250 El cock — Pre- Historic Monuments at Carrowmore . 
cahirs, and forts which abound upon it. It is the site of the 
last and desperate battle fought by the Firbolgs,* about the year 
30 B.C., just before they fled to Aranmor, where several of 
their stone cahirs still remain. At Carrowmore they made 
their last stand on the mainland of Ireland. The name of the 
Northen Moytura is given to the battle there fought, so as to 
distinguish it from a previous hardly-contested battle, fought 
about seven years earlier, on the plain of the Southern 
Moytura, close to Cong, at the north end of Lough Corrib. 
The monuments on the latter battle-field, though of a very 
different character to those at Carrowmore, are equally remark- 
able and interesting to the antiquary, and form a lasting 
memento of the fierceness of the struggle which, occupying 
several days, there took place. They are well described in 
Wilde’s “ Lough Corrib,” the account being, perhaps, rather 
too florid for exactness. 
The monuments on Carrowmore, of which, in 1883, sixty- 
three could be identified, are clustered together within a roughly 
oval space of about three-quarters of a mile long by less than 
half a mile wide. Near the centre of this is a large mound, of 
which the proper or original name is supposed to be lost. It is 
now called Listoghil, which I was told on the spot, means rye- 
fort. But some little investigation kindly undertaken by my 
friend M. J. Ward, leads him to the conclusion that its deriva- 
tion is from “ lis”=fort, and “ toghuil” = overthrow, —the Fort 
of Overthrow,— which possibly may be the “real, original” 
name, given to mark the spot of the decisive struggle. 
Listoghil is a large heap of small stones, and for many years 
served as a quarry for road metal. However, one day when the 
workmen were carting the stones away, they came upon a huge 
flat stone resting on several others, “ like a table,” and fear at 
once stopped any further destruction. It was evident that 
Listoghil was not a mere mound, but was one of the ancient 
* For an examination of the question as to whether there was a second battle of Moy- 
tura fought— which some query— see Jubainville’s “ Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, 
where the whole matter, with many references, is largely gone into. 
