43 



The longest axis of Sliabh-na-Caillighe is from west to east, and its 

 extent about two miles. 



To the south and west of the hill lie the comparatively low, undu- 

 lating, limestone plains of Meath and Westmeath, and on the north the 

 slate rocks occupy the low grounds around Lough Bamor. In form the 

 hill consists of three main peaks, two of these still crowned with large 

 tumuli and smaller cairns ; while on the third the work of demolition is 

 going on even at the present time — Mr. Edward Eotheram, of Crossdrum, 

 having had men engaged for years past in carting away the stones of a 

 large tumulus, for the construction of adjoining fences. There are, besides 

 the three principal peaks, two minor hills, extending from the middle 

 in the direction of the western peak, each also crowned with the remains 

 of ancient cairns. 



The prospect from the summit of any of these peaks is not to be sur- 

 passed for pastoral beauty by any other locality in Ireland; and it would 

 be impossible to select a more fitting and commanding site for the necro- 

 polis of a tribe than that which has been chosen — on the very confines of 

 Leinster and Ulster — by the cairn and cromlech builders who inhabited 

 the prairies of central Ireland. 



For years these great cairns — composed of dry, loose stones, and the 

 massive, rude, stone chambers which I am about to describe — have 

 found no better interpretation in the eyes of the peasantry than what is 

 contained in the local legend : — That ''an old hag (name and date not 

 given), with her apron filled with stones, jumped from one peak to ano- 

 ther, scattering a few on each peak, and leaving her chair on the middle 

 one." 



Some years since, passing in the neighbourhood, and observing from 

 the plain one of these cairns, I inquired what it was ; when I was at once 

 informed that it was an erection on which the officers of the Ordnance 

 Triangulation Survey had placed their flag. But it at once occurred to 

 me that such immense piles of stones as I observed on the summits of the 

 peaks of Sliabh-na-Caillighe could scarcely have been erected by the Ord- 

 nance Survey officers, as the labour and cost of making them would be 

 more than commensurate with the advantage to be derived. I therefore 

 examined the place ; and although, during the first two attempts, I was 

 driven from the mountain by storms of hail and rain, I persevered, and 

 was gratified by the discoveries which. I now lay before the Academy. 



I may just mention, that, on consulting the Ordnance Survey Town- 

 land Maps, I find that the only notice taken of these very interesting 

 remains of antiquity is indicated by a mere dot or two, with the words 

 " stones" appended; and this may have caused the place to be passed 

 by and neglected, even by such accurate observers as Sir W. R. Wilde, 

 who must have been looking at these cairns, from no great distance, when 

 he commenced to write his graphic description of the Blackwater, where 

 it issues from Lough Eamor. 



I only trust that future explorations may turn up some curious de- 

 tails for an additional chapter in the next edition of that interesting 

 book. 



