Westropp — Forests of the Counties of the Louder Shannon Valleij. 285 



was held by Donogh Mac Namara in 1638, apparently near Trough. The 

 Four Masters record the plundering bands of O'Briens as hiding in the 

 woods and hills near Killaloe in 1602, when the country was evidently 

 thickly wooded. 



The elaborate confirmation of estates to Donogh, " the Great Earl " of 

 Thomond, in 1620, grants in each barony " the castles, messuages, tofts, mills, 

 gardens, orchards, crofts, lands, meadows, pastures, woods, underwoods, furze, 

 briars, rushes, marshes, alder groves, fisheries, lakes, weirs," &c. It is strange 

 that the alder, which figures but little in local names, should be singled out 

 for mention alone among trees. 



(14) Dyneley, in 1680, shows in his views the flanks of Slieve Bernagh 

 and the country from Mount levers out to Bunratty, in the valley of the 

 Owennagarna, thickly covered by woods and thickets. One wood, that of 

 the Oil Mills, near SixmilebridgC; alone is named. These mills subsisted 

 and were leased to Dean Bindon by Henry Earl of Thomond in 1730.^ The 

 other sketches show a very bare country in 1680 ; only a few trees round 

 Ealahine and Clare Castles and shrubberies at Ballinagard (or Paradise) Hill 

 across the Fergus are shown. He names orchards round Eossroe Castle ; and 

 those of the district out to Sixmilebridge were famed for their choice cider 

 even after 1820 ; indeed, even some thirty years ago, I remember very 

 good cider made in the neighbourhood. Mac Grath names an " apple-fruit- 

 ful" district between Quin and the Fergus in 1318. 



The old orchard " Sean-abhallghort," near Clonmoney, appears with lands 

 in a covenant between William Mac Shane O'Fearghal and Con Mac Namara 

 of Aillveg in 1573 ; and orchards are named in various deeds of the 

 seventeenth century. 



With numerous occasional allusions to the apples of this district, I find 

 and may give as an example a lease of Norcott D'Esterre to Frederick 

 Loyd, 17th January, 1798, Carruane, except the wood of Bunratty, reserving 

 two backloads of keeping apples yearly and 200 good apples per week.- 



We occasionally come across evidence bearing on the destruction of the 

 forests. In deepening the Eiver Graney above Scariff, in 1893, I noticed 

 large quantities of iron slag in the bed of the stream. The only record that 

 may bear on this is in the " Commonplace Book relating to Ireland," p. 239, 

 where Hugh Brigdall's description, about 1695, says: "The Eiver of Scariff, 

 whose waters drive two iron Mills." Whether, however, this refers to the 

 machinery or the materials worked in the mills, I do not attempt to assert. 

 Dr. Bindon Blood Stoney informs me that he has seen a large mass of 

 vitrified material and the remains of iron works between Tinneranna, on the 



1 Dublin Registry, B. 65, p. 252. ^ Dublin Registry, B. 492, p. 124. 



R, I. A. PROC, VOL. XXVn., SECT, c, [43] 



