The Scottish lake dwellings were formed in almost identically the same manner; in fact, the structural details are so completely analogous as almost to necessitate the belief of their having been erected by the same race. Up to the present time, out of the fifty-three lake dwellings constructed of timber, discovered in Scotland, thirty-three have been found in Wightown,[44] Kirkcudbright,[45] Dumfries,[46] Ayr,[47] and Bute,[48] in south-western Scotland, whilst the greater number of those found in Ireland are situate on the opposite coast, i.e. in Ulster.
Fig. 2.
Excavation in a Crannog in Loughrea, showing wicker-work wall and basket flooring.
G. H. Kinahan, who explored crannogs in four localities,[49] states that in all of them floors of wicker- or basket-work were found. The first discovered by him was in the large crannog of Loughrea. In one of the excavations there became apparent a perpendicular single wicker-work wall or partition that went down to the level of the basket flooring; from it, for eleven feet towards the north there was a rough pavement, on which was a thin layer of gravel. The surface of the pavement was on a level with the basket flooring. The rods of which it was composed were soft and rotten—in fact reduced to mould, gave no resistance to the spade, and might easily escape ordinary observation. The heads of the piles forming the partition walls may, according to this authority, be seen in an unexcavated crannog near Strokestown, county Roscommon. There seems, therefore, reason to suppose that all piles situated in the interior of crannogs point out the direction of the partition wall or walls of the habitations, as, whatever may otherwise have been the mode of construction—whether of wicker-work or rods—they were supported at intervals by piles. May not the so-called basket flooring have been a portion of the wattle walls which had fallen down? Other experts on the subject have been unable in their explorations to detect the presence of wicker-work floors; but in the year 1858, in a small island about 200 yards from the shore, in the lake formed by the Shannon at Castleforbes, county Longford, the Earl of Granard discovered traces of stockading and piling, together with a coarse sort of wicker-work.[50] This, however, was in the encircling palisades, and W. F. Wakeman has recently noticed similar remains around the crannog of Lisnacroghera.
Stone Lake Dwellings.—On some of these artificial islands the last structures seemed to have been formed of stone: for example, in Loughtamand, county Antrim, a stone house or castle, the stronghold of the MacQuillans, replaced a circular structure composed of wood; a similar change seems to have been made in one of the crannogs of Loughrea. The transition from buildings of wood to those of stone has also been observed in Scotland. Mention may be made of a few stone-built island fortresses; and although, strictly speaking, the term “crannog” is scarcely applicable, yet many of them that present a modern appearance are structures erected on ancient foundations. In parts of Galway and Mayo, where timber was either scarce or of stunted growth, buildings of stone seem to be most numerous, whilst in Ulster they occur in the rocky districts of Antrim and Donegal.
Goromna Island, in Lough Hilbert, county Galway, is a peculiar structure, which, though not formed of wood, is somewhat allied to a crannog, being wholly or in part an artificial island. A large and good specimen, Caislen-na-Caillighe, or the Hag’s Castle, stands in Lough Mask. It is one of the oldest fortresses mentioned in the Irish Annals, being noticed at the date A.D. 1195. In 1233 the Anglo-Norman castle erected on its site was demolished by Felim O’Conor, chief of Connaught, and so late as 1586 it was with difficulty captured by Sir Richard Bingham. This great circular enclosure, ninety feet in diameter and thirty feet in height, occupies almost the entire island. The walls, which are still eight feet in depth at top, exhibit the characteristic inward slope peculiar to the cashel; its situation near the mouth of a river (the Robe) is characteristic of crannogs. In Lough Bola there is a curious cashel, or stone lake dwelling; the accompanying sketch gives an idea of its present appearance. A primitive habitation lies in Lough Cam, north of Roundstone, and two miles west of Toombeola. All these islands have a crannog-like aspect. To the south of Ballinahinch lake lies that of Ballinafad, and in its northern portion there becomes visible, when the water is low, a circle of stones and a small island, evidently the remains of some artificial structure. O’Flahertie, in his History of Iar-Connaught, mentions that the ancient castle of the O’Flaherties of Bunowen, in the lake of Ballinahinch, was built on an artificial island: this had been constructed by one of the original septs long prior to the occupation of the country by the O’Flaherties, who in their turn were driven out by the Martins.[51]
