1893-94.] 7i 



Francis Joseph Bigger, M.R.I.A., honorary secretary, then 

 read the following paper on " Pre-historic and Historic Forts 

 and Raths in the City and Vicinity of Belfast." 



The rapid extension of our city on all hands, whereby the 

 old country marks are being blotted out, caused me to occupy 

 a few spare evenings last summer in surveying and measuring 

 the primitive dwelling places of the people who lived in our 

 town and neighbourhood in early times. These people walked 

 what are now our streets, hunted our plains, fished our rivers, 

 climbed our mountains, and, doubtless, eked out as comfortable 

 and satisfactory an existence in those primitive days as we do 

 now ; they were the free denizens of a district rich in woods 

 and affording excellent hunting grounds for a pastoral people. 

 Now all is changed, and where once was the narrow path amid 

 the crowded wood, the causeway through the marsh or across 

 the river and the undulating plain, there arises the tall mills, 

 the smoky chimneys, and the long rows of houses. 



For a few minutes to-night let us forget these every day 

 aspects of our district and view in fancy, strengthened by the 

 facts I am about to lay before you, that past and those people 

 whose day and life can only be accurately contemplated by a 

 careful study of the remains still preserved to us through a long 

 succession of troublous epochs. 



O'Curry tells us these remains belong to the most remote 

 antiquity. The rath was a simple circular wall or enclosure of 

 raised earth enclosing a space of more or less extent in which 

 stood the residence of the Chief, and sometimes the dwellings 

 of one or more of the officers or chief men of the tribe or court. 

 Sometimes also the rath consisted of two or three concentric 

 walls or circumvallations ; but it does not appear that the 

 erection so called was ever intended to be surrounded with 

 water. The dun was of the same form as the rath, but consisted 

 of at least two concentric circular mounds or walls with a deep 

 trench full of water. These were often encircled by a third or 

 even greater number of rings at increasing distances, but this 

 circumstance made no alteration in the form or in the signifi- 

 cation of the name. Dun is defined in Celtic law as two walls 



