From the descriptions given in Irish MSS., it would appear as if the very earliest wooden dwellings were either rectangular or of oblong form, but there is absolute proof of the co-existence of circular houses, made chiefly or wholly of wicker-work. Similar dwellings of the Gauls are figured on Roman bas-reliefs; the plan of this kind of house resembled a tent; the poles were driven into the ground in a circle, the spaces between filled in with wicker-work, and the interstices made weather-tight by daubing them with clay. In the centre of the interior, a stout post, commensurate with the required height of the conical roof point, was firmly erected, and to this the rafters were attached, descending at a steep incline to the upright wall poles. According as they radiated from the central post their distance from each other correspondingly increased; in these spaces cross-beams were inserted, and across the radial rafters narrow slips of wood were fastened, forming a complete covering from the conical point of the roof to the eaves; a sheeting of rods was laid over this at right angles, and the framework of the roof was then thatched with straw, rushes, or sedge bound down with scollops.[59] [Illustration: Fig. 6. Section of roadway in soft ground.] _Gangways._--Some crannogs were connected with the shore by a wooden gangway supported on piles driven into the bed of the lake. The artificial island in the lake of Effernan, county Clare, affords a good example of this kind of passage. It has been often stated that the characteristic feature of Irish lake dwellings was their insularity, their complete disconnection with the land; yet it would be tedious to enumerate the many instances in which remains of both pile gangways and stone causeways have been discovered; although with regard to the latter it is quite possible that in some cases the so-called causeways may have been merely the stones that had been deposited around the base of the piles, to give solidity to the uprights supporting the footpath.[60] It has been suggested that these gangways, being under the water level, were meant to provide on sudden emergencies a means of secret access to the crannog, and that their oblique, sometimes even tortuous, course was for the purpose of preventing any but those accustomed to the submerged path from making use of it. Is it not more probable that the people who made it merely availed themselves either of a shoal or of the best foundation into which uprights might be driven? Wooden roads and causeways across the deep, treacherous morasses and soft miry banks with which lake dwellings were environed have been frequently discovered. A roadway, evidently made for convenience of the crannog in Loughnahinch, county Tipperary, was covered with a great accumulation of peat.[61] Another submerged roadway, constructed somewhat like an American corduroy road, was discovered in a bog between Castleconnell and the Esker of Goig, in