_Staigue Fort_, the most perfect example of the caher or cashel now existing in Ireland, is about fourteen miles from Waterville, on the road to Kenmare. The plan is nearly circular; it measures 114 feet exterior diameter, and the enclosed space is 88 feet from east to west. It is built of schistose slate, and the spaces between the blocks are filled with spawls of the same rock. The wall varies in height from 10 to 18 feet; it is 13½ feet thick at the base, and about 7 feet at the top, and this is due to the batter or incline of the inner and outer faces. The doorway is 6 feet 2 inches high, 5 feet 2 inches wide at the bottom, and 4 feet 3 inches at the top. In the wall, and with small entrances opening to the court, are two chambers, one measuring 10 feet by 4 feet and 6 feet high; the other 8 feet by 4 feet. The main face of the wall presents a series of ten sets of stairs, leading to narrow platforms, the highest reaching nearly to the top of the rampart. The steps are not uniform; some rise from the base, and some from a few feet above the ground. The plan and execution exhibit great skill in this primitive style of architecture. One of the most elevated forts in the British Isles is that on _Caherconree_, the most westerly height of the Slieve Mish mountains. It stands on the shoulder of the mountain, about 10 miles south-west of Tralee, in a commanding situation, at an elevation of 2050 feet, and with a magnificent outlook. The cashel is about 350 feet long, and forms the base of a triangular spur of the mountain, the sides of which descend in steep cliffs for about 200 feet. The rampart is terraced, but is now in a ruinous condition; its present thickness is 16 feet 9 inches at entrance, and its greatest height 10½ feet. It was defended by a fosse and vallum of earth and stone, the top of which ran at about 40 feet from the rampart.[82]