A consideration of these questions would lead us too far afield, and not necessarily lead to a final judgment on any of the points at issue. It is sufficient, however, to say that the internal evidence of the alphabet, and the affinity of the Irish unilingual Ogams to the bilingual stones of Wales, are in themselves highly presumptive of their dating within, and not without, the period marking the establishment of Christianity in Ireland. CHAPTER VI. RATHS AND STONE FORTS. RATHS AND DUNS--SUBTERRANEAN CHAMBERS--SOUTERRAIN IN GURTEEN RATH--TARA--EMANIA--RATH OF DOWNPATRICK--HILL OF WARD--NAAS RATH--CASHELS--CLOCHAUNS OR BEE-HIVE HUTS--STAIGUE FORT-- CAHERCONREE--CLARE FORTS--DUN AENGUS--THE DINGLE FORTS AND CLOCHAUNS--DUNAMOE--INISMURRAY--GRIANAN OF AILEACH--GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. The wooden huts or wicker and clay dwellings of the primitive inhabitants of Ireland were quick to decay; but the raths, lisses, duns, and cashels, the remains of their camps and fortresses, exist all over the country, dotting many a plain or valley, and crowning many a hill. Whatever distinction originally existed between the terms _rath_ and _Lios_ or _Lis_, they are now commonly applied to fortified dwelling-places. Though they were generally used to signify the earthen rampart round the enclosure on which the dwellings were built, ‘both are,’ says Dr. Joyce, ‘not unfrequently applied to the great high entrenched mounds which are commonly designated by the word _Dun_.’[75] * * * * * _Raths and Duns._--Notwithstanding the destructive agencies of time, and especially the reclamation and enclosure of land, the number of raths still remaining is very great. The Ordnance Survey showed 10,000 in Munster, Limerick having 2191,[76] and the number for the whole of Ireland may be taken from 28,000 to 30,000. Dr. Joyce states that the term _Rath_ enters into the name of 700 townlands, and _Lis_ into 1400 townlands and villages. That so many of these structures remain, is due largely to the fact that the peasantry have a superstitious reverence for these ‘forts’ as the home of the ‘good people’ or fairies. They are also popularly attributed to the Danes; but their very number and distribution, and the fact that the Danes never established themselves beyond the east and south-east coast of Ireland, are sufficient, without mentioning other considerations, to show that the Danes had nothing to do with their erection. Fort-building covered a long period of time; and at whatever remote date it commenced, there is evidence to show that the forts were built and restored for many centuries after the introduction of Christianity into Ireland.