382 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



ceremouiaP and not a residential fort, because the ridge overlooks it (or rather 

 is near it, being slightly lower), has no weight when we consider how the 

 evidently residential stone forts of Caherlisaniska, Cahernamweela, Caherduff, 

 a small one near Cahercommaun, and in a lesser degree Cahermore in G-len- 

 quin, are all commanded by high rock-ridges, close at hand or overhanging 

 them, on top of which they could have been built as easily as on their present 

 sites. The cliff forts, too, are often overhung ; we may give as examples 

 Island Hubbock in Co. Waterford, the great fort of Doon near Dingle, and 

 the small but strong cliff fort at Foillnamna at Ventry in Kerry. Also we 

 find trace of a stone wall of fairly large blocks round the top at Magh Adhair. 



Fig. 4. — Plan and section of Mounds at Magh Adhair. 



I regret that I did not use my own plan for the description published in 

 these pages, as, on re-examination, I find the plan on the large-scale maps 

 inaccurate, being the one used in that paper.^ I give a new plan with a 

 a section. 



I may also note a very significant name, occurring, as it does, so near 

 the Inauguration place of the early Kings of Thomond — " Boolyree," " the 

 milking-ground of the King," which gives its name to a little brook which 

 joins the Hell Eiver,^ just below the mound, and forms the Eine, the ancient 

 Gissagh or Missagh. 



1 Of course such mounds as the Forradh at Tara and Magh Adhair played their part in ceremony 

 and perhaps in M'orship. Virchow regarded the higli motes with annexes (like Lismore and other 

 Irish examples) in central Europe as temples ; and if the Teach Cormaic was (as Borlase thinks) a 

 temple of Cormac mac Airt, then a field of speculation (as yet untouched, but which would be full 

 of dangers) is opened to Irish antiquaries, who have as yet done little to identify or illustrate the 

 temples of " the Elder Faiths in Ireland." 



^ Proceedings, Ser. iii., vol. v., p. 55. 



3 The strange name is taken literally by O'Donovan and O'Cuny in the Ordnance Survey 

 Letters. There is no explanation of so grim a title. 



