231 
Gray — Irish Cromlechs. 
such a term is not known generally among the Irish-speaking 
people ; but such objections are not feasible, because it is only 
modern systematic classification that requires special specific 
terms, and such terms are not commonly employed by the 
people. The popular terms applied to ancient monuments even 
of the same class are nearly as varied as the localities in which 
the monuments occur. It should be noted, however, that in 
Ireland the prevailing idea involved in local names for crom- 
lechs is that of a bed or final resting place. 
If we refer to the ancient Irish manuscripts, we will find that 
the sepulchral monuments referred to under the generic term 
“Leacht,” include the group we call “ Cromlechs.’’ 
Dr. Sullivan, in his introduction to O’Curry’s lectures on the 
manners and customs of the ancient Irish, says : — 
“ The word leacht seems to have been a general term applied 
to stone sepulchral monuments, consisting either of unfashioned 
stones of every size piled up over a simple grave, or over an 
Indeilb cloich ' or stone chamber, or of a number of large 
upright flags, upon which was placed a great block of stone.” 
The latter kind of leacht is the monument popularly known 
as a “ Cromlech.” A simple flag marking a grave was called a 
leac or liace (plural leaca). When a number of persons were 
buried beside each other, their leaca were placed in a circle 
around the grave. Similar circles of leaca or upright flags 
were put around the leachts, formed of piles of stones. Pillar 
stones, or cairti, were also used to mark graves, and sometimes 
the name of the dead person was cut in Ogam upon them. 
The word leacht occurs frequently in topographical names, as, 
for instance, in Tamleacht ) modernised in one case to Tallaght ) 
a place near Dublin, but unchanged in Tamlacht O' Crilly , in 
the County of Londonderry. Tamleacht may be translated as 
the leacht of plague, and, so far as I know, consisted of several 
graves marked by a head and foot stone, or covered over by a 
mur clocihe or stone mur ) and, where there were a number of 
them in the same place, surrounded by a circle of “ Leaca I* 
* Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish. Vol. I., page 331. 
