60 



Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



diameter : Killeen, near Springfield (54), and Dunganville (28), a? 

 fine fort on the Daar river,* are each about 420 feet across. Doonglare 

 (49), the ancient fort of Claire, in the "Book of Eights," is a few 

 feet wider ; it rests on a furzy hill near Ballingarry in Coshlea. 

 The Kyle of Lisheenasheela (45), in Kilmeedy, is oval, 300 feet to 

 500 feet over all; while the great ring-mound of Dromin (37), in the 

 centre of which stands Cloncagh church, is, we belieye, the largest 

 earth-work in the county, being from 750 feet to 770 feet across. 



The Forts in Histoey. — As the districts of which we treat come 

 slowly within the feeble light of our early records we see, standing 

 out as one of the principal centres, the fort of Brugh righ, or Bruree,. 

 a residence of the earliest known kings of North Munster. The 

 reputed founder, Oilioll Olum, is (as handed down to us) a somewhat 

 mythic personage ; but, even after dismissing all the obviously mythic 

 and even marking as doubtful the details of his warlike acts, we have 

 probably left to us a shadow of an actual prince of renown in the 

 third century. He is accredited with having established the alternate 

 succession at Cashel ; and so important a fact as this might well have 

 been handed down at least as far as the legends of the Armada and of 

 the civil war of 1650, which are rife in our time. Ethieus found 

 "volumes" and students in Ireland in the fourth century founders 

 (as Hamlet says of those of churches) are kept longest in popular 

 memory, and Oilioll's great raths may have kept his remembrance 

 green down to the Christian writers of the fifth century. Bruree is 

 a ring fort in the fields near the Maigue, the central portion 60 feet 

 across and 18 feet high, with two ramparts 40 feet wide and 12 feet 

 high, and a fosse. IS'ear it is another fort of closely similar design. 

 The castle we hope to describe hereafter. 



Duntrileague fort, named from the pillars round its well, figures 

 in the j?trange legend about king Cormac Cass, in the "Book of 

 Lismore."^ 



When St. Patrick visited the district, circa 440, the following 

 forts stood among the Dalcais, if we can place any reliance on the 

 early "Lives": — Prince Carthan dwelt in the fort of Sangal or 

 Singland, beside the open fields and island where Limerick was to lift 



1 *' Astaregh," in Peyton's Survey. 



2 Stated by Ethieus of Istria, a writer of the fourth century. See Dr. Joyce's 

 " Social History of Ancient Ireland," vol. i., pp. 19, 403. Ethieus " hastened to- 

 Hibernia and remained there for some time examining their rohmes''^ ; and he- 

 called the Irish sages ''unskilled toilers and uncultivated teachers." 



3 Silva Gadelica, II., p. 129. 



