County Louth Archaeological and History Society

The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland: Vol. XCI, Part II; The Journal ofthe Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland: Vol. XCII, Part IReview by: J. P.Journal of the County Louth Archaeological Society, Vol. 15, No. 1 (1961), pp. 100-101Published by: County Louth Archaeological and History SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27729018 .

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100 COUNTY LOUTH ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL

It was one of the many battles between Gael and Gall in the early years of the Norman

Conquest. The contestants were the Geraldines, under John Fitz-Thomas and his son, Maurice

Fitz-John; while the Irish clans were led by the redoubtable Finghin McCarthy.

Finghin chose the locale of the contest where the heavily-armed Normans and their horses could be used to the least advantage.

Callann is situated near the town of Kilgarvan some eight or ten miles N.E. of Kenmare, and in this terrain flow two rivers of rocky beds, while the country around is anything but kindly to horses' hooves.

Finghin, with his light-armed soldiers, won a complete victory, and he followed his sweeping success eastward and northward through Desmond, burning and destroying several Norman

strongholds. He penetrated even as far as Kinsale and Myles De Courcy there so feared him that he offered terms which Finghin refused to accept; but the subsequent battle went against him and at Bearnach Reynna Roin he was slain. His brother, Cor mac, took over the chieftainship.

Though the Battle of Callann (1261) receives scant mention in most history books, the contributor attaches great importance to it, and I quote :

contributor attaches great importance to it, and I quote: "

This battle can be said to have set the pattern of history in south-west Munster for 300 years

" and that brings us up to the reign

of Queen Elizabeth I.

The Oldcourt Ring-fort was the last work of Mr. C. O Cuileanain, a member of the Cork Historical Society for several years. His death was due to an accident in March, i960, and his wife passed on his field note-books, drawings, photographs and finds to Mr. T. F. Murphy, who contributes the article.

The fort conforms to type with perhaps one exception, viz., that the approach to the entrance door is oblique and so strengthens defence.

The finds comprise flints, fragments of a jet bracelet, knives, a chisel and a bronze-coate iron bell. The latter is without its clapper and half the handle is missing. It is considerably rusted along the edge.

A page of diagrams is devoted to the method of bell construction. The bronzing was supposed to improve the tone and, later, bells were constructed entirely of bronze.

The Bohanagh Stone Circle, Hut and Dolmen are minutely described with sketches and

photographs. The dolmen is not so imposing on account of its nearness to ground-level, but the stone

circle, with photo showing the sun setting at the autumnal equinox and viewed between the "

portals," is very fine indeed, and helps to confirm the connection between Druidism and Sun

worship. The urn burial at Ballaghrea suffered from the

" gold seekers

" who trampled the pot-sherds

and scattered bones in the dust before the arrival of the authorities from the National Museum. The sketch of the urn, conjecturally restored, shows it to have been very beautiful.

For the statistician the Cork Butter Market affords ample information.

The famine period receives special attention, and in the ten years (1840-1850) the number of firkins of butter increased from 236,033 in 1840 to 342,259 in 1850. Considering that a firkin of butter weighs 56 lbs., the trade in butter must have been considerable.

The activities of the Society were many and varied : six lectures, three outings, and a dinner in the Metropole Hotel, Cork.

The Journal has thirteen drawings and five photographs. D. O'M.

THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF IRELAND

1961, Vol. XCI, Part II, and 1962, Vol. XCII, Part I

In the 1961 number Michael J. O'Kelly describes how, in the course of extensive drainage work carried out by the Commissioners for Public Works in the lower catchment area of the River Feale in the north of Co. Kerry, a number of archaeological objects were brought to light, including the remains of a wooden bridge, of which there was no trace even before the middle of the sixteenth

century. In his article on "

County Sligo in the Eighteenth Century "

J. G. Simms tells us that until 1798 life was uneventful in County Sligo and it finds little mention in the general history

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REVIEWS 101

of eighteenth-century Ireland; but the local history for the period is well documented and there is a variety of sources, printed and unprinted, from which we can form a picture of a self-cont ained

society with an individual way of living that has many points of interest. Knights' Fees in

Kildare, Leix and Offaly are dealt with by Jocelyn O t way-Ruth ven. One of the agencies through which the people of Ireland were made aware of the French Revolution was the theatre, especially the theatre of Dublin. The leading producer of performances relating to the Revolution was

Philip Astley of London, whose first production of this type appeared in Dublin in 1789 and 1790 in the form of an extravaganza describing the fall of the Bastille. Throughout the course of the

Revolution he and his son, John, continued to provide Dublin audiences with this theatrical bill of fare and the Dublin theatre continued to reflect the trend of the times. John Hall Stewart deals with this in his article. Michael J. Quane writes about Carysfort Royal School, Co. Wicklow.

Finally, R. B. Aldridge continues to traverse the routes described in the story called "

Tain Bo

Flidhais," the punitive raid in the first century A.D. carried out by King Ailill and Queen Maeve of Connacht. These journeyings come to a conclusion in the 1962 number. In the 1962 number Liam de Paor describes excavations carriedout at Ballyloughan Castle, Co. Carlow, while a coin of Friesach found in Ireland some time before 1845 provokes D. M. Metcalf to speculate that it was brought here by a traveller from the Holy Land in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century,

perhaps from the Third Crusade. Kurt Ticher has a beautifully illustrated article on "

Bits and Pieces of Irish Silver." George Eogan contributes

" Some Observations on the Middle Bronze

Age in Ireland." Conor Fahy supplies some notes ou the friendship between James Caulfield, first Earl of Charlemont and the Italian writer, Giuseppe Baretti. Gear?id Mac Niocaill publishes a fragment from the Register of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist, Dublin. The road improve

ment at Ballygawley, Co. Tyrone, in 1959 yielded some very interesting archaeological finds which are dealt with by George Gillespie. Lastly, some interesting historical snippets are to be found under the heading

" Miscellanea."

JOURNAL OF THE COUNTY KILDARE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

i960, Vol. XIII, No. 8

This issue contains the Secretary's Reports for 1957, x958, 1959, the report of the Annual General Meeting, i960, together with the Balance Sheets for 1957, I95& an<3 1959. The reports shows that the Society is very much alive, and that the central position occupied by County Kildare is well employed for visitation of many places of historical and archaeological interest. Major

General Sir Eustace F. Tickell, K.B.E., C.B., M.C., continues his exhaustive survey of the Eustace

family and their lands in County Kildare; "

Fear Ceall "

studies Conntae an Riogh, King's County, with special reference to the territory known as Ely O Carroll; while Captain Cornelius Costello from many angles outlines some of the history and geography of Naas in the half-century before the Great Famine. Lastly, Mrs. H. G. Leask has a note on Harpur's

" Watering Engine

" for

bleaching linens at Leixlip; and J. S. Jackson, of the National Museum, has a note on a Giant Irish Deer whose remains were revealed during land reclamation operations about one mile north-east of Kilcullen.

jp.

IRISH HISTORICAL STUDIES

Vol. XII, No. 46, September, i960; Vol. XII, No. 47, March, 1961 Vol. XII, No. 48, September, 1961

In No. 46 there is a catalogue of material used in "

Calendar of documents relating to Ireland,

1171-1307." J. G. Simms outlines "

The Making of a Penal Law (2 Anne C.6) 1703-4 "?the Act to prevent the further growth of popery, the most notorious of the Penal Laws, as Lecky tells us. It was the most comprehensive. It covered changes of religion, the purchase and inheritance of

land, education, guardianship, employment, voting and pilgrimages. John F. Glaser studies the fall of Parnell from the vantage point of English non-conformity and, in doing so, re-examines the origin of the famous phrase

" The Non-Conformist Conscience

" and throws light on the

relationship of non-conformity and the Liberal Party in a critical phase of the Home Rule Move ment. There is a correspondence between Sir Henry Blackall and Mr. J. H. Whyte regarding the social background of the Members of Parliament of O'ConnelTs Repeal Party.

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