[Footnote 232: Since the above was written I have been gratified to find so eminent an authority as Dr. Henthorn Todd, late President of the Royal Irish Academy, arriving, by a very different road, at very nearly the same conclusion:--"The Firbolgs, or Belgæ," he says, "invaded Ireland, not from France, but from Britain--Dumnonii, or Devon." "The conquest of Ireland was not much older than Cæsar's time, if it were not a good bit later, and was the first influx of civilization rude, indeed, but much superior to that of the Hiberni."--_Irish Nennius_, translated by J. H. Todd, D.D., Appendix C.] [Footnote 233: The principal one of these is the rath of Queen Meave, at some distance off. She, according to Tighernach, was slain by her stepson, in the seventh year of Vespasian, A.D. 75.] [Footnote 234: According to Tighernach, Cormac, the grandson of Conn of a Hundred Battles, commonly called Cormac Mac Art, reigned 218-266 A.D.] [Footnote 235: 'Hist. and Ant. of Tara Hill.'--'Trans. R. I. A.' xviii. p. 212.] [Footnote 236: _Ibid._ xviii. pp. 81, 137, 170, &c.] [Footnote 237: 'Materials for Ancient Irish History,' Appendix ii. p. 463 _et seq._] [Footnote 238: _Ibid._ p. 29 _et seq._] [Footnote 239: 'Hist, and Ant. of Tara.'--'Trans. R. I. S.' xviii. p. 46.] [Footnote 240: Petrie, 'Round Towers,' 100 _et seq._] [Footnote 241: L. c. 105.] [Footnote 242: The Irish use ditch, as the Romans used vallum, or the Scotch dyke, to designate either a rampart or the hollow from which it was taken.] [Footnote 243: Quotation from 'Book of Geneal,' p. 251. Petrie, 'Round Towers,' p. 107.] [Footnote 244: Sir W. Wilde, 'The Boyne and the Blackwater,' 1849, p. 188.] [Footnote 245: Rowland's 'Mona Antiqua,' p. 314.] [Footnote 246: 'Philosophical Transactions,' Nos. 335-336.] [Footnote 247: This is well illustrated in Sir W. Wilde's book, p. 192, by a woodcut by Wakeman.] [Footnote 248: Wakeman, 'Handbook of Irish Antiquities,' p. 25.] [Footnote 249: In extenuation of this disfigurement, it must be explained that these Irish cairns are extremely difficult to explore without destroying them. Being wholly composed of loose stones, it is almost impossible to tunnel into them, and almost as difficult to sink shafts through them. The only plan seems to be to cut into them, and, when this is done, disfigurement is inevitable.] [Footnote 250: 'Archæologia,' xxx. pl. xii. p. 137.] [Footnote 251: Sir W. Wilde, 'The Boyne and the Blackwater,' p. 209.] [Footnote 252: 'Journal Royal Archæological Society,' xv. p. 270.] [Footnote 253: Petrie's 'Round Towers,' p. 105.] [Footnote 254: O'Curry's 'Materials for Irish History,' p. 636 _et seq._ So, too, even Tighernach adds, in the year 33:--"Concobares filius Nessæ obiit hoc anno."--_Ann._ p. 18.]