LECTURE XIX.

[Delivered 6th July, 1859.]

(VII.) OF BUILDINGS, FURNITURE, ETC., in ancient Erinn. Of the number and succession of the colonists of ancient Erinn. Tradition ascribes no buildings to Parthalon or his people; their sepulchral mounds at Tallaght near Dublin. Definitions of the Rath, the Dun, the Lis, the Caiseal, and the Cathair; the latter two were of stone; many modern townland-names derived from these terms; remains of many of these structures still exist. Rath na Righ or "Rath of the Kings", at Tara; the Teach Mór Milibh Amus, or "Great House of the Thousands of Soldiers". Several houses were often included within the same Rath, Dun, Lis, or Caiseal. Extent of the demesne lands of Tara. The Rath or Cathair of Aileach; account of its building; the houses within the Rath as well as the latter were of stone; why called Aileach Frigrind? Aileach mentioned by Ptolemy. Account of the Rath of Cruachan in the Táin Bo Fraich. The "House of the Royal Branch". Description of a Dun in Fairy Land. The terms Rath, Dun, and Lis applied to the same kind of enclosure. The Foradh at Tara. Description of the house of Crede. Two classes of builders,-the Rath-builder, and the Caisealbuilder; list of the professors of both arts from the Book of Leinster. Dubhaltach Mac Firbissigh's copy of the same list (note); his observations in answer to those who deny the existence of stone-building in ancient Erinn. The story of Bricrind's Feast; plan of his house; his grianan or "sun house"; his invitation to Conchobar and the Ultonians; he sows dissensions among the women; the Briathar Ban Uladh ;-his house was made of wicker-work.

In the last Lecture I concluded what I had to say concerning the Arms, the Military System, and the modes of Warfare, of the ancient Gaedhil. I now proceed to the consideration of their Domestic Life; and, as the erection of dwellings, and with these the adoption of means of defence against external aggression, must have been the first care of every people where society began to be formed, we may naturally commence with the arrangement of their houses and the appliances of comfortable life within them.

In dealing with this subject I shall naturally go back first to the very earliest colonists of ancient Erinn; and in doing so, I must premise by repeating the caution I have already intimated, -that here again I adopt the number and succession of these colonists, as I have hitherto done, simply in the order in which I find them in the ancient "Book of Invasions"; because the time has not yet come for entering on the consideration of the grounds upon which those ancient accounts have been, or to what extent they ought to have been, so implicitly relied on by the Gaedhelic writers of the last eighteen hundred years. Without at all then entering at present into any investigation of the

VOL. II.

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The Scoti mention the monuments of their

LECT. XIX. long discussed question of the veracity of our ancient records and traditions, which declare that this island was occupied in succession by the Parthalonians, the Nemedians, the Firbolgs, the Tuatha Dé Danann, and, finally, the Milesians or Scoti; or from what countries or by what routes they came hither; it must strike every unprejudiced reader as a very remarkable fact, that the Scoti, who were the last colony, and consequently the historians of the country, should actually have recorded, by name and local position, several distinct monuments, still existing, of three out of the four peoples or races who are said to have occupied the country before themselves. And although much has been incautiously written of the tendency of our old Scotic writers to the wild and romantic in their historical compositions, I cannot discover any sufficient reason why they should concede to their predecessors the credit of being the founders of Tara, the seat of the monarchy, as well as of some others of the most remarkable and historic monuments of the whole country, unless they had been so.

predecessors.

No buildings ascribed to Parthalon.

Etymological speculations and fanciful collations of the ancient Gaedhelic with the Semitic languages, were taken up by a few very incompetent persons in this country within our own memory, and carried to such an extent of absurdity, that both subject and the authors became a bye-word among the truly learned historians and philologists of Europe. Still, etymology and philology must have an important bearing on the ethnological history of Europe. It forms, however, no part of my present plan to enter upon any arguments based on these studies; though I may of course have occasion now and again to refer to proofs or illustrations ascertained by their means.

It is a remarkable fact, and one not to be despised among the evidences of the extreme antiquity of the tradition, that no account that has come down to us ascribes to the Parthalonian colony the erection of any sort of building, either for residence or defence. Parthalon and his people came into the island A.M. 2520, B.C. 2674 (according to the chronology adopted in the Annals of the Four Masters); and although the descendants of this colony are said to have continued in Erinn for over three hundred years, still no memorial of them has been preserved save what we may find in a few topographical names derived from those of their chiefs, excepting only the ancient sepulchral mounds still remaining on the hill of Tamhlacht (or Tallaght, in the county of Dublin), where the last remnant of this colony are recorded to have been interred, after having been, as it is said, swept off by a plague. The word tamh in the Gacdhelic signifies a sudden or unnatural death; and leacht

a monumental mound or heap of stones; and hence those ancient LECT. XIX. monumental mounds have from a period beyond the reach of history preserved the name of Tamhleachta Muinntiré Phartolain, that is, the Mortality Mounds of the people of Parthalon.

Nemhidh.

Thirty years after the destruction of the people of Parthalon, The forts of according to the Four Masters, Nemhidh came into Erinn at the head of a large colony; and although this colony also remained in the country for three hundred years, we have no record of any sort of buildings having been erected by them, any more than by their predecessors, excepting two only, both of which are said to have been erected by Nemhidh himself; namely, Rath-Cinn-Eich, in Ui Niallain (now the barony of Oneilland in the county of Armagh); and Rath Cimbaoith, in Seimhne (which was the ancient name of that part of the seaboard of the present county of Antrim, opposite to which lies Island Magee).

That these Raths, or Forts, of Nemhidh could not have been of any great extent or importance according to our present notions, is evident, since we find it stated in the "Book of Invasions", that Rath-Cinn-Eich, (lit. the Horse-Head-Fort), was built in one day, by four Fomorian brothers, who it would appear were condemned by Nemhidh, as prisoners or slaves, to perform the work, but who were put to death the next day lest they should demolish their work again. No trace of these ancient edifices now remains, at least under their ancient names.

It may be as well to state here what is exactly meant by the different words Rath, Dun, Lis, Caiseal, and Cathair; the prevailing names for fortified places of residence, as well as for the fortifications themselves, among the Gaedhil.

The Rath was a simple circular wall or enclosure of raised The Rath. earth, enclosing a space of more or less extent, in which stood the residence of the chief and sometimes the dwellings of one or more of the officers or chief men of the tribe or court. Sometimes also the Rath consisted of two or three concentric walls or circumvallations; but it does not appear that the erection so called was ever intended to be surrounded with water.

The Dun was of the same form as the Rath, but consisting The Dun. of at least two concentric circular mounds or walls, with a deep trench full of water between them. These were often encircled by a third, or even by a greater number of walls, at increasing distances; but this circumstance made no alteration in the form or in the signification of the name. Dun is defined strictly in so authoritative a MS. as the ancient Gaedhelic Law tract preserved in the vellum MS. H. 3., 18. T. C. D., thus: "Dun, i.e.

LECT. XIX. two walls with water".

The Lis.

Origin of name Lis

more.

The same name, according to this derivation, would apply to any boundary or mearing formed of a wet trench between two raised banks or walls of earth.

The Lis, as far as I have been able to discover, was precisely the same as the Rath; the name, however, was applied generally to some sort of fortification, but more particularly those formed of earth. That this was so, we have a curious confirmation, in the life of Saint Mochuda, or Carthach, (the founder of the once famous ecclesiastical establishment of Lis-Mór, now Mór or Lis- Lismore in the county of Waterford). The life states, that when Saint Mochuda, on being driven out of Rathin (his great foundation, near the present town of Tullamore, King's County), came to the place on which Lis-Mór now stands, with the consent of the king of the Deisé he commenced forthwith to raise what is described as a circular enclosure of earth. A religious woman who occupied a small cell in the neighbourhood, perceiving the crowd of monks at work, came up and asked what they were doing. "We are building a small Lis here", said saint Mochuda. "A small Lis! [Lis Beg]", said the woman: "this is not a small Lis, [Lis Beg], but a great Lis [Lis Mór]", said she; and so we are told, that church ever since continued to be called by that name. It matters little to the present purpose whether this legend is strictly true or not; but it is quite sufficient to show what the ancient Gaedhils understood the word Lis to mean.

The Caiseal and Cathair

were of stone.

So much for the Rath, the Dun, and the Lis, all of which were generally built of earth. The Caiseal and the Cathair are to be distinguished from these especially, because they were generally, if not invariably, built of stone.

The Caiseal was nothing more than a Stone Rath or enclosure within which the dwelling-house, and in after times churches, stood; and the Cathair, in like manner, was nothing more than a Stone Dun, (with loftier and stronger walls), with this exception, that the Cathair was not necessarily surrounded with water, as far as I know.

No reliable analysis of the term Caiseal is to be found among the writings of the Gaedhils; but our experience of existing monuments enables us to decide that the Caiseal and Cathair were both of stone; and that the words are cognate with the British "Caer", the Latin "Castrum", and the English "Castle". There can be no doubt, however, but that our ancient writers often used the terms Dun, Rath, Lis, and Cathair, indifferently, to designate a stronghold or well-fortified place; and these terms afterwards came to give names to the towns and cities which in () original:-oún .1. dá člad im uisce.