Gray — Irish Cromlechs. 231 



such a term is not known generally among the Irish-speaking 

 people ; but such objections are not feasible, because it is only 

 modern systematic classification that requires special specific 

 terms, and such terms are not commonly employed by the 

 people. The popular terms applied to ancient monuments even 

 of the same class are nearly as varied as the localities in which 

 the monuments occur. It should be noted, however, that in 

 Ireland the prevailing idea involved in local names for crom- 

 lechs is that of a bed or final resting place. 



If we refer to the ancient Irish manuscripts, we will find that 

 the sepulchral monuments referred to under the generic term 

 " Leach t," include the group we call " Cromlechs.'' 



Dr. Sullivan, in his introduction to O'Curry's lectures on the 

 manners and customs of the ancient Irish, says : — 



" The word leacht seems to have been a general term applied 

 to stone sepulchral monuments, consisting either of unfashioned 

 stones of every size piled up over a simple grave, or over an 

 " Indeilb cloich 1 ' or stone chamber, or of a number of large 

 upright flags, upon which was placed a great block of stone." 

 The latter kind of leacht is the monument popularly known 

 as a " Cromlech." A simple flag marking a grave was called a 

 leac or liace (plural leacd). When a number of persons were 

 buried beside each other, their leaca were placed in a circle 

 around the grave. Similar circles of leaca or upright flags 

 were put around the leachts, formed of piles of stones. Pillar 

 stones, or cairti, were also used to mark graves, and sometimes 

 the name of the dead person was cut in Ogam upon them. 

 The word leacht occurs frequently in topographical names, as, 

 for instance, in Tamleacht, modernised in one case to Tallaght, 

 a place near Dublin, but unchanged in Tamlacht O' Crilly, in 

 the County of Londonderry. Tamleacht may be translated as 

 the leacht of plague, and, so far as I know, consisted of several 

 graves marked by a head and foot stone, or covered over by a 

 mur clocihe or stone mur, and, where there were a number of 

 them in the same place, surrounded by a circle of " Leaca"* 



* Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish. Vol. I., page 331. 



