250 Elcock — Pre- Historic Monuments at Carrowmore. 



cahirs, and forts which abound upon it. It is the site of the 

 last and desperate battle fought by the Firbolgs * about the year 

 30 B.C., just before they fled to Aranmor, where several of 

 their stone cahirs still remain. At Carrowmore they made 

 their last stand on the mainland of Ireland. The name of the 

 Northen Moytura is given to the battle there fought, so as to 

 distinguish it from a previous hardly-contested battle, fought 

 about seven years earlier, on the plain of the Southern 

 Moytura, close to Cong, at the north end of Lough Corrib. 

 The monuments on the latter battle-field, though of a very 

 different character to those at Carrowmore, are equally remark- 

 able and interesting to the antiquary, and form a lasting 

 memento of the fierceness of the struggle which, occupying 

 several days, there took place. They are well described in 

 Wilde's " Lough Corrib," the account being, perhaps, rather 

 too florid for exactness. 



The monuments on Carrowmore, of which, in 1883, sixty- 

 three could be identified, are clustered together within a roughly 

 oval space of about three-quarters of a mile long by less than 

 half a mile wide. Near the centre of this is a large mound, of 

 which the proper or original name is supposed to be lost. It is 

 now called Listoghil, which I was told on the spot, means rye- 

 fort. But some little investigation kindly undertaken by my 

 friend M. J. Ward, leads him to the conclusion that its deriva- 

 tion is from a lis"=fort, and " toghuil"=overthrow, — the Fort 

 of Overthrow, — which possibly may be the ''real, original" 

 name, given to mark the spot of the decisive struggle. 



Listoghil is a large heap of small stones, and for many years 

 served as a quarry for road metal. However, one day when the 

 workmen were carting the stones away, they came upon a huge 

 flat stone resting on several others, " like a table," and fear at 

 once stopped any further destruction. It was evident that 

 Listoghil was not a mere mound, but was one of the ancient 



* For an examination of the question as to whether there ivas a second battle of Moy- 

 tura fought — which some query — see Jubainville's " Cycle Mythologiqut Irlandais" 

 where the whole matter, with many references, is largely gone into. 



