The hill from north to south is about a mile in length, and has nowhere an elevation of more than four hundred feet. Near its southern extremity stood the church of Kilcommodon and the house of Urrachree,[66] the latter the more eastward and the more prominent feature in the events then pending; and at its northern extremity the village of Aughrim, and a castle of the same name, which, during the Cromwellian war, had been dismantled and untenanted. From its ridge to its base it was considerably less than half a mile of very gradual descent, and from the house of Urrachree to the Castle of Aughrim, along the middle of this declivity, nearly a mile and a half. Along its eastern base it was traversed by intersecting hedgerows, dividing its lower half into small fields of meadow and tillage; but from these up to its crest it was bleak, arid, and heath-covered. Outside of the hedges, and nearly parallel to them, extended a belt of marshy ground, of irregular width, scarcely exceeding a furlong at any point, through the middle of which flowed a small stream, irrigating it from end to end, losing itself in a large bog which lay on the north, and rendering the marsh difficult to infantry and impractical to cavalry. This marsh covered about two-thirds of the face of the hill, and lay closer up to Aughrim than to Urrachree, while outside of it the north-eastern side of the hill was further protected by a strip of moorland lying close to a bog, which protected it on the north and north-west. The road from Ballinasloe ran straight up to this moor, and diverged abruptly; one branch of it winding round by Urrachree, and on to Loughrea; and the other, running between the Castle of Aughrim and the northern base of Kilcommodon, led on to Kilconel, Athunree, and Galway. That by Urrachree ran all the way through firm upland; and excepting the confluents of the stream that watered the marsh, the hill on that side presented no more than ordinary obstacles to an advancing foe; but that which led to Aughrim offered considerable impediments from the manner of its formation. It lay through a common between the moor and the bog; narrow at its eastern side, and gradually expanding into an esplanade, or field, of four or five acres, and narrowing again, in its immediate approach to the castle, until it became passable for only three or four horsemen abreast.[67]--In fine, it may be said that, from the centre to the extreme right, this hill was no more than ordinarily defensible; but from that point round to the extreme left, it was well isolated, and, with little trouble, could have been rendered impregnable; at least to cavalry.