Plate XLVI.
Remains, &c., found at Loughavilly, Kilnamaddo, and the Miracles.
The Miracles.—At a place bearing this singular name, and situated near the village of Monea, turf-cutters in the year 1875 came upon the remains of a hut occupying the centre of an artificial island which stood in the middle of what had formerly been a small lake. Unfortunately the timbers and beams with which it was constructed were carried off before anyone skilled in archæological matters had seen them in situ; but the posts represented ([plate XLVI., figs. 11, 12, and 13]) were evidently angle-posts, resembling those in Kilnamaddo, and, like them, not exhibiting the bruised appearance produced by stone hatchets. There were pieces of iron slag, quantities of burnt wood, a well-formed crucible, sharpening and grinding stones, a stone or pounding instrument (ante, p. [74]), and a beautifully-formed, highly-polished, axe-head, and a chisel of stone. Amongst the “finds” were numerous articles of bronze, which are now dispersed, and cannot be traced; but from the description given of them by the workmen they were probably fibulæ. There were also several oaken paddles, of which one is now in the Museum, R. I. A.; the dimensions of another were seven and a-quarter inches in length, the breadth of the blade being three inches; the handle terminated in an oval expansion measuring two and a-half inches across. Single-piece canoes have, from time to time, been discovered in the neighbourhood.[213]
Rossole Lake.—In the neighbourhood of this sheet of water (ante, p. [49]) there lingers a tradition of a “buried city” lying in its depths; therefore, in the event of drainage, it is more than probable a crannog site might be disclosed to view.
COUNTY MONAGHAN.
During the working of the Commission for the Arterial Drainage of Ireland, six crannogs were disclosed in this county; four of these sites have not been identified.
Lough Fea.—A stockaded island in this lake (discovered in 1843) is described in Shirley’s Dominion of Farney.
Aghnamullen.—Ante, p. [135].
Lough Ooney.—Ante, p. [156].
Ballyhoe Lake, distant about five miles from Carrickmacross, was described by G. Morant as situated on the southern verge of the county Monaghan, the greater part of it being in Meath. The lake, of horse-shoe form, is of tolerable extent; the river Glyde, or Lagan, runs through it, and by this stream it is connected with several lakelets lying more northward in the county Monaghan; at the toe of the horse-shoe, owing to the large deposit of mud brought down by the river, the water is very shallow. In this lake were two artificial islands, one of great extent, the other much smaller. In the larger island, to which a causeway led from the mainland, were numerous mounds which had been partially excavated, and here were found two fine specimens of bronze pins, other articles of lesser interest in lead and iron; also a flint spear-head. The shores of the lake were for the most part boggy and full of large timber, stumps and stems appearing in great quantities, both above and below the level of the water, which was reduced several feet by the drainage of the river. The centre of the horse-shoe was occupied by a peninsula of bog-land with a coating of grass: this tract also abounded with timber, the stumps in many places projecting above the soil. In August, 1864, on the east shore of this peninsula, were observed two chert spear-heads lying just beneath the water at its lowest summer level, and a few yards further along the beach was a rude stone hatchet, about six inches long and two inches deep in its broadest part. The following spring, when the winter floods had subsided, measures were taken to search very carefully, and the result was the collection of a great many flint implements of various types, the greater number of which were lying only a few inches below the surface of the soil, and generally ashes were found with them. In one place a dark-coloured glass bead of barrel-shape was with the flint-flakes, and close to the stump of a large tree was a very fine polished stone hatchet with squared sides, the edge sharp and quite uninjured. In one of the holes made in the bog by the feet of cattle lay a beautiful little arrow-head of dark flint, triangular in shape, chipped to an exquisite sharpness, and curved inwards at the base to form the barbs. With the flakes, knives, scrapers, arrow and spear-heads of flint, were also many specimens in chert or Lydian stone. Near the exit of the river from the lake two different types of light-coloured flint arrow-heads were discovered, the one barbed, and about one and three-quarter inches, the other two inches in length, and of peculiar form; the latter lay where a deep cutting had been made during the drainage works, and near this spot was anciently a ford, the scene of several encounters between the Danes and Irish, and where in later times the forces of Elizabeth, and the Irish under Tyrone, met in battle array. In a field on the Meath side of the river, stood a castle of which no vestige now remains above the ground: the foundation may, however, still be traced, and many articles have, from time to time, been ploughed and dug up about the site of this old fortalice of the Pale. A fine silver coin of Mary, and a good specimen of a pin-brooch in bronze, with red enamel setting, were found there.