108 Anmml Meeting. 



to the courtyard of later castles. In some cases, as in Drumore, 

 the bailey was a rectangular entrenchment with the niotte outside 

 and detached. The motte was usually built of the clay or rock 

 excavated from a circular trench of which it became the centre. 

 Thus the word motte or mote, latterly spelled phonetically ni-o-a-t, 

 became applicable to either a circular trench or foss, or the 

 enclosed mound made from the soil extracted therefrom, or to 

 the two combined. Mrs. Armitage restores the original meaning 

 of motte, a lump of earth or artificial mound : while the moat 

 is now more generally accepted as the trench, either full of 

 water or dry, surrounding a habitation, such as a moated 

 grange. The l)ailey or courtyard corresponds to the Irish bawn. 

 The name is still well preserved in the Old Bailey of London, 

 originally a courtyard of a Norman fortification. It seems to be 

 also analogous to the Irish bally, now loosely translated as a town 

 or townland, but I'eally seeming to mean a populated centre or 

 assembly of dwellings. 



The accounts of the events immediately following the 

 erection of this castle differ in the various annals and the account 

 of Giraldus Cambrensis ; but one thing seems to be clear, that 

 de Courcy having once entrenched himself here, "dug himself in," 

 as the modern phrase is, used this fort as his rallying point. He 

 may have suffered the defeats referred to in the annals of Innis- 

 fallen, but in the end he undoubtedly conquered Dalaradia, at 

 first fortifying the mound as an impregnable fortification on which 

 to fall back. This does not at all imply that his army stayed 

 here continuously ; the Four Masters and Giraldus clearly convey 

 that he was continuously on the move, raiding here and there, 

 gradually increasing his hold on Down and Antrim, until finally 

 he had the whole in subjection and '* encastellated," as Giraldus 

 relates. One thing seems to loom out clear from all accounts : 

 de Courcy set out from Dublin with a force of a few hundred 

 knights and well armed foot soldiers ; in four days they arrived 

 at Down Patrick, which, all unprepared, they captured at once, 

 erecting immediately " the strong fort of stones and clay, en- 



