Few who have paid even passing attention to the subject of Irish antiquities, recognising the fact that several holed-stones, bearing apertures of considerable size, and found in the immediate neighbourhood of remains universally acknowledged to belong to prehistoric days, will assume, we think, that the former do not partake of the same primeval character as cromlechs, stone circles, and cairns. Fergusson was mistaken in stating that there is no proof of a holed-stone being used in any Celtic cemetery for purposes similar to those practised at the Stennis example. Unquestionably some of the holed-stones are of doubtful character, inasmuch as they may be classified either as prehistoric, or belonging to an early period of Christianity. We may perhaps assign to one of the finest monuments of this class remaining in Ireland a degree of antiquity equal at least to that acknowledged to be possessed by the cromlechs, circles, and other megaliths of Carrowmore, immediately adjoining. Of this stone Colonel Wood-Martin, in _Rude Stone Monuments in Sligo_, gives the following description: ‘It marks the point of junction of the three parishes of the district formerly, and still by the country people, designated Cuil-Irra. This boundary mark is a thin limestone flag, set on edge; it is 9 feet in height and 10 feet in breadth above ground. The little stream which issues from Tobernavean, or Tobar-na-bhFian, the “Well of the warriors,” laves its base, which must be deeply buried in the earth. Toward the east side this flagstone is pierced by a squarish, or rather an oblong, perforation, 3 feet in length by 2 feet in breadth. From its mottled appearance this slab is popularly called Cloch-bhreac, or the “Speckled stone”; also Cloch-lia, or the “Gray stone”’ (page 99). Another example, standing upwards of five feet in height above the level of the ground, with a round hole sufficiently large to admit the hand, may be seen upon an eminence in the immediate vicinity of Doagh, a village in the county of Antrim. In the same district, on a hill near Cushendall, a second fine holed-stone until lately existed. Probably one of the most curious monuments of the class under notice, in Ireland, formerly stood in the early Christian cemetery of Inniskeen, close to the cloictheach, or round tower, Co. Monaghan. This relic, which was of porphyry, had an aperture through it sufficiently large to admit the insertion of a full-sized human arm. In modern times it was the custom at Easter to fix in the stone a pole, up which the neighbouring young people used to climb for a prize. The stone is said to have been formerly used for superstitious purposes, but no particulars of the rites or customs once practised have been handed down. [Illustration: Holed-stone at Mainister, Aran Mór.]