546 



" Statistics of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ; 

 May, 1866 from Alexander Thorn, Esq. 



"Cassell's Illustrated History of England," Yols. III. and IY. : 

 from J. Godkin, Esq. 



MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1866. 

 Sir W. E.W.Wilde, M.D., Yice-President, in the Chair. 



The following gentlemen were elected members of the Academy :— 

 David E. Edgeworth, Esq., and John O'Hagan, Esq. 



Sir W. E. Wilde read the following paper : — 



Ojst the Battle oe Moytura. 



The author brought under the notice of the meeting the first of 

 a series of communications he was about to make to the Academy upon 

 the topography of the Battle-fields of Moytura, and the monuments 

 still standing upon those memorable localities, and which were some 

 of the earliest places referred to in the Irish annals. 



He mentioned that there were two battle-fields of this name, one 

 was the northern or the " Moytura of the Fomorians," in the parish of 

 Kilmacatranay, in the county of Sligo, adjoining the north-western end 

 of the county of Eoscommon, and extending from Lough Arrow to the 

 strand at Ballysadare ; but with which he would not deal on the pre- 

 sent occasion. The other, on the southern site, or " Moytura Conga" — 

 of which Sir William exhibited a large map, and pointed out the dif- 

 ferent localities on it — occupies the western extremity of the great 

 plain at the, junction of the counties of Mayo and Galway, ex- 

 tending from the Eairy Hill of Knockmaha, near Tuam, to Benlevi, 

 the first of the mountain range, which, rising from the waters of Loughs 

 Corrib and Mask, gradually ascend and stretch into the Partry, Joyce 

 Country, and Connemara mountains. This was the particular locality 

 to which he proposed to call the attention of the meeting, and said he 

 hoped on a future occasion to bring forward illustrations of the most 

 remarkable of the very ancient monuments which crowd around the 

 picturesque village of Cong, and occupy the northern sloping banks of 

 Lough Corrib, and the eastern borders of Lough Mask. This great plain 

 is nearly sixteen miles long, and the monuments occupy a space of about 

 five miles in breadth at its western end. It was originally called Magh 

 Nia, or Nemeadh, and in some works Magh Itha, before the celebrated 

 battle from which it took its historic name ; but at present it goes 

 by the Irish name of Ath Eeadh, or the unobstructed plain. Sir William 

 said : — 



Prior to the date assigned by the Pour Masters, A. M. 3303, for the 

 battle of Moytura Conga, the entries in our annals are comparatively 

 few, meagre, and of very doubtful chronology, and consist chiefly of 

 notices of cosmical phenomena, colonizations, pestilences, the clearing of 



