454 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



and in more advanced forms at Aranmore and Iniscaltra. With these 

 we must compare the curious "bone-boxes" of two slabs leaning- 

 together with end stones, such as we find at Termon Cronain in 

 Clare; one Kerry example has even the hole or ghost-door."^ The 

 oblong form passes (as altar-tombs and free standing box-tombs) 

 through the Middle Ages on to the seventeenth century, where, in 

 many cases (as at Kilfenora'^ and many monuments outside of Clare), 

 the body actually lay m, and not, as in later days was more usual, 

 beneath, the stone box. In other examples, where the slab rested on 

 rude blocks or on cut-stone pillars, we recognize the type of the 

 free-standing dolmen. We noticed in Kerry, in the Corcaguiny 

 peninsula, tombs of identical design to the " giants' graves," the 

 latest and feeblest offspring of the mighty line of the " allees 

 couvertes " of the Continent ; they were formed of several thin slabs at 

 each side, and slabs at the end, with several covers; they tapered east- 

 ward, and were usually covered with a heap of stones. Cairn-burial 

 has never passed out of use. We recall the early British epitaph 

 Carausius hie jacet in hoc congeries lapidum."'^ The tenth-century 

 Tripartite Life of St. Patrick "* mentions a person who " congre- 

 gavit lapides ergo sepulchrum." Dr. Whitley Stokes cites the 

 canons of S. Gall (Lib. xiv., cap. ii.) as to cremation and cairn-burial : 

 "Nam ceteri homines sive igni, sive acervo lapidum conditi sunt." 

 Miniature cairns abound in our western graveyards ; and we have 

 been warmly thanked for bringing stones when such a heap was being 

 made. The unhewn pillars are of every period ; the cist, slab, and 

 pillar or headstone are treated with every degree of elaboration down 

 the later ages ; nevertheless they have every claim to be considered 

 the lineal representatives of the prehistoric monuments. 



FOLK-LOKE. 



The local traditions in County Clare are of but little special interest. 

 The names '* Labba," or beds, andLabba'iermid, LeabaDhiarmadha 

 agus Graine, are most common. The popular opinions mostly favour 

 either the Dermot and Grania legend or the sepulchral origin of the 

 monument. Only two or j^three have ever been called " Druids' 



^ See a paper by Mr. P. J. Lynch in Journal R.S.A.I., vol. xxxii., p. 47. 



2 The MacEncharig Tomb has now been opened, and is used as a bone-box. In 

 1887 it was closed, and one saw the skeleton through a small ope in the end. 



3 "Inscrip. Brit. Christianae" (Hiibner), No. 136. 

 * Ed. Whitley Stokes, pp. 160 and 322. 



