The fruitful plain of Lecale, defended and enriched by the sea, drew to it inhabitants from the first peopling of Ireland. All Irish history is reflected there. The in-comers of prehistoric times raised the great stone circles of Ballyno, that stupendous monument to a great hero and a solemn worship--none more astonishing in Ireland. On a wide slope, completely shut off and secluded by the higher ground, the rings of massive stones lie confronting alone the eminence on which is lifted up against the heavens the imposing mound of Erenagh, loftiest of the line of earthworks that surround Dundrum Bay. From the time of an immemorial Nature worship pilgrims have assembled, even as they gathered down to our own times, where the streams of Struel pour abundantly from the rock, to seek cleansing in the bounteous waters on Midsummer Day, and at the festival of Lughnasadh or Lugh’s fair on the first of August. The Red Branch of Emain sent its heroes to hold the two main passages into the “island,” and the inlets of the sea where trade was borne. On the northern port, known to Ptolemy as Dunum, where the river Quoile widens to Strangford Lough, Celtchair of the Battles made his entrenchment of Rath Celtchair or Dun Lethglasse, on a hill rising from the flat ground and swamps of the river. At the head of Dundrum Bay, where the sea narrows over a stretch of shoals and shallows to the inner bay, another Red Branch knight raised on a steep rock his commanding fort, Dún Rudraidhe, and left his name also to the ocean tide, Tonn Rudraidhe, whose waters were lifted up into one of the Three Waves of Ireland that sounded their warning to the land when danger threatened, or echoed the moan in battle of a dying hero’s shield. Here, in this place of Celtic legend, relics of bronze and pottery and stone can still be picked up in plenty on the sand dunes. Round the circuit of the bay half-a-dozen ancient earthworks may still be seen, connected with strands or harbours by old paths.