106 Annual Meeting. 



but fails to explain the name as having appeared in the form 

 of Aircealtair in 1030, B.C. (Annals F.M.). Reeves, so far 

 as I can find, seems to have been the first writer who actually 

 states that the Mound of Downpatrick was the Rath of Celtchar 

 (Ecclesiastical Antiquities p. 142). 



Comparing the several editions of the ordnance maps, the 

 recent editions print the name Rathkeltchar as applying to the 

 mound; the edition of 1857 calls it "Mount," while that of 

 1834, the first, merely marks it "Fort." 



The Act of Parliament of 1882, dealing with the establish- 

 ment of the county councils, gives the council of Down power to 

 preserve as an Ancient Monument Dunkeltair, referring to the 

 mound. Lewis, in his topographical Dictionary, 1837, merely 

 refers to the mound as "the ancient doon or fort, near the 

 church founded by St. Patrick " ; he does not associate it with 

 Dunlethglas or Rathkeltchar, from which it seems evident the 

 confusion had not ai-isen in his time. 



Going further back to Harris, who wrote in 1747, no sign of 

 the confusion can be found in his account ; but perhaps the 

 clearest evidence of rather more ancient times as to the real 

 nature of the mound can be found in an estate map drawn out in 

 the year 1729, where the mound is marked, as then known, 

 "The English Mount," and in the inquisition of 1662, where it 

 is recorded that Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Ardglass, had been 

 seized at the time of his death in 1650, of, inter alia, " Hoggs 

 Island, Le Roundmount als Donecoscue, Courtground, &c. . . 

 all in or near Down."* 



There can be no doubt that the English Mount, Le Round- 

 mount, otherwise Donecoscue, in or near Down, applies to the 

 Mound as it was familiarly known in the years 1729 and 1662 

 respectively. 1\\ the earlier date the Norman-French name still 

 adhered, evidently transcribed by a clerk with no accurate 



*Orpen ; Journal of the R.S.A.I., vol. xxxvii (1907), " Norman Mote 

 in Ireland." 



