was levelled and the fosse nearly obliterated by a vandal farmer just before 1836. O’Donovan says there were four rings, but confesses it is a mere conjecture based on the fort of Tlachtga. The fosse is about 24′ wide and 4½′ deep where best preserved to the N.E. The fort is 8′ to 13′ high; the mound, 21′ to 18′ thick below and 6′ on top; the featureless enclosure is about 332′ E. and W., 310′ N. and S. over all, and 224′ inside. It is much injured to the east, and a gravel pit is cut into it at the S.W. It lies in Telltown, near the river. (2-4) Three marshy hollows, possibly artificial, called “the Blind Lochs,” the middle one being the serpent-haunted “Dubh Loch.”[1] I saw no hut sites, tracks, or traces of earthworks between Rathduff and the Great Ring. The three hollows are also in Telltown. (5) The Great Ring, in Oristown, is the traditional grave of Tailltiu. A segment about 150′ long remains. It is about 12′ high, 9′ wide on top, and 50′ below. To the north, where it is levelled to a couple of feet high, it runs for over 50′ to the next field. There it can be traced faintly for over 80′ more. To the south it curves round for about 260′, only the base remaining. The fosse and terrace, being inside, show that it was ceremonial,[2] not defensive. The fosse is about 5′ deep and usually wet; it is 6′ to 9′ wide below. The terrace[3] is 9′ on top and about 25′ across the slope it is 6′ high. This great mound, one of the most historic sites, and all the names save Rath Dubh, have been omitted by the Ordnance Survey staff, though O’Donovan designed an excellent map, with careful names. They (to atone for this) inserted
- ↑ These should be excavated, as the Celts threw votive offerings into such sacred waters as the ponds of Tolosse, and the many fine objects found just below the shore at Loch Gur, Co. Limerick, seem to attest a similar practice in Ireland.
- ↑ Like Killowen, Co. Wexford (R. Soc. Ant. Ir. xlviii. pp. 8 and 13).
- ↑ “Men sit on the dyke of the fort” at the Rath of Incantations (Irische Texte, iv. No. 1).
