_Loughrea_ is situated in the barony of same name. In the locality there lingered a tradition that a city lay buried under this lake, and indeed on a clear calm day--where the waters are shallow--there may be observed various heaps of stones, placed with a degree of regularity that renders it probable they may be remains of ancient lake dwellings. Upon examination it was ascertained that four of the islands in the lough were undoubted crannogs, and it was quite possible that another (known as Blake Island) might prove to be also of artificial formation. [Illustration: Fig. 219.--Plan and Section of Reed Island. Scale, 20 feet to 1 inch.] _Reed Island_, situated at the N.W. corner of the lake, about fifty yards from the shore, lies too low to be observable in any picture. Excavations showed (section, fig. 219)--(6) marl; (5) peat; (4) large stones; (3) a layer of birch trunks and branches; (2 and 1) two layers of squared oak beams, laid at right angles to each other. The island was surrounded with a circle of piles (fig. 219)--two feet apart--that were seemingly strengthened against wave action by a layer of flat stones, deposited with great regularity; three sets of piles crossed the crannog, which rose about six inches above the ordinary level of the lake, and the lowest beams (1 in section) were four feet two inches beneath the then water surface. The island originally consisted of a wooden platform, enclosed by “a circular wall, the framework of which was the piles, the interstices being filled with sods. As the lake rose, it was found necessary to raise the floor, first by a mass of birch timbers and branches, and afterwards by a layer of stones.”[246] [Illustration: Plate XLIX. Fig. 220.--View of Loughrea, showing Shore and Ash Island. Fig. 221.--Plan of Shore Island. Scale, 80 feet to 1 inch. Fig. 222.--Section of Shore Island. Fig. 223.--Section of Shore Island.]