352 



country by giants from the extremity of Africa ; and in the time of 

 Giraldus Cambrensis there was still to be seen, as he tells, on the plain 

 of Kildare, an immense monument of stones, corresponding exactly in 

 appearance and construction with that of Stonehenge." Giraldus, 

 however, does not say that the monument was there in his time, but 

 that there was in ancient times a stupendous pile on the plains of Kil- 

 dare, near Naas, and that " certain stones," " quidam lapides" exactly 

 resembling the rest, were there in his time ; and although it has been 

 supposed that the "Nasensi" of Giraldus was a misreading of 

 " Darensi" or " Darensis," as Kildare is usually Latinized, it is likely 

 that "Nasensi" is right; and that, by placing the locality close to 

 Naas, Giraldus meant either the enormous pillars still remaining at 

 Eornaught, or perhaps those at Punchestown. 



But the account which Giraldus gives of the removal of the Stone- 

 henge monument from Ireland is copied from the " Historia Britonum" 

 of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who represents TJther Pendragon as having 

 Come over here, by the advice of Merlin, and transported the monu- 

 ment from the mountain of Killarus (probably the Hill of Eornaught), 

 after having defeated Gillomanius, who then reigned in Ireland. As 

 an instance of the untruthfulness of Geoffrey's statement, I may ob- 

 serve, what Mr. Charles Haliday was the first to notice, that the word 

 Gilia, " servus" or u puer," is not found in the composition of any 

 Irish proper name prior to the advent of the Danes, from whom it was 

 probably borrowed; and no name beginning with " Gilla" appears in 

 the Irish Annals before the end of the ninth century. 



Writing of Kildare, Giraldus observes, "In this neighbourhood 

 there are some very beautiful meadows, called ' Brigid's pastures/ in 

 which no plough is ever suffered to turn a furrow. Respecting these 

 meadows, it is held as a miracle that, although all the cattle in the 

 province should graze the herbage from morning till night, the next 

 day the grass would be as luxuriant as ever. 



" Cropt in a summer's day by herds, the dew's 

 Refreshing moisture verdure still renews." 



It is to be regretted that this excessive fertility does not still 

 characterize the Curragh, which is locally called "the short grass;" 

 and the young men of Kildare are known as "the boys of the short 

 grass." 



The Curragh seems also to have been regarded by the Anglo-Nor- 

 mans as a common pasture ; and Mr. Gilbert, in his valuable " History of 

 the Irish Viceroys" (p. 510), has published a curious Parliamentary de- 

 cree of the year 1299, in which it is expressly so called: — " Inhibi- 

 tum est, sicut antiquitas fieri consuevit, quod porci de csetero non pascant 

 in Coraghto de Kildare, quod est communis pastura, et in solio Domini 

 Eegis. Et vicecomes puniat illos qui porcos suos fugent vel habeant 

 ibi fodientes vel pascentes, prius per finem, et postea per amissionem 

 porcorum illorum, et gravius si saspius sic delinquant." 



Among the Ordnance Survey papers in the collection of the Academy 

 is preserved a curious tract called a " Descriptive Account of the County 



