386 f Proc. B.N.F.C, 



delighted with their first day's work. During the day the 

 botanists of the party were very busy, and many plants that are 

 rare or absent in the North were recorded. 



Thursday, the 13th, found the party up and eager for the 

 day's work, and at 9 o'clock all were again seated in brakes^ 

 and were fortunate enough to be accompanied by a very large 

 number of the members of the Louth Archaeological Society 

 (under whose guidance the clubs were for this day), and started 

 for Castletown Castle and the great mound or fort called Dun- 

 dalgan, which is said to have given, the name Dundalk to the 

 town. Arriving at Dundalgan. Mr. Wra. Tempest, J.P., acting 

 as local guide, explained with great clearness the different 

 features of the mound, and also the very interesting and almost 

 perfect castle adjoining — permission for the visit having been 

 kindly granted by Mr. E. Bigger, J. P. A little further along the 

 road the very interesting Fort of Rosskeagh was examined, and 

 again Mr. Tempest gave the party all the information available 

 about this very curious structure. It appears tO' have been a 

 compound fort, but from the way in which the hand of time^ 

 aided by that of the despoiler, has done its work, it is now very 

 hard to say what the original structure was like. But time was. 

 passing, and we had to drive on to Faughart, where a most 

 interesting group' of remains was visited — fort, church, and 

 graveyard. The Church of St. Brigid is the most interesting 

 of the group, but all that now remains of the structure are a 

 few broken walls crumbling to dust, and with only traces of 

 windows left, but the romantic halo' of the past invests these 

 bits of stone and mortar with an undying interest. St. Brigid, 

 who was born close at hand in 480, built this sacred edifice 

 before she built the splendid nunnery still remaining in Kildare, 

 and here on the 14th of October, 1318, was interred the head- 

 less body of Edward Bruce, the last King of Ireland, after the 

 disastrous battle which crowned his misfortunes in the valley 

 below, but the visitor searches in vain for any memorial of the 

 illfated monarch, and has to take for granted that amongst the 

 crowned and saintly dead with which the place is crowded 

 Ireland's last monarch found a resting place. But again the 



