Zanka in Hungary, may suffice.1 These, however, do not restrict the type to early times, for ring-walls of equal date2 occur in those countries. similar to the cathairs and raths which in Ireland continued to be made down to the eleventh and thirteenth century of our era, if not even later.

Though little has been done with the spade in the exploration of Irish motes (save blind diggings for imaginary treasures), enough has been found to prove the very early date of several. Let us confine ourselves to the complex motes as being unmistakably residential.

A bronze axe was found at the mote of Dromore." The mote of Greenmount, in County Louth, has been supposed to be the Feara Aird Cianachta or Feara Ard, where the sons of Cian defeated the Ultonians in (it is said) A.d. 226. The idea of battle clings to its local name, Drum'há, Drum catha, or " Battle ridge." Wright has figured this mote in Louthiana,' "5 when the outworks round the bailey were more perfect than at present. There was a chamber, which was discovered and broken into in 1830; this was reopened in October, 1870, by Major-General Lefroy. He found in it no traces of human burial, but animal bones, charcoal and burned earth. In the debris he found a bronze plate, an early bronze axe, and a strap or belt-mounting of bronze, inlaid with silver, on the back of which had been scraped in runic letters the words "Domnal Selshofoth a soerth theta "-Domnal Seal's-head owned this (?) sword. M. Vigfusson pronounced the lettering to be of the eleventh century. An apothecary's weight was also found, which had probably slipped in when the cell was opened in 1830.6

Mergerstown-or, as it is popularly called, Merginstown-lies to the south-east of Dunlavin in Wicklow. It has a round-topped mote, and an entrenched "bailey," with a slight battlement, a ring and fosse, and traces of a second ring. Round it were found cists with skeletons--some crouching, with their heads on their knees, some extended-with clay vessels beside them, containing traces of corn, and their feet in all cases pointing towards the mote." This was the more marked that there were two groups of cists, the bodies in one group lying north and south; in the other, east and west. Urns were found, and one, with its cist, was removed by Mr. Mahony to Grange Con, and carefully preserved. Near

1 "Ancient Forts of Ireland," fig. 2.

2 Among many others, note the Hradischt of Stradonic with Bronze Age finds, and the fort attributed to the Aedui (Revue Critique, 1903, p. 86).

3 Ordnance Survey Letters, Down, MSS. R.I.A., 14, c. 21, p. 81.

4 Cal. Oenghus, pp. 32, 54.

5" Louthiana," plates x. and xi. It is also mentioned by Bishop Pococke in his Tour in 1752 (ed. Dr. George Stokes), p. 3, "a mount on the brow of a rising ground fortified with a fossee (sic), and there is a height in it at the north."

6 Journal, vol. i, Ser. iv. (1870-71), p. 471, by Major Lefroy.

7 This is also found in the case of burials near Austrian motes. At the tumulus near the cairn called Leacht an Irrus in the Mullet, Mayo, a sitting skeleton had its face towards the cairn (Ordnance Survey Letters, 14, E. 18, pp. 209, 213).

the mote was a cupped stone. Another mote, in the plain to the nort of Croghan Kinsella, yielded two urns found in the ring of the bailey.

Two groups of burials were also discovered in the field near the fosse; the bodies in the western group were enclosed in cists.

Loggan mote at Wingfield in Wexford has an oval bailey 10 or 15 feet high, having the mote at the north end, and girt with a rampart and fosse. To the south is a small pillar, beside which an urn was dug up; it was, unfortunately, broken by some idle boys at the finder's funeral. Near the south-east part of the rampart three urns were found enclosed in cists, and about 300 yards to the west was found near a hollow mound a group of cists, with human bones, and not far away two urns with ashes, and smaller vessels inside. All these finds were evidently of the Bronze Age.

Skeirk mote, not far from Ballybrophy station in Queen's County, also yielded urns and traces of burials, beside pillar-stones, not in the mound, but in the entrenched bailey. The monument, like all the above examples, was a complex and evidently residential mote, with mount bailey, fosse, and ring.

Rathmore, despite its name, is a simple mote in Kildare. In September, 1901, it was deeply dug for gravel for the roads, and disclosed at different heights thin layers of animals' bones. They were supposed to be the remains of funeral feasts; but it is equally probable that the fort had been raised from time to time, and that they were the refuse of various successive residences.

SEPULCHRAL AND RESIDENTIAL MOUNDS.-The confusion of motes with sepulchral tumuli has been alleged to be a reproach to Irish Archæology. It would, however, be, at present, imprudent to the last degree to lay down imaginary rules. First, we have abundant evidence, both from the remains and from Irish literature, that burial in the residential fort was very common; therefore, the discovery of a burial in a mote or rath could not, in the slightest degree, prove that the earthwork was made for a tomb. The above examples of motes show how hard it is to lay down a rule. All, save the last, are shown by the bailey, fosses, and rings, to be residential. In the case of Magh Adhair mote, Clare, we meet the alleged sepulchre of a Firbolg chief, and an undoubted residential rath used as a place of inauguration by the local princes. More complete confusion between tomb, fort, and thingmote could hardly exist than in this mound. Dowth and Newgrange are certainly sepulchral (the tombs are open; the opening of the crypt of Knowth is also recorded); "Feartas,"

5

1 These notes on the Wicklow and Wexford motes are from a paper on read by Mr. G. H. Kinahan before the R.I.A. in Feb., 1901, and fuller field notes which he has since kindly sent to me. He gives several other instances of burial in Pagan Moats or Knockans," and adds, "I believe that the majority at least of the mots or moats were pre-Anglo-Norman."

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2 Sir Charles Coote's "Statistical Survey of the Queen's County," p. 92. I give G. V. Du Noyer's section from the MSS. of the R.S.A.I.

3 Journal, Kildare Archæological Society, 1902.

4"Ancient Forts," sections 144, 145. O'Laverty's "Diocese of Down and Connor," vol. iv., gives a long list of forts in which urns were found.

5 This confusion also appears in the Dindsenchas, Cairn Amalgaid being stated to have been made to be the centre of a meeting, a watch-mound, and a tomb, while Carn Mail in Louth was made to overlook a battlefield. Sections 96 and 135.

but externally they all resemble flat-topped raths or motes, and Newgrange is even girt with a fosse, but not with an earth-ring, only with a circle of stones. The complex mote of Clones had no sign of fosses in 1840, but old people remembered the time when its ditches were filled up to enlarge the garden in its bailey. The fortified motes on the Bayeux Tapestry, and those of Donaghpatrick, Greenmount, and Downpatrick, have rounded tops. Thus, the suggested means of distinguishing by the presence or absence of fosses, the rounded or flat top of the "mount," and the presence of burials, all prove useless as tests to distinguish the sepulchral mound from the true mote. In general, the sepulchral tumulus has no fosse, battlements, or bailey; no other or more confident assertion dare be made by anyone who has considered the subject carefully. It is only by cautiously guarding against dogmatic statements that advance can be made, for any "confusion" is better than pseudo-certainty, based on misunderstood or equivocal facts.

EARLY RECORD OF SOME MOTES.-Exponents of the Norman origin of Irish motes have been as strangely neglectful of the study of our native records as of the field archæology and topography; and they do not seem to have examined the records even of Norman writers, contemporaries of the first Norman invaders of Ireland. Some blame, perhaps, attaches to Irish antiquaries for so constantly resting early facts on the authority of our latest (if greatest) annalists-the Four Masters. It is natural that those who have not examined earlier records, and been satisfied as to the general fidelity of the transcription and adaptation by the monks of Donegal, should be doubtful and impatient when no authority but a work of the reign of Charles I. is given for early historic and pre-historic matters. Accordingly, I adopt what to some Irish students may seem a hypercritical and over-elaborate way of advancing the written evidence bearing on the motes. There can be no question that many authentic records exist of great forts at the site of great motes, and where, in some cases, no Norman castle was established. These we will take up for each of the three (four ancient) provinces in which motes occur, for none of the Connaught tumuli known to me are complex, or give any evidence of being residential.

3

ULSTER-DOWNPATRICK, DOWN.-The great fort of Dundaleathglais, Dunleathglas, Dunceltchair, or Rathceltchair, the largest of our complex motes, has the fullest records of its early origin. Tighernach, a most reliable writer, who died in 1088, and used early material, records the ' expugnacio Duin Leathglaise" at a date fixed in other annals as between 493 and 497. We find abundant early records in various annals

It is strange that both great tumuli and residential motes should abound in Meath and Louth. Some racial or "historical pre-historic "reason may underlie the fact. 2 See Canon O'Hanlon's "Lives of the Irish Saints," vol. iv., p. 26, and also "Ancient Forts," section 128, and fig. 26.

3 Ed. Whitley Stokes (Rev. Celt., 1896, vol. xvii., p. 122).

3

at 525, 583, 733, when the fort was again stormed, 748, 1111, when "Dundaleathglas was burned, both the rath and a third of the town";1 there can be little doubt that Rathceltchair is meant here. Cinead Hua Articain, who died in 973-4,2 in his poem of "The Deaths of Heroes," sings how "Celtchair perished. . to the east of Dunleathglaissi." The fort of Duin Leathglaisse is mentioned, in connexion with Sillan, who died 610, in an annotation in the Wurtzburg copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew, a MS. of the late eighth or ninth century. The "Book of the Dun Cow," ante 1100, and the "Book of Leinster," ante 1160, give many particulars of the Red Branch hero, Celctar, or Celtcair, of Rathceltchair,* who is placed in pre-historic times about the opening of our era. Jocelin of Furness (1181-1186) describes the fort as having existed in the middle of the fifth century, near the Church of St. Patrick, at Down, "a neighbouring mote (monticulus) among the marshes of the sea.' A Norman castle was made of earthworks, palisades, and a long rampart, a weak structure in a corner of the town, "in urbis angulo tenuiter erexerat," as Giraldus writes. It was built by De Courcey in 1177, and was evidently not the large and strong mote still remaining, "the greatest monument of barbaric times in Ireland."

DUNDERMOT, ANTRIM.-Borlase identifies Dundermot as Dunaghy. Duneachdach was very probably Dunaghy, and had an important fort, the residence of the King of Uladh, whence, in the depth of winter, 942, he was carried off by Muircheartach, "of the leather coats," King of Aileach, on his famous "Circuit of Ireland." The parishes of Dunaghy and Dundermot adjoin; but the fort called Dunaghy is insignificant compared with the neighbouring Dundermot, which latter is a fine complex mote, so is more likely to be the royal fort of the "Circuit."

GRANARD, LONGFORD.-This is the largest simple mote in Ireland, and is possibly mentioned as the "summit" whence St. Patrick pointed out Raithin, "de cacumine graneret," as stated by Tirechán (ante 700).

2

Chronicum Scotorum," "Annals of Ulster," and "Tighernach,” p. 337.

3 Ann. Ult." Preface by Rev. Dr. MacCarthy, p. cxxxiii.

4"Book of Dun Cow." See "Tain bo Cuailnge" (ed. L. W. Faraday), and Feast of Brieriu" (ed. Henderson); "Book of Leinster," p. 118, i.e., legends which were old in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries.

5 It was called from the marshes Downerosko in 1612, as noted by Sir James King, O.S. Letters, Down, 14, c 21, p. 103.

In about 1645, Rev. Edmund MacCana mentions "the little hill called Dundalethglas... outside the city on the N.E." (Itinerary, Ulster Journal of Archæology, vol. ii.).

6 Giraldus, "Invasion," Book ii., cxvii. Ann. F.M. Trip. Vita," p. 257. 7 The Circuit" is an undoubted work of Cormacan Eigeas, the Bard of Muircheartach, who was on the raid in 942, and died six years later. See ed. O'Donovan, 1840 (Irish Archæological Society, p. 31). A good plan of Dundermot is given in Mason's "Statistical Survey of Antrim," vol. i. See also" Dolmens of Ireland," vol. iii., p. 1125. O'Laverty considers Duneachdach to be a mote and bailey like Dromore at Dunelight.

8 Tirechan's notes are published with the "Trip. Vita," by Dr. Whitley Stokes, vol. ii., pp. 91, 311. This latter work, though later than 936, and possibly of the following.