Wakeman's handbook of Irish antiquities

by W. F. Wakeman

A third cave, situated three and a half miles from that of Knockmore, and over four from the police station of Boho, contains some very interesting examples of cavern scorings. This weird spot is worth visiting, though there is no road running nearer to it than at a distance of four miles. The name of the place is Loughnacloyduff, or ‘Lake of the dark trench.’ The lake, or lough, which covers about one acre, is bounded on its northern side by a shattered cliff of yellowish sandstone, rising to a height of perhaps thirty feet above the level of the water. Within the face of this rock are several caverns, two of which present every appearance of being, in part at least, artificial. The largest measures about 6 feet in height, by about the same in breadth, and 10 in depth. The sides and roof are extremely rugged, except here and there where some little care appears to have been exercised for the reception of a series of scorings of various kinds, any notice of which, up to the time of our visit, had not, as far as we are aware, been published. The principal cave is connected with a second and smaller one, lying upon its western side, by an aperture in the partition of rock, by which, but for this provision, the two chambers would be completely severed. The lesser cavern is small, rude and uninscribed, but sufficiently large and dry to have been used as a sleeping apartment by the primitive occupants. The carvings at Loughnacloyduff consist chiefly of crosses enclosed within an apparent lozenge; of starlike designs; and of strokes which look very like a species of Ogam writing. The caverns, once perhaps the home of the cave-dweller, are now the dens of wild animals​—​the fox and the brock or badger, as the bones of other animals and the tattered plumage of birds testify.

In our observations on Caves, we have confined ourselves to those which are natural, or partly artificial, rock-caverns, and in no instance referred to the souterrains​—​underground passages and chambers, lined with drystone masonry and roofed over with flags, found very plentifully in various parts of the country, and too carelessly or vaguely described by some writers under the title of ‘Caves.’ These will be dealt with in a subsequent chapter.

As we have already intimated, in the present state of our knowledge it is impossible to dogmatize upon rock markings. Caution must be used in any attempt to interpret them. Many are no doubt due to natural causes. The familiar water-marks on the Old Red Sandstone formation may too readily be taken for cuttings made by the hand of man. The late Richard Rolt Brash once observed, in the sections of vertical rock strata in the quarries of South Wales, cup-like holes, with corresponding bosses on the opposing layers, and was of opinion that these were sometimes taken for artificial hollows. The late Dr. Frazer, following on the lines of M. Valenciennes, found the Echinus lividus lodged in a cup-like hollow burrowed for itself in the rocks on the sea-shore of Bundoran. Dr. Frazer expressed his opinion that the cup-markings on the rocks round the shore of Lough Melvin, once probably an arm of the sea, were due to the same cause; and further, that some of the markings on rocks described by Sir James Simpson in British Archaic Sculpturings were pittings of the Echinus.[18] Many of the cup-like indentations in the limestone rock are, in the opinion of some scientists, due to acid secretions of the snail, notably the Helix aspersa. Making due allowance for these natural causes, yet a mass of rude markings by the hand of man remain, difficult to interpret as to their origin, their meaning, and the people to whom they are to be assigned. In many districts of this country, and some of them widely apart, we find upon the sides of caves and rocks, and within the enclosure of pagan sepulchral tumuli, a certain well-defined class of markings, often arranged in groups, and with few exceptions, presenting what may be styled a family type: we can hardly imagine them to be the result of caprice. In ancient and in modern times, men confined by necessity to a listless existence, in an inhospitable district, or when tending flocks and herds, might very naturally have beguiled their hours by carving with a stone or metallic instrument such figures as their fancy prompted, upon the nearest object which happened to present a surface more or less smooth. Scorings or patterns made under such circumstances would be, in character, as various as the skill or humours of the designers.

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Rocking-stones.​—​In a field situated not far from the ‘Eglone’ (see [page 12]) occurs a huge mass of the same lithic character. It is known as the Rocking-stone, and, although some tons in weight, may be swayed some eighteen inches on either side by very slight exertion of the hand. These so-called ‘Rocking-stones’ are to be met with in various parts of Ireland and Great Britain. Up to a comparatively recent period they had been supposed to have been associated in some way with the celebration of druidical rites or mysteries. That idea is no longer held, except, indeed, by some old-fashioned or superstitious people. Upon the borders of Fermanagh and Cavan, about three miles along the mountain road from the village of Black Lion, in the direction of the Shannon Pot, may be seen a very characteristic example of the kind of remains under notice. It consists of an immense block of stone, six feet high, somewhat globular in shape, and weighing several tons. The stone rests upon a rock, and is so poised that a moderate pressure of the fingers will suffice to move it. From the position of the mass it would seem to be artificial. It may be that the stone was originally placed where it at present stands in memory of some now long forgotten hero or event, and, owing to an accidental peculiarity, existing either in its own configuration or in that of the supporting rock, was so imposed that it may be thus shaken a few inches backwards and forwards. On the slope of a hill, on the old battle-field of Northern Moytura, is a fine boulder, which we failed to stir, and we were informed by our guide that sometimes the stone rocked, and sometimes it was immovable. The cause of the latter state may probably be due to the clay which is washed down the slope, and rests in the socket on which the rock is balanced. Not far from this, and near the village of Highwood, is another rocking-stone which can easily be moved. On the shore of Brown’s Bay, north of Island Magee, is a larger rocking-stone, weighing about 10 tons, which was once believed to tremble at the approach of a criminal.

Rocking-stones are simply erratic blocks dropped into their present positions in the decline of the Ice Age. A similar phenomenon may be witnessed in the ‘tables’ of a glacier, where the pedestal of ice under the shadow of the rock perched upon it, melts less rapidly than the surrounding surface. Rocking-stones were no doubt looked upon with superstitious awe by the worshippers of stocks and stones, during the dark ages preceding the introduction of Christianity in these islands.

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Druid’s Chairs, or Seats: Inauguration Stones, &c.​—​Other rude stone monuments which we thus classify occur in Ireland. In an article on this subject in the Gentleman’s Magazine,[19] Richard Rolt Brash says: ‘The class of monument now under consideration has been found in countries widely apart. Examples of the stone chair in its most ancient types have been met with in Ireland, Wales, Greece, and South America.’ The examples found in Ireland have been generally speaking of two classes​—​those associated with the Druids or Brehons exercising their respective priestly or judicial functions, and those used in the inauguration of a chief of a great sept. The so-called ‘Coronation Chair’ of the O’Neills of Clandeboye, after various vicissitudes and wanderings, is now once again in Belfast. It consists of a rude quadrangular block of common whinstone, from one side of which, slightly sloping backwards, rises a somewhat thin back, in form and size very similar to that of a plain oak chair of the seventeenth century. The Chair is entirely of natural formation, and has evidently never been touched by a tool. In ancient times the chiefs on the occasion of their inauguration were not seated. On the contrary they, as Spenser describes, stood ‘uppon a stone allwayes reserved for that purpose, and placed commonly uppon a hill.’ Their feet rested within certain sculptured hollows the shape of a man’s foot, and which were supposed to indicate the shape and size of the sole of the foot of the first great captain of the reigning race. The great Chair of the Tyrone O’Neills stood on the Rath of Tullahogue when the chiefs were inaugurated, the last occasion on which it was used being that of the inauguration of Hugh O’Neill in 1595. The chair, as Fynes Moryson tells us, Mountjoy ‘brake down’ in 1602.

‘The Hag’s Chair,’ Loughcrew.