The Lake Dwellings of Ireland: Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs.Wood-Martin, W. G. (William Gregory)
History
The Lake Dwellings of Ireland: Or ancient lacustrine habitations of Erin, commonly called crannogs.
Wood-Martin, W. G. (William Gregory)
Lake-dwellers and lake-dwellings -- Ireland
_Lough Scur._--This crannog is alluded to in the _Annals of Loch Cé_,
under the following dates:--1345, four sons of _Cathal Mac-in-caich
Mac Raghnaill_ were taken prisoners on _Loch-an-Scuir_, and put to
death; 1390, O’Rorke, who had been in confinement, escaped to the
castle of _Loch-an-Scuir_, but was overtaken and slain “when coming
out of his cott”; 1580, _Loch-an-Scuir_ was taken, and _Maelsechlainn
Mac Raghnaill_ slain. On this site was found the largest quern in
the Museum, R.I.A., the nether-stone being twenty and three-quarter
inches long by three and three-quarter inches thick; the aperture for
the pivot one and three-quarter inches deep, the same across; it is
surrounded by a raised lip to retain in position the upper stone, which
is nineteen and a-half inches in diameter by two and three-quarter
inches in thickness: the grain aperture is three and a-half inches
wide; upon the upper surface is the mark of the cross-bar of the pivot,
its upper surface left in a rude state; it has one handle-hole. The
stone mould, figured _ante_, p. 72, was found here, and a model of a
portion of the oak framework of the crannog--one-quarter real size--was
deposited in the Museum, R.I.A.
_Lough Rinn_ (_the lake of the promontory_) lies in the barony of
Mohill. It is mentioned in the _Annals of Loch Cé_, under date 1345,
when O’Conor, “king” of Connaught, was killed by an arrow at _Loch
Airinn_ whilst assisting _Mac Raghnaill_, to whom the crannog on the
lake belonged; for the sept of the Mac Rannals formerly possessed
the neighbouring district, then called _Conmaicue Moyrein_. In the
year 1847, the waters of Lough Rinn having being lowered, two canoes
were found imbedded in the mud near an old castle at the promontory
from whence the locality derives its name; there was also a chain, or
manacle, composed of iron rods, looped at their ends, like one found
in the Strokestown crannogs. One of these canoes was a “single-piece,”
hollowed out of oak, and flat-bottomed, the length thirteen feet and
the breadth nearly two feet throughout; the sides were only four
inches high; but the original depth must have been greater. In front
of the old castle stands an island covered with self-sown ash and
thorn, and constructed with wooden piles, of slight scantling, but
perfectly sound; “the paling was interlaced and pegged down in a very
rude manner: the island appeared to have been formed inside of it, and
raised upon a similar description of work.” A small bronze arrow and
a spear-head were found two feet deep in a gravel shoal close to Rinn
Castle, between Loughs Rinn and Sallagh.
_St. John’s Lough_ contained four crannogs, in which three silver coins
of Edward I., II., and III. were found.
_Loughtown_ crannog measured one hundred and twenty feet from east to
west by one hundred feet from north to south, and was surrounded by a
mass of stakes upwards of fifteen feet wide, inclining in towards the
centre of the island.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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