Dicelting Places of Prehistoric Man 57 



kennedy type are extant, are of later date than the souterrains 

 and the contemporary foundries of which we have discovered 

 three examples. 



I may say that with regard to Ballyrickardmore rath, with the 

 contemporary cave built in it, my friend, Mr. J. M. Dickson, 

 has suggested a very natural inference. Where all the soil to build 

 the rath had to be carried from some distance, the building of a 

 cave in the fort saved the carrying of so much soil as well as 

 serving a useful purpose, as a cool storehouse or dwelling house. 



As to the age of raths, as distinguished from moats, which we 

 may acknowledge as early Norman castle sites, it is interesting to 

 quote from Gerald de Barry, better know as GeraldusCambrensis, 

 who tells us that on the arrival of the Normans and their progress 

 into the interior in the years commencing about 1170, he found 

 that " Turgesius the Norwegian had subdued the whole island 

 (that was early in the 9th century} and encastellated it in suitable 

 places .... Hence among these remains and vestiges of 

 the past you will find here up to this date (1200) both many great 

 entrenchments, very deep and circular and often threefold, and 

 also walled castles still entire, but all vacant and deserted ; for the 

 Irish people care not for castles. It is the woods they now use for 

 their fortifications and their marshes for their fosses." 



From this statement of Gerald de Barry, who actually recorded 

 what he knew and what he saw, it is suggested that the entrenched 

 raths so common to-day (as distinguished from the Norman moats), 

 were not of Irish origin, but built by the north men, and that on 

 the departure of these invaders to their walled cities of Limerick. 

 Watcrford, Wexford and Dublin the raths fell into general disuse, 

 Not so the souterrains, which were older and of native origin, and 

 at this time were used as dwelling places and also hiding places 

 for valuables. Gerald tells us that the Connaught men, on 

 the approach of the Normans, "with their own hands set fire to 

 their own towns and villages, and whatever provisions they could 

 not conceal in their souterrains they burned, together with their 

 churches. We learn from the Four Masters that souterrains were 

 more or less in use as dwelling places up to the 14th century. 



