eectory, is, like the 

 last, reputed to be haunted by fairies, and is therefore avoided by belated 

 travellers. It has a ring 6 feet wide, with large blocks of stone, and a 

 garth 81 feet across. A few paces up the slope, to the north-east, is a 

 low, thin-banked ring, or bawn, hardly a foot high. The neighbouring 

 Lough Gash, a hollow usually dry for half the year, has a hamlet of the 

 same name, which, in 1905, as its horrified occupants firmly believed, was 

 visited by a banshee on several successive nights. Nothing untoward. 



1 Journal Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland, vol. xxxviii., p. 31. 



2 It is shown in a sketch of Ballycarr Castle, by Thomas Dyneley, in 1680, reproduced in 

 Frost's "History of Clare." 



