PART I.

ORIGIN, CONSTRUCTION, AND CIVILIZATION OF THE ANCIENT LACUSTRINE

HABITATIONS OF IRELAND, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THEIR REMAINS, AND THE

ANTIQUITIES FOUND IN AND AROUND THEM.

LAKE DWELLINGS OF IRELAND.

“To look back to antiquity is one thing; to go back to it is

another. If we look back to antiquity it should be as those who

are winning a race--to press forward the faster, and to leave

the beaten still farther behind.”

Let us travel back in thought some thousands of years, and picture to

ourselves the aspect of Erin at that period. After all, this retrospect

is comparatively short, if we take as correct the present computed

period of man’s existence on this globe. Geology now assigns to the

human race a duration it was long considered heterodox to imagine:

generation upon generation, who shall say how many, lie beneath the sod

over which our footsteps now pass.

The words of Genesis are in no way antagonistic to the discoveries

of modern geologists, nor even to the theory of evolution. That the

term “day,” as used in the Book of Genesis, is not to be understood as

confined to a mere duration of twenty-four hours, but should be taken

as an undefined period of time, is a point now so generally admitted

that it is scarcely needful to quote the words of Scripture, that “one

day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one

day.” In common parlance we speak of events that occurred “in days of

old” without intention to limit the idea to periods of twenty-four

hours: the form of expression may be held to cover an indefinite number

of centuries. In the modern acceptation of the word used to denote the

duration of twenty-four hours, we consider the day to be represented by

the morning and the evening: there is the brightness of morn followed

by the gloom of eve. How different is the idea conveyed by the words

of Moses, who was versed in all the learning of the Egyptians, “the

Evening and the Morning were the first day,” and so on to the end

of the six days or intervals of time. While in its course through

the heavens our planet was in process of solidifying, “the earth was

without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”

Here we have the evening: afterwards “there was light,” that is to say,

morning followed, marking full completion of the first day, or interval

of time in the earth’s progress towards its present state. It is

therefore plain that the term evening cannot be considered to represent

a decline from the state of the previous period; rather it betokens the

nature of the morn about to follow. We watch with interest the signs of

the evening, not in relation to the day which has already passed away,

but as foreshowing the kind of morn that is to succeed.

“… oh who can strive

To comprehend the vast, the awful truth

Of the eternity that hath gone by,

And not recoil from the dismaying sense

Of human impotence?”

In looking back through the pages of history we arrive at a period

when all written records cease; but the remains of the dwellings

of man, of his arts and industries, enable us to trace out in some

degree the general routine of his every-day life. In the matter now

under consideration, prehistoric archæology interests chiefly as

demonstrating, in a practical manner, the state of the people who

occupied Erin long before the beginning of authentic history. Recent

researches enable us to lift the veil that heretofore concealed the

past of subsided lake-dwellings in Ireland, to bid

“Forgotten generations live again,

Assume the bodily shapes they wore of old”;

to realize to a great extent the physical past of their inhabitants,

and in imagination to partake of their daily life. If till lately the

learned were on this subject purblind, it is the less surprising that

the uncultured fisherman, gliding in his skiff over the placid surface

of the waters and peering into the clear depths, should have failed to

recognize that the mouldering stems projecting from the oozy bottom

were traces of the love of security of his forefathers, that in the

muddy matrix of the ever-accumulating lacustrine deposit, are preserved

material evidence of a state of society long since passed away.

Until the first half of this nineteenth century all memory of the

ancient lake-dwellers of Ireland seemed to have vanished completely,

but with the study of ethnology the interest excited in tracing out

the idiosyncrasies of the various races of man penetrated to Ireland

also, and now “few things can be more interesting than the spectacle

of an ancient, long-forgotten people, thus rising, as it were, from

the waters of oblivion to take that place which properly belongs to it

in the history of the human race.”[1] Beyond the limits of history and

archæology there extends a boundless period of human existence. Far

back in this indefinite past we catch glimpses of a shadowy race, the

first dwellers in Erin, who, it may be fairly surmised, were in a very

rude state--nomad hunters and fishers, subsisting by the chase, which

they supplemented by indigenous wild fruits:

“Rugged type of primal man,

Grim utilitarian,

Loving woods for hunt and prowl,

Lake and hill for fish and fowl.”

They formed their ordinary implements and their weapons of warfare from

flint, stone, bone, shells, and even wood.

“They were, then were not; they have lived and died,

No trace, no record of their _date_ remaining.”

New comer succeeded new comer in Erin. This epoch was eminently

characterized by the sway of brute force--a warlike front alone secured

immunity from spoliation; in short, these times were governed on

“… the good old plan

That he should take who has the power,

And he should keep--who can.”

_Wooded nature of the Country._--The ancient classical name of Ireland

was Ierne, which some etymologists derive through its Greek form from

the Celtic, signifying, they say, “the extremity,”[2] the “Ultima

Thule” of classic writers; a mystic land, girded by unknown seas, and

protected by phantom dangers, the product of imagination,

“Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire.”

The witty and eccentric Dean Swift, remarking on the custom of writers

of his day, said:--

“So geographers in Afric’ maps

With savage pictures fill their gaps,

And o’er inhabitable downs

Place elephants, instead of towns.”

It is strange how long this ignorance both as regards Ireland and the

“Dark Continent” continued. One of the earliest names of Ireland,

given her by her own native poets, is very descriptive, _Fidh-inis_,

“the woody island.” This name at once brings before our minds the then

characteristic feature of the country, even as its modern poetical

designation, “The Emerald Isle,” depicts the luxuriant vegetation

watered by the cloud-masses of the Atlantic. The bogs of Ireland,

however, speak even more eloquently on this point than her bards, for

in these bogs vestiges of ancient forests are found buried, sometimes

at great depth below the present surface; the remains of oak, birch,

mountain ash, alder, yew, beech, deal, &c., testify to the variety of

the arboreous vegetation: they lie either prostrate in a horizontal

position, or bear marks of having been felled by man. According to

old bardic accounts, the first proceeding chronicled of the earliest

settlers was the clearing of timber off many great plains in various

parts of Ireland, evidently showing the paucity of arable land.

_Wild Animals._--This continuous forest must have swarmed with wild

animals of every description. Wolves, which even in the present day

prove a scourge occasionally in parts of Europe, were numerous; the

caves which abounded in the country were the home of the bear, and the

boar fed beneath the deep forest shade. In these remote times, too,

the Irish elk, with its huge, broad, branching antlers, a creature

of immense size and strength, was existent. Remains of this gigantic

deer, the _Megaceros Hibernicus_, have been found, covered by the peat

at various depths, sometimes close to the surface; and from allusions

in Irish poetry and legends[3] it is more than probable that it

continued to exist down to a much later period than most of the other

animals now extinct. In a very curious legend, one of the great Irish

bards who is reputed to have lived in the third century, and to have

himself attained a very advanced age, is described as reciting at a

banquet a poem in which he extolled the greatness and strength of his

contemporaries and forefathers, and described the tall gigantic deer

hunted by them. His listeners laughed incredulously, whereat the old

man rose in anger, and going to a neighbouring heap where were piled

the relics of bygone hunts, he selected therefrom a shank-bone, and

returning to the banquet, took from the table one of the shank-bones of

the deer on which the guests were then feasting, and dropped it through

the hollow of the bone he had brought in. This legend of the dim old

times tends to prove that at a very remote period tradition alone kept

up the memory of the Irish Bighorn.[4] The fact of the co-existence of

the _Megaceros_ with man does not, however, rest on mere legend; for in

a locality called the “Elk Hole,” Co. Wexford, numerous skeletons of

the extinct deer have been found in company with the remains of man,

also a skull and horns, in the “kitchen midden” of the largest of the

lake dwellings in Loughrea, Co. Galway, measuring over 13 feet from tip

to tip of the antlers;[5] whilst in the refuse heap at Breagho, Co.

Fermanagh, portion of an antler (according to the opinion of Professor

Owen) was discovered, sawn and perforated with holes. It does not

necessarily follow that this relic had belonged to an animal killed and

utilized by the lake-dwellers; the horn may have been found by them on

some spot where it had rested for ages. However, in the lake-dwelling

at Cloonfinlough, Co. Roscommon, bones of the _Megaceros Hibernicus_

have been dug up in a very broken state, as if fractured for the

purpose of extracting the marrow, whilst remains of the _Megaceros_, in

company with a greenstone celt, were discovered in a cave at Cappagh,

the bones broken and formed into implements by the hands of man.[6]

In Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, wherein is the site of a lake dwelling,

remains of the _Cervus tarandus_, or reindeer,[7] were found, together

with those of the bear; and near Ballybetagh, Co. Dublin, similar

remains were associated with those of the _Megaceros_, whilst elsewhere

bones of the _Cervus alces_, or true elk, have been exhumed, and traces

of the mammoth, _Elephas primigenius_, have been found near Dungannon.

_Climatic Changes._--If reliance can be placed on the accounts of

classical writers, it would appear that two thousand years ago an

excessive degree of cold prevailed in the climate of Europe. The great

number and extent, of forests, lakes, and morasses, which according to

classical authors existed in their time, must have rendered the climate

of Europe exceedingly cold and moist. The forests have nearly all been

felled, the stagnant water drained, thus producing a very considerable

difference between the temperature described as existing in these

latitudes 2000 years ago and in the present day. What occurred on the

Continent occurred also in Ireland, which, shaded with forests and

abounding in marshes, must have had an atmosphere more frigid than if

its soil were then, as now, freely exposed to solar influence.

Claudian applied to Ireland the epithet ‘icy’: Strabo looked on it

as a country scarcely habitable; Mela described the climate as cold

and unfavourable: however, to counterbalance these authorities, it

may be inferred from Tacitus that Ireland was considered milder in

climate than Gaul; in that point of view Æthicus says it was superior

to Britain, and Solinus states that it abounded in pastures. Owing to

the disappearance of Erin’s former leafy mantle, and the absence of

pestilential exhalations from stagnant fens, the summers have become

much _colder_ and the winters _warmer_ than in remote times.

The turf-cutter in Ireland finds that “usually the roots and trunks

of the trees under the peat, or in the lowest strata, are principally

those of the oak and yew, as if prior to the growth of the peat the

low country was a vast forest of these trees. It would appear that

subsequently mosses and other peat-producing plants began to grow and

flourish, until eventually they stopped the drainage, and formed an

envelope of peat, thus killing the trees, which one by one toppled

over and were buried in the succeeding growth of peat. After the

disappearance of the major portion of the oak trees, the bogs, year by

year, gradually increased in depth, until apparently suddenly, for some

as yet unexplained cause, their growth ceased, and on their surface

forests, principally of deals, sprang up.”[8] Thus we see that since

the glacial period there have been great changes in the aspect and the

surface of Ireland: first, the great oak forest age; then an age in

which was an active growth of peat; thirdly, a period when forests of

deal sprang up; fourthly, again a period of luxuriant peat growth.

The remains of human handicraft, in the form of log-houses or

lake-dwellings, have been found buried under each and all these peat

growths: a depth of 25 feet had overgrown the log-house discovered at

Inver, Co. Donegal, and on the floor-level, outside the building, were

traces of the corkers of the great oak forest age. It is practically

impossible to estimate the rate at which a bog grows: if there be a

fall, and consequent drainage, it will increase but little, whereas

an undrained bog augments with considerable rapidity: so many

contingencies are thus introduced as practically to invalidate in a

great degree calculations regarding the growth of peat over prehistoric

or other remains. G. H. Kinahan has estimated that in undisturbed

conditions each year’s growth, represented by a layer or lamina

somewhat resembling the markings on a forest tree, would average one

hundred laminæ to the foot in white or surface turf, two to three

hundred to the foot in brown turf, and six to eight hundred to the foot

in black turf, so that the accumulation of 25 feet above the log-house

at Inver, according to this painstaking calculation, would represent an

age of startling remoteness.

_Lakes._--Ireland was a land of lakes as well as of forests, for the

white-shell marl, which forms the substratum of peat bog in low-lying

situations, was formerly covered by water, till gradually displaced

by the encroachments of the surrounding bog. Many of the smiling

districts of to-day were then covered by water--

“Now land, now lake, and shores with forest crowned.”

Lakes were thickly scattered over the face of the country--lakes of

irregular shape connected by stagnant shallows--the majority of small

size, half marsh, half water, fringed with forest, and abounding in

fish: The axe of the primitive pioneer and the modern engineers’ spade

have revolutionized the aspect of the landscape: this process however

was gradual, the forests were only driven back little by little, and it

is comparatively yesterday since draining operations on a large scale

have been carried out; within the memory of persons still living there

were numerous localities throughout the kingdom, where

“The bittern’s lonely boom was heard

Along the waving reeds.”

It is only after drainage on a great, or rather thorough scale, that

anything like complete inspection of the original structure of a lake

dwelling, or any extensive “find” can be hoped for, the majority of

such sites being surrounded by soft pulpy bog to such a depth and

extent as to bewilder the most enthusiastic explorer.

Lough or Loch is the term applied both in Ireland and Scotland to

a lake: it also signifies an arm of the sea. The shores of small

sheets of water, and marshes with sedge-grown borders, were generally

surrounded by bog, and the annual growth of this latter substance

gradually encroached on the lake, till its former shining surface was

changed into a peat moss.

It has been remarked, that occasionally the silt now occupying the

former lake-bed, demonstrates the fact, that the under stratum was

formed in great measure by decomposed vegetable matter, probably

aqueous plants and the shed foliage of the encircling forest: the

later deposit is considerably mixed with fine clay. The most probable

solution of this problem is, that on the disappearance of the woods

the exposed surface of the soil was washed down from the surrounding

heights by every shower that fell, and if the land were tilled this

denudation would be accelerated. Consequent upon the discharge of the

water deepening and extending the outlet, and the contemporaneous

deposition of matter held in solution in the lake-bed, small loughs

in some instances now occupy sites which, from natural evidences,

it is apparent must formerly have been extensive sheets of water; in

other instances the large lake of ancient days, is now represented by

several of diminutive size, connected by marshes that had at one time

formed part of a great whole. In ancient times, however, the lakes

most frequently appear to have gradually increased in height: this was

due to the silting up of the outlet, under any circumstance a long and

tedious process; for though the aqueous growth on the bottom of the

outlet would, during the summer, impede and catch the heavy particles

washed down or held in solution by the current, yet in winter, when it

decayed, most of the accumulated matter would be swept away, so that in

a hundred years the increase in height of the outlet would be scarcely

perceptible. What then must be the age of lake dwellings, where three

and even four superincumbent floors testify to the necessity of

providing against the ever-rising water level!

Lakes, marshes, and woods, have in all ages afforded shelter to the

conquered, and have often enabled them to set the invader at defiance.

Pliny describes the Caledonian forests as “Romanorum armis terminus.”

A race inferior in numbers, in arms, or in physical development, would

avail themselves of artificial or natural bulwarks to ward off the

attacks of dreaded enemies, and water and woods have from the earliest

times formed important factors in the art of defence.

One cause to which may be ascribed the first erection of lake dwellings

in Ireland was the original paucity of open country, for on the arrival

of the first colonists (if credence is to be given to the early

native annals) the only plain not covered with forest was the level

district stretching between Dublin and Howth. This statement of the

superabundance of forest is, to some extent, corroborated by the vast

number of local names derived from Irish words signifying woods or

timber of some description. However, the most probable cause of their

erection was to serve as places of refuge, for these island homes would

necessarily provide safety and protection; indeed such, in their later

or historical existence, was undoubtedly the cause of their continuous

occupation. It is quite obvious that in primitive times, especially, a

habitation on water was of great security--more secure than could be a

stockaded _doon_ or fort.

Lake dwellings have been universally employed both in ancient and

modern times: similar physical surroundings originated practically the

same style of structures amongst far distant and even ocean-separated

tribes. “Man is moulded to a remarkable degree, physically as well

as mentally, by manner of living, food, and climate. Among barbarous

nations,” says Humboldt, “we find a _tribal_, rather than an individual

physiognomy; there are no varieties of intellectual development to

stamp the face with diversity of character: thus the slave-dealers in

Upper Egypt never ask for the individual character of a slave; they

only inquire where he was born, his character being that of his tribe.”

Let us now, like Puck,

“Put a girdle round about the earth,”

and inspect these habitations for ourselves. Ancient classical writers

are not altogether silent on the subject. Hippocrates, who lived

upwards of 400 years B.C., when describing the manner of life of the

inhabitants of Phasis, a region of the Black Sea, says that the country

was fenny and wooded, the climate warm and humid; but despite these

disadvantages, the natives lived entirely in the swamps, “for their

dwellings are constructed of wood and reeds, and are erected amidst the

waters.” He adds that they seldom practise walking, either in the city

or the market, but sail up and down in canoes constructed out of single

trees, for there are many canals there.[9]

An account is given by Herodotus of the abode of a Thracian tribe,

the Pæonians, who lived on Lake Prasias, now Lake Takinos, situated

in the country known in the present day as Roumelia. The habitations

of this tribe were reared on platforms, raised on piles above the

water, and connected with the shore by a narrow causeway of similar

formation. This tribe successfully resisted the attack of a Persian

army under the satrap Myabyzus. The Father of History thus describes

this settlement:--“The habitations on the lake of Prasias are of

this nature--floors laid on lofty poles stand in the middle of the

lake,[10] with a narrow entrance by one bridge from the mainland. All

the inhabitants used to drive, at their common expense, the piles

that served to support the floors. Subsequently they have adopted the

following regulation: for every woman a man marries he is to drive

three piles, which they procure from a mountain called Orbelus. Now,

every man takes several wives. They dwell here in the following manner:

each has a hut in which he lives, and a trap-door in the floor opening

down to the water. To their horses and draught cattle they give as

fodder fish, of which there is such an abundance that when one opens

his trap-door, and lets down his empty basket into the lake by a cord,

after waiting only a short time, he hauls it up full of fish.”[11] The

fishermen of this lake still continue, as in the time of Herodotus, to

inhabit huts built over the water.[12]

In Layard’s work, descriptive of the discoveries on the site of

Nineveh, there is an engraving of a bas-relief from the palace of

Sennacherib, which represents an artificial island, apparently formed

by weaving together the tall reeds that grew on the banks of the

Euphrates; and a prehistoric age is indicated by the dwellings which

existed in the Gocktscha lake in Armenia.

It is certain that lake dwellings were used as places of permanent

abode. Remains of such works of ancient date are, on the continent

of Europe, by no means confined to the area of Switzerland, to

which country they were for some time popularly supposed to belong

exclusively; they have been found in Savoy, in the north of Italy,

Würtemberg, Bavaria, Austria (Carinthia), Hungary, Mecklenburg,

Denmark, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and also in France. If dependence can

be placed on remains found in these numerous and widely-distributed

sites, many of them would appear to have been occupied so late as

the period of the Romans; and the silence of their historians on

the subject is therefore singular, as in general the characteristic

traits of the tribes with which the Roman legions came in contact were

depicted with remarkable fidelity.

In Switzerland, during the year 1829, an excavation was made on

the shore at Ober Meilen, on the lake of Zurich, for the purpose

of deepening the harbour; and although piles and other antiquities

were then discovered, they appear to have attracted no attention.

So matters stood till the winter of 1853-4, when an extraordinary

drought and long-continued frost caused the lakes to sink to a level

never before known. This circumstance presented great facilities for

the reclamation of land along the shores, and the inhabitants of

Ober Meilen proceeded to rescue from the water some of the land thus

temporarily exposed. When making excavations to form an embankment,

they came upon a net-work of wooden piles, a great number of stags’

horns, and various implements, only two of which were of bronze. The

discovery of this settlement aroused peculiar interest, not merely

on account of its being apparently the first recorded, but because

it evidently belonged almost exclusively to the stone age. Similar

structures were immediately after discovered in almost all the lakes of

Switzerland, the favourite site being a sunny sheltered bay, with soft

and gently-shelving bottom. They were of three classes--first, _pile

dwellings_: the piles, sometimes 30 feet in length, were driven into

the bottom of the lake, and occasionally further strengthened by the

deposit of stones around their base: these constructions always occur

in deep water. Secondly, _frame pile dwellings_, in which the piles,

instead of being driven into the mud, were fixed by a mortise and tenon

arrangement into split trunks lying horizontally along the bottom of

the lake. Thirdly, _fascine dwellings_, formed by layers of fagots,

alternating with brushwood, clay, gravel, and stones, one over the

other, till the top reached the required level above the surface of the

water; piles were driven in around to bind the heap together, and the

whole overlaid by a wooden floor, upon which the dwellings were erected.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--Sketch Section of Swiss Pile Dwelling.]

This construction bears a close family resemblance to the Irish

type, in which the huts stood, so to speak, on _terra firma_, and

not _en l’air_, above the surface of the water. Like Irish dwellings

of analogous formation, this species of substructure has as yet been

found only in small lakes with soft and muddy bottoms, and of little

depth and extent; they owe their origin to the fact, that piles driven

into the oozy lake bottom could not have supported the necessary

weight; for, if heavily laden, they must have sunk altogether below

the surface of the water, or at least could not have retained their

relative positions. This formation seems to have been of more ancient

date than the artificial stages upon piles alone, inasmuch as few,

if any, instances have been discovered in which bronze remains are

associated with fascine dwellings. So far as can be judged from the

manner in which the timbers are mortised together, as well as from the

characteristics of the fictile ware found, their inhabitants differed

in nothing from those who, owing to their better acquaintance with

metal, constructed dwellings of greater solidity, in deeper water, and

under more varied conditions. “_It was impossible to adopt the fascine

structure in the larger lakes_, for it must have been foreseen that the

waves which could drive amongst the upright piles of the usual pile

dwelling without injuring them, would, in stormy weather, wash over the

edges of the fascine platform and tear it in pieces.”[13]

The “fascine” lake dwelling in the lake of Fuschl, near the Mondsee

in Austria, resembles, in most respects, those found in Switzerland,

Ireland, and Scotland. This little lake is rich in fish, and its banks

abound with game; on its western shore, in a little inlet, lies an

artificial island nearly circular, about fifty paces in diameter,

separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, now almost choked with

peat-moss and marsh plants. The islet is only just above the ordinary

water-level, and on inspection its construction was found to be as

follows:--

First, a thick layer of peat-moss, then a stratum of branches,

principally of mountain pine and dwarf birch: the foundation consists

of large boughs or trunks of pine trees, the top pointing inwards.

Small piles were driven through the different layers to hold the mass

together, whilst on the exterior, a number of much smaller piles were

driven into the lake-bed, probably to protect the structure from wave

action. The difference in general constructive details between the

dwellings on Helvetian and Hibernian lakes may be accounted for by the

depth of water of the former, and the shallow muddy bottoms of the

latter. Remains of a dwelling have been found embedded in the peat-bogs

by which the hill of Chamblon is surrounded. The peat-cutters of Les

Uttins, discovered horizontal beams with mortises, and a wooden roadway

across the marsh leading to the spot. There are two settlements here,

both very ancient: one is situated at a distance of 1850 yards from

the lake, the other at a distance of 2200 yards, in an alluvial plain

formed since their erection. Dr. Keller also describes ‘steinberge’ or

stonehills, _i. e._ elevations on the bottom of the lakes, composed

of stones and gravel artificially deposited. These were formed by the

natives on natural shallows, for the purpose of lessening the depth of

water. At Nidau, in the lake of Bienne, there is an artificial island

encircled with piles, planks being laid horizontally at the bottom to

retain in place the stones of which it is composed. At Möringen, in the

same lake, there is a structure of similar type; whilst a large canoe,

which had probably been used at its formation, was found lying at the

bottom laden with a cargo of stones. Structures almost identical with

the Irish have been found in the lakes of Inkwyler, Nussbaumen, and

Wauwyl. The pile dwellings of Switzerland, _i. e._ those erected in

deep water and in the larger lakes, bear a much closer resemblance to

the description given by Herodotus than to the dwellings discovered in

Ireland and Scotland. The settlement at Morges, on the Lake of Geneva,

was 1200 feet in length by 120 in width, so that if entirely covered by

a platform its area, according to the computation of M. Troyan, would

have been sufficiently ample to accommodate a population of upwards of

1200 souls. Sometimes, as at Wangan, the villages were built close to

the shore, and seem, as in Ireland, to have been protected by palisades.

The framework of the huts was probably made of logs and wattles, or of

hurdles plastered over with clay: portions of the latter, with marks of

the wattling still distinct on them, have been drawn from their watery

bed. The Swiss dwellings appear to have been rectangular, resembling

perhaps the châlets of the present day: it has not been decided whether

they were divided into rooms, but, just as in the Irish dwellings, each

hut had its hearth, of which the flat stones still often lie in _situ_;

the invariable presence of clay weights indicates that most families

possessed a loom, whilst from the remains of straw and reeds, it may

be inferred that the roofs were thatched. The wide chronological range

of these remains is very remarkable. The settlements in which stone

implements have been found are more widely spread and more numerous

than those of the metallic period. In Switzerland these lake villages

appear to have commenced to decay, or to have been abandoned towards

the close of the bronze age, and to have almost ceased to exist on the

introduction of iron. In the stone era the bones of wild animals, of

stags, of urus, of aurocles, and wild boar, are found, whilst in the

metallic ages remains of domesticated animals preponderate more and

more, till the final abandonment of these “water-towns.” The remains of

human handicraft around the dwellings illustrate the habits, domestic

usages, and skill, of their inhabitants during untold centuries; but

the most striking fact is not so much their similarity to the Irish

structures, as the identity in form and use of the articles discovered

in them, both those employed in war and in the chase, as also the

culinary and domestic implements, the objects of personal decoration,

and those employed in the toilet.[14]

Scottish archæologists were aroused by the lacustrine discoveries on

the Continent to investigation of similar remains occurring in their

own country. It was found that early historic references to island

forts, and incidental notices of the exposure of artificial islands,

consequent on drainage operations, had been entirely overlooked.

A crannog, that of Lochinadorb, in Moray, was honoured by a visit

from Edward I. in 1303, and was considered of such importance, that

thirty-three years later Edward III. led an army to its relief. A

crannog in Loch Kinord, in Aberdeenshire, is mentioned in history in

the year 1335: it received James IV. as a guest in 1506, and enjoyed a

continuous existence until 1648, when its fortifications were razed by

order of Parliament. Forty years after the dismantling of this island

fortress, the crannog of Lochan-Eilean, in Strathspey, is described

as “useful to the country in times of trouble or wars, for the people

put in their goods and children here, and it is easily defended.”

Artificial islands formed of wood or stone, often identical with those

a short time previously ascertained to have existed in Ireland, were

found more or less spread over the entire of Scotland. These have been

lately classified and considerably added to by Dr. Munro, and in his

work[15] at least fifty-three well-authenticated discoveries of wooden

lake structures in Scotland are enumerated.

The Dowalton settlement, in the lake of that name, in Wigtownshire,

seems to have been abandoned by its inhabitants at an early period:

nothing mediæval was found on the site; a copper coin indeed

(described, however, as of doubtful character) was picked up; but as

it may have been dropped into the water at any period, its presence

need not disturb such inference as we may draw from the other articles

discovered. Mr. Stuart says, “there is a peculiar interest in the small

colony of Dowalton, from its neighbourhood to the site of Ptolemy’s

Roman town of Leucophibia … and that at least one object of Roman

workmanship … has been found amongst the relics of the old inhabitants

of the islands. It was only a matter of conjecture how it came

there--whether in the course of commerce, by gift, or by appropriation

after the removal of their Roman neighbours. It seems, however, not

unreasonable to regard the occurrence of a Roman vessel at Dowalton,

associated as it is with relics which are elsewhere found in early

sepulchral cairns and British hut circles, as pointing to a period of

occupation of the islands not later, and probably earlier, than that

of the Roman settlement.” The list of antiquities brought to light at

Dowalton is therefore extremely valuable for Irish Archæologists, as it

included specimens of almost everything usually found in Irish crannogs

(with the exception of the copper coin of doubtful character), also of

a bronze vessel of undoubted Roman manufacture.

The Irish lake dwellings have, over and over again, yielded articles

precisely similar to the annexed list,[16] but as a rule they are more

prolific in objects of early manufacture, which, from their style of

ornamentation, are commonly referred to a period from the fifth to

the tenth century. Dr. Munro remarks, that although we cannot “argue

definitely from the present geographical distribution of Scottish lake

dwellings, the indications are so clearly suggestive of their having

been peculiar to those districts formerly occupied by Celtic races,

that the significance of this generalization cannot be overlooked.”

The unlooked-for discovery of lake dwellings in Yorkshire, resembling

those of Ireland and Scotland, proves that in Britain also there had

been a lacustrine population in times probably prehistoric. During the

execution of drainage operations in the Holderness district, bone tools

and fragments of piles were exhumed: this led to the discovery of the

remains of lake dwellings. The excavations made it apparent that the

construction, as is observable also in many Irish crannogs, was of two

ages--the stone and the bronze. In the upper stratum, bronze objects,

then rude stone, flint, and bone weapons. As in the Irish so in the

British remains, the very dressing of the timber framework demonstrates

the fact of the constructors having worked in the lower portion with

stone, and in the upper with metal hatchets.

It may be remarked that the great city of London seems to have risen

from a collection of rude pile dwellings, as traces of these structures

have been found both near London-Wall and at Southwark. They are thus

described by General Lane-Fox:--“Upon looking over the ground, my

attention was at once attracted by a number of piles, the decayed tops

of which appeared above the unexcavated portions of the peat, dotted

here and there over the whole of the space cleared.… Commencing on the

south, a row of them ran north and south on the west side: to the right

of these a curved row, as if forming part of a ring. Higher up, and

running obliquely across the ground, was a row of piles having a plank

about an inch and half thick, and a foot broad, placed along the south

face, as if binding the piles together.… The points of the piles were

inserted from one to two feet in the gravel, and were for the most part

well preserved, but all the tops had rotted off at about two feet above

the gravel, which must have been the surface of the ground, or of the

water at the time these structures were in existence.”[17] The vast

majority of the relics belonged to the Roman era, but there were others

of ruder workmanship. The kitchen middens contained cockle, mussel,

oyster, and periwinkle shells: amongst the animal remains were those of

the red deer, horse, wild boar, goat, dog, and the _Bos-primigenius_,

_Trochoceros_, _Longifrons_, and _Frontosus_. The superincumbent strata

varied from 18 to 21 feet in depth. The Thames, formerly a less deep

but wider river than at present, appears to have had a pile-dwelling

population established on its shallows at various favourable points. At

Kew, near the mouth of the Brent, piles have been disclosed to view,

marking as is supposed the site of an ancient “water-town;” and at

Barnes, in the opposite bend of the stream, similar remains have been

observed associated with flints, celts, and other primitive relics.

Well-authenticated lacustrine sites have been discovered at Wretham

Mere, in Norfolk;[18] at Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmund’s;[19] on

Cold Ash Common, Berks;[20] and in Llangorse lake, near Brecon, South

Wales.[21]

Dr. Munro is of opinion that the lake dwellings of Scotland were

erected by the semi-Romanized Celtic inhabitants, as a means of

protection when they were left to contend against the attacks of

the Angles, the Picts, and the Scots, upon the withdrawal of the

Roman legions from Britain; but when Cæsar arrived on the banks of

the Thames the use of wooden stakes, palisading, and piles, for

defensive purposes, was, as described by him,[22] common amongst the

Britons--defences which were in fact of the nature of the palisading

with which Irish and Scotch lake dwellings were surrounded. These works

seem to have been of an enduring character, for the Venerable Bede,

writing at the commencement of the eighth century, states that some of

the stakes retained their position even in his day. A very interesting

account given by Adulfeda, Syrian Prince and historian, who wrote about

the commencement of the fourteenth century, depicts the Apamæan lake as

a collection of small sheets of water of little depth, linked together

by huge swamps. The string of lakelets was margined with dense borders

of reeds, flags, and willows, and abounded in game and fish. Adulfeda

describes the most northerly lake of this chain as “commonly called the

lake of the Christians, because it is inhabited by Christian fishermen

who live here on the lake in wooden huts built upon piles.”[23]

Venice, the once proud Queen of the Adriatic, the whilom mart of

Europe, with her lofty campanile, her beautiful temples, and her marble

palaces, rising vision-like from her watery bed, was in origin but

a cluster of fisher huts perched on piles in the shallow lagoons at

the mouth of the Po, a site selected by these toilers of the sea for

security and refuge from the ravages of the Huns under Attila. In the

commencement of the sixteenth century, when the Spaniards marched on

Mexico, “they saw, as they passed along, several large towns resting on

piles, and reaching far into the water, a kind of architecture which

found great favour with the Aztecs.” These first founders of what now

is the city of Mexico, after enduring the casualties and hardships of a

migratory life, at length resolved to erect a permanent abode; and to

protect themselves from their surrounding enemies, laid the foundations

of the future city “by sinking piles into the shallows, for the low

marshes were half buried under water: on these they erected their light

fabrics of reeds and rushes, and sought a precarious subsistence from

fishing, and from the wild fowl which frequented the waters, as well as

from the cultivation of such simple vegetables as they could raise on

their floating gardens.”[24] The Spaniards who first visited the shores

of Maracaibo, to the North of the South American Continent, found the

natives living in huts on piles in the water. They named the locality

Venezuela _i. e._ “Little Venice”: that name now embraces a forest

tract as large as France, a mountain tract larger than Switzerland, and

steppes like those of Mongolia. Vasco Nunez failed in an attack on a

tribe in Dabaybe, who lived in huts stretching from tree trunk to tree

trunk growing in a watery swamp. The city of Tchakash is built over the

river Don, and it has been suggested that the huts raised on piles by

the fishermen of the Bosphorus may represent there the last lingering

traces of an ancient custom.

Captain Hiram Cox, in his _Journal of a Residence in the Burmhan

Empire_, written in the year 1796-7, describes the villages along the

banks of the Rangoon river as “built of bamboo and cadjan, raised on

piles in the manner of the Malays,” and throughout his diary he makes

frequent allusion to this singular custom. Forrest says that in many

parts of the coast of New Guinea the people live in huts placed on

stages erected on posts, as a means of protection against the attacks

of their enemies, the Haraforas, from the interior of the country. On

these stages they haul up their proas or canoes. Similar structures

have been described by travellers in the Celebes, the Caroline Islands,

and elsewhere in Polynesia.

D’Albertes, in his _New Guinea_, states that the house inhabited

by him at Salwatee was suspended over the sea on piles, and adds,

“all, or nearly all, the houses are built like ours, on piles, and

are surrounded by water at high tide, some indeed at all times, and

the people go to and fro by means of a bridge made of the trunks of

small trees. At a distance of little more than half a mile there is

another small village.” On the river Ramoi, D’Albertes saw four or five

houses built on piles about 20 feet high; and when describing a native

village, of the people of Mausniam, he states that all “the houses are

built on wooden piles driven into the sea, and approached by a bridge

constructed of the trunks of small trees.” At Lorony nearly the entire

village was over the water. “The houses of Mafor are built entirely

in the water, so that a little bridge is necessary to enter them from

the shore.” “The Arfahs live in small villages, in houses built on

piles.”[25]

In the bay of Dorei, in New Guinea, there are four villages erected

on piles over the sea. Each village contains from eight to fifteen

houses; each house consists of a row of distinct rooms, and contains

several families. These structures are entirely formed of wood very

roughly finished. The same writer states, “Formerly the entire town of

Tondano was erected in the lake, the only means of communication from

one house to another being by boat. In the year 1810, relying on the

strength of this position, the inhabitants, who were at strife with the

Dutch, tried to shake off their yoke, took up arms, and were beaten.

It was with difficulty the Dutch succeeded in subduing them, for which

purpose they had to employ artillery and to build gunboats. To avoid

a repetition of similar troubles, the natives were forbidden in the

future to construct their dwellings on the lake.”[26]

The dwellings of the Dyaks are described by the Bishop of Labuan as

“built along the river side on an elevated platform 20 or 30 feet

high, in a long row, or rather it is a whole village in one row of

some hundreds of feet long. The platforms are first framed with beams,

and then crossed with laths about two inches wide and two inches

apart.”[27] Munro draws attention to the lake dwellings at Singapore,

erected on a series of tall piles, the flooring considerably above

the surface of the water: in the intervening space light boats were

suspended. It would also appear that pile dwellings of circular shape

are to be observed in parts of Japan. Captain Cook notices the summer

and winter habitations of a tribe called Tschutski in Kamtschatka. The

winter lodge is sunk below the surface; the summer, raised above the

ground and constructed on a platform supported on poles.

Whilst staying at Maracaibo, in Venezuela, a traveller took great

interest in a singular tribe of Indians called Guajiros, who lived

near the town in “pile dwellings.” He was conveyed to his destination

in a rude canoe, formed simply of the hollowed-out trunk of a tree.

On reaching the village, the huts, with their low sloping roofs,

were seen to be perched on high piles over the shallow waters, and

to be connected with each other by narrow plank bridges formed of

the split stems of palm trees. To enter the huts, the visitor had to

climb an upright pole by means of notches cut in the side. “Each

house or cock-loft consisted of two parts, the pent-roof shelter

being partitioned off in the middle; the front apartment served the

double purpose of entrance hall and kitchen; the rear apartment as a

reception and dwelling chamber, and it was not a little surprising to

observe how clean it was kept. The floor was formed of split stems of

trees, set close together, and covered with mats. Weapons and utensils

were placed in order in the corners.… The positions chosen for their

erection are near the mouths of rivers and in shallow waters; the piles

on which they rest are driven deep into the oozy bottom, and so firmly

do they hold that there is no shakiness of the loftily-perched dwelling

perceptible, even when crowded with people.… They are the invention,

not exactly of savages, but of tribes of men in a very primitive stage

of culture: such probably were the people who lived in the prehistoric

lake dwellings of Switzerland.”[28] Similar habitations are to be found

“Where Orinoco in his pride

Rolls to the main no tribute tide;”

and on the banks of the Amazon they are also to be seen perched on

piles driven into the muddy bottom. The delta of the Parana, which is

scarcely above high-water mark, is called the Venetia of South America.

Here the houses are built on piles in order to keep the flooring free

from the sudden rising of floods. Near Rosario, in Buenos-Ayres,

_gauchos_, who have given up horses and horse stealing and taken to

canoes and petty larceny, have constructed rude abodes in the swamps

along the banks of one of the tributaries of the La Plata.[29] Captain

Burton mentions an African tribe who had erected their dwellings in

the same way at a great distance from the shore.[30] Lake Moyhrga

or Realmah, in Central Africa, presents at the present day the

characteristic features pertaining to the descriptions of an ancient

Irish lacustrine site. Cameron[31] describes this lake as lying in a

small basin embosomed in low-wooded hills, interspersed with patches

of cultivated ground. The lake is small--only two miles in length by

one in width--the margin girt with floating vegetation corresponding

to the reeds, flags, and aqueous growth of more temperate climes.

Three villages, besides detached huts, were scattered irregularly

over its surface: the huts were built on platforms raised about six

feet above the surface of the water, supported on stout piles driven

into the bed of the lake; underneath the platform canoes were moored

and nets hung to dry. Some huts were oblong in shape, others round,

with occasionally, a projecting roof over the door, and they were

constructed in a manner precisely similar to those on _terra firma_.

The inmates live in these dwellings with their fowl and goats, only

going ashore in their “dug-outs” to cultivate their small patches

of tillage, and to allow their goats to graze. These lake-dwellers

were very unapproachable when on land, always running to their canoes

and paddling away on the appearance of a stranger. The paddles are

described as resembling large circular shallow spoons with long

straight handles, the canoes about 25 feet in length. In Eastern Africa

also pile dwellings are to be found, as at Mayunga, in Madagascar.

At Mirambaus, in Eastern Africa, the score or so of houses composing

the village are constructed on posts raised some 8 feet above the

ground,[32] whilst in the neighbouring village of Mujurumbe huts formed

of bamboo and cocoa-nut leaf are erected on piles. Thus we see that

a habitat on the water has been, or is still, used by races of men

not having the slightest affinity to each other, as the boat-living

population of China, the lake-dwellers of Central Africa, Europe, New

Guinea, Great Britain, Ireland, &c.

Although in 1810 a lake-dwelling in Ireland had been discovered by

Mr. William Trench near Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, its original use was

not known, no interest was excited, nor was the importance of the

event appreciated; and it was not till 1839[33] that the archæological

value of the investigation of lacustrine sites was perceived. The

following year Mr., afterwards Sir William, Wilde published an account

of the discovery at Lagore, Co. Meath, of the first great lacustrine

retreat noticed in Ireland in modern times. It had been anciently the

residence of the chief of a small territory in Meath. The formation

or eruption of the lake is chronicled in the Irish Annals as having

occurred A.M. 3581. Under dates A.D. 848, 933, 967 mention is made of

the destruction of the Lagore crannog, and from its being situated near

the village of Dunshaughlin, either name is indiscriminately applied to

it in the present day. W. F. Wakeman, the only archæologist probably

now living who can speak from personal knowledge of the circumstances

connected with the original discovery, relates that, when he was with

Petrie in the office of the Topographical Department of the Ordnance

Survey of Ireland, he recollects how a dealer in Irish antiquities,

named Underwood, made his appearance day after day, bringing for sale

objects of more or less archæological interest, which he stated had

been found near Dunshaughlin. Struck by the frequency of the dealer’s

calls, Petrie decided to unravel the mystery by visiting the place;

accordingly, accompanied by Wilde, he reached Lagore House, and

there, carelessly thrown on the floor of a barn, he saw a large and

miscellaneous collection of antiquities, consisting chiefly of weapons

composed of iron--swords, daggers, spear and axe-heads, saws, chains,

shears, small culinary vessels, &c. &c; pins and brooches of bronze,

articles of bone, and even of wood, all of which had been found by

labourers engaged in making a drain through the ancient lake bed.

Petrie endeavoured to procure some of these for his collection, but

the steward, or caretaker, in the absence of his employer, would not

part with any; and when the dealer returned after a short lapse of time

the collection was already greatly scattered: many objects had been

presented to curiosity-seekers in the neighbourhood, and many, it was

supposed, went to England. A few, however, found their way to the Royal

Irish Academy, to Dean Dawson, Lord Talbot de Malahide, and Petrie.

For some years after the drainage operations, the soil of Lagore

remained unturned by the spade; but in 1846, 1847 and 1848, the site of

the crannog was reopened by men engaged in the process of turf-cutting,

and, as on the previous occasion, quantities of bones were exhumed, and

with them a surprising number of antiquities, together with remains of

the ancient stockading, and the ruins of several structures evidently

used as huts; one of them is thus described by W. F. Wakeman: “Let

the reader imagine a foundation formed of four roughly-squared planks

of oak, each about twelve feet in length (so arranged as to enclose a

quadrangle), the ends of which were carefully fitted together. From the

angles of this square rose four posts, also of oak, to the height of

about nine feet. In these grooves were cut, into which roughly-split

planks of oak had been slipped so as to form the sides of the house;

the irregularities between the boards were tightly caulked with moss; a

low and narrow opening in one of the sides had evidently served as an

entrance. There were no traces of window or chimney.”[34]

Lagore crannog differed from others brought to light at a later date,

in not being either submerged or surrounded by water at the time of

its discovery. Wilde describes it as consisting of a circular mound of

about 520 feet in circumference, slightly raised above the surrounding

bog or marshy ground, which forms a basin of about a mile and a-half

in circuit, and is bounded by elevated lands. “The circumference of

the circle was formed by upright posts of black oak, measuring from

six to eight feet in height; these were mortised into beams of similar

material laid flat upon the marl and sand beneath the bog, and nearly

sixteen feet below the present surface. The upright posts were held

together by connecting cross-beams, and (said to be) fastened by large

iron (?) nails: parts of a second upper tier of posts were likewise

found resting on the lower ones. The space thus enclosed was divided

into separate compartments by septa or divisions that intersected one

another in different directions; these were also formed of oaken beams

in a state of great preservation, joined together with greater accuracy

than the former, in some cases having their sides grooved and rabbeted

to admit large panels driven down between them.”

It may be inferred that fire was the final agent of destruction, as

almost everywhere amongst the timbers lay half-consumed logs and

numerous pieces of charcoal. Unfortunately, investigations on the site

do not seem to have produced results such as might have been expected,

owing principally, as was supposed, to want of friendly co-operation

on the part of those engaged in searches. The “find” is now widely

dispersed, and can never be re-collected; but the Petrie Museum

deposited in the Royal Irish Academy, as well as some private cabinets,

would still furnish material for scores of illustrations.

At about the same date as the Lagore crannog, that of Lough Gur, Co.

Limerick, became visible when the waters of the lake were lowered. The

existence of this artificial island in ancient times was traditionally

known to the neighbouring peasantry: the stones by which it was

overlaid were in places distinctly visible to a person passing over

them in a boat when the lake level was low and the water calm. A large

tripod composed of iron was at times plainly to be seen, and had

attracted Mr. Wakeman’s attention; but, from superstitious feelings

on the part of the boatmen by whom he was accompanied, no attempt at

its recovery was then made; it is said to be now in the collection of

the Royal Irish Academy. A number of antiquities have been from time

to time obtained from the site, and there was a vast collection of

bones; but, according to the evidence of a clergyman then living in the

neighbourhood of Bruff, there does not appear to have been any vestige

of staking on or around this crannog. Other remains of the same class

were brought to light in rapid succession, so that in 1857 no less than

forty-seven of them had been recorded: since that time the number has

increased to about 200, and every succeeding year adds to the total.

In 1853-4, owing principally to the writings of Keller, the entire

attention of archæologists was attracted to the lacustrine remains

of Switzerland, and it was the more easily diverted from the Irish

sites by the pronouncement of Sir William Wilde, that no stone, and

but few bronze weapons, had been found in them: he also suggested,

that from the ninth to the seventeenth century might be considered the

probable date of the lacustrine period in Ireland. These theories have

since been abundantly confuted; but they served at the time to check

investigation, because detracting from the impression of antiquity.

_Crannog, derivation of the word._--In the Irish Annals, lake-dwellings

are called crannogs, derived from the term _crann_, which signifies

a tree. That word, always spelled with a double _n_, is in Irish

generally applied to a tree with foliage and branches, as [Gaelic:

crann na coille], _trees of the wood_, but in its primary meaning it

refers to some massive object of timber standing erect--as stems of

the forest, or a ship’s mast, which is also called [Gaelic: crann].

The last syllable in [Gaelic: crannog], _i.e._ [Gaelic: og], is the

terminal form of numerous Irish words; “sometimes it carries the force

of a diminutive, but more frequently not. [Gaelic: Crannog] is no

doubt formed in the same manner as [Gaelic: cuaróg], the name usually

applied to a wild bee’s nest, and derived from the noun [Gaelic: cuar],

any conical hollow with the diminutive ending [Gaelic: og] attached

thereto. In some country places, the old kind of pulpit or form was

called crannóg, and in others _crannghail_ or _crannghaoil_, a word of

somewhat similar meaning. This latter word, too, was the Irish term for

a hurdle, and was commonly used for those wicker-chimneys so common

formerly in country cottages.”[35]

It is doubtful whether the term _crannog_ was originally applied to

the timber framework of which the island was constructed, or to the

wooden huts erected on it; though now-a-days it is generally understood

to include the whole structure, both island and dwelling. In its

topographical sense, the word is applied to wooden lake dwellings, but

in another sense the Anglo-Irish employed it to designate a basket,

hamper, or measure of a certain size for measuring or gauging grain

or corn.[36] G. H. Kinahan states[37] that, although “crannog” is now

the generally-accepted appellation for the ancient lake dwellings of

Ireland, it is, nevertheless, “a modern term introduced to supply the

place of the ancient one, which is unknown or unrecognized.”

Lake dwellings bore in Scotland the same designation. In a document

dated 14th April, 1608, directed to State officials, concerning the

surrender of some rebellious clans, it is ordered, that “the haill

houssis of defence, strongholdis and _cranokis_ in the yllis perteining

to thame and their foirsaidis sal be delyveret to his Maiestie,” &c.

Although the term crannog is to be found in the Irish Annals, yet in

the earliest entries these dwellings are designated simply as _Inish_,

i. e. island: for instance, in an old Irish MS., “The wars of the

Gaedhiel with the Gaill,” it is recorded that, in the year 1013, Brian

Boru repaired inir locha Gair, i. e. _the island_ of Lough Gur, county

Limerick, which is one of the most important as also apparently one of

the most ancient Irish lacustrine sites; for, as before stated, remains

of the reindeer, the _Megaceros Hibernicus_, and bear, were found in

the lake bed.

_Crannog, a common Townland Name._--There are numerous localities

throughout Ireland in which the term “crannog” is embodied in the name,

and where, consequently, must have been formerly a lake or swamp, with

its accompanying artificial island, although in some cases the lake

has now disappeared, and the swamp has been drained. In most of the

districts in which these islands were found several small lakes are

clustered together. In Connaught, near the demesne of Longford, county

Sligo, the residence of Sir Malby Crofton, Bart., in a small pond,

almost dry in summer, there is an islet, still called by the country

people “crannog:” it has bequeathed its name to the townland in which

it is situated, _i.e._ “Lochanacrannog,” signifying the _little lake

of the crannog_.[38] In the parish of Cloonclare, county Leitrim, is a

locality called Crannog Island. In Connemara, county Galway, there is

an island in Ballinahinch lake which has given name to a parish and to

a barony, the word Ballinahinch signifying _village of the island_. In

Ulster there is a townland in county Tyrone called Crannog. In county

Donegal, Crannog-boy, or the _yellow lake dwelling_, was the head

quarters of The O’Boyle, a steady supporter of the O’Donnels. In county

Antrim, Lough Crannagh, situated over Fair Head, probably derives its

name from a small artificial island which lies in the centre of the

lake.[39] In Loughmacnean, county Fermanagh, are several artificial

islets, one of which is called “Crannog Island.” In Leinster there is

a townland in county Kilkenny called Cronoge. In Munster there is a

place in the parish of Ardagh, county Limerick, called Coolcranoge,

_the angle of the lake dwelling_. “Crannog Island,” “sunken island,”

“drowned island,” “Inish,” or “the island,” are common designations

for diminutive artificial islets, showing themselves above water only

during summer drought in many lakes throughout the kingdom. There is

hardly a large sheet of water to which is not attached a tradition of

a frightful outbreak of flood, covering what was formerly “a town;”

or which does not possess its legend of an enchanted well, which,

consequent upon some affront offered to its guardian spirit, covered

the valley, its inhabitants, and houses. May not these traditions be

traceable to lingering remembrance of former lacustrine habitations,

for Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in the twelfth century, described

the tradition that then prevailed in the north of Ireland, of waters

having overwhelmed the plains now occupied by Lough Neagh, a locality

the most thickly studded with these remains; and the legend has been

immortalized by Moore, who thus alludes to it:--

“On Lough Neagh’s banks as the fisherman strays,

When the calm clear eve’s declining,

He sees the round towers of other days

In the waves beneath him shining.”

Similar legends of submerged towns are prevalent in the south of

Scotland, on the littoral facing the Irish coast. In the neighbourhood

of Carlingwark Loch, Kircudbrightshire, in which are sites of crannogs,

there has been from time immemorial a tradition that “there had been

a town in the loch which sunk or was drowned;”[40] whilst a Scotch

writer states that, “amongst other points of coincidence between Scotch

and Irish crannogs may be noticed a tradition connected with some of

them, common to both countries, which seems to have arisen from the

submersion of the island homes by the rising of the waters in the

loughs.”[41] The same idea is held by the natives of Central India:

“from this hill is heard the sound of fairy drums; in that lake are

seen reflected the ruins of a buried city.”[42]

The tradition of towns buried beneath the waters is not confined

merely to the lakes of Ireland: there is the beautiful fable of the

City of Gold, hid beneath the angry ocean, sometimes seen, but ever in

different localities:

“Yet at times the waves sever,

And then you may view

The yellow walls ever

’Neath the ocean’s deep blue.”

_Submarine Crannogs._--After a very high tide at Ardmore, near Youghal,

the waters retired more than customary, disclosing the fact that this

particular portion of the sea-shore had been the site of a forest, as

remains of trees were found in various parts of the submarine deposit.

This submerged tract extends to between the four and five fathom line,

but it has not been ascertained to what further distance it may stretch

seaward. A bank of shingle having shifted by a change of current,

laid bare the substructure of an undoubted crannog: at high water it

was covered by the tide to a considerable depth. Either this dwelling

had been erected when Ireland was joined to Great Britain, or it was

existent when Ireland was at a greater elevation above the sea, and

therefore of greater extent than at present. The theory is enunciated

by eminent geologists that many of our present harbours had been

inland lakes in prehistoric times, and thus the Bay of Ardmore may

have formerly presented a similar appearance to the Gulf or Lake of

Maricaibo in Venezuela at the present day.

In the Irish Records, lake dwellings are likewise designated “Stockaded

Islands,” and in the _Ulster Inquisitions_ of 1605, the term applied to

them is _insula fortificata_. Although antiquarians have differed in

opinion respecting the age of these remains, yet after patient analysis

of the characteristic features of the numerous excavations made in

recent years, the weight of evidence seems to indicate that these

constructions _were of all ages_, some being very ancient; it is quite

apparent that they have been built and rebuilt, and in them have been

found implements of stone, bronze, and iron in their respective strata.

It would seem, indeed, that the “age of bronze” had in many instances

largely overlapped that of iron. The chronology of this period is a

subject that has not as yet been determined, and the time when it

commenced and when it ended is still unsettled.

_Favourite Sites for Crannogs._--Marshes, small loughs surrounded by

woods, and large sheets of water, were alike suitable for the home of

the Irish lake-dweller, his great and primary need being protection;

he was bound by no conventional engineering rule, he did not

exclusively employ wood, but appears to have been guided by surrounding

circumstances. On peaty or muddy sites a wooden substructure was

essential; on hard bottoms, stone, gravel, or earth were, if

convenient, employed. As providing good fishing grounds, the entrance

or exit of stream from lake was a favourite site, and natural shoals

thus placed were eagerly selected.

_Mode of Construction of._--Having decided on the position, the

_crannog_ builder set to work by driving stakes into the bottom of

the lake in a circle of from sixty to eighty feet in diameter, a

considerable length of the stake sometimes projecting above the water;

these were in many instances joined together by horizontal beams, the

interior filled up by branches of trees, stones, gravel, earth, and

bracken. Often an inner row (or more than one) of piling is found about

five feet distant from the outer, and piles are driven in various parts

of the interior, either to consolidate the mass or to act as stays for

the walls of the dwelling. Next were placed one or two layers of round

logs, cut into lengths of about six feet, generally mortised into the

upright piles, kept in position by layers of stone, clay, and gravel.

In some cases, where the foundation was soft, the superincumbent

layers of timber were of great depth; in other cases, where the bottom

of the lake was firm, the platform of timber was confined to a portion

of the island. The side most affected by the action of the water was

frequently strengthened by rows of piles, sometimes five or six deep,

as well as by a breakwater of stones.[43] On the foundation, when

raised sufficiently above the water, the dwelling was erected; the

hearth was in the centre of the island, for in almost every case a

collection of flag-stones has been discovered in the interior of the

enclosure, bearing on them marks of fire. At times several hearths

occur. In some instances there are indications of these structures

having had additions made to their height at various times, either to

keep pace with the chronic rising of the level of the lough; or, taking

into consideration the compressible nature of the component parts of

the foundation, the island may have required increased elevation,

owing to the effect of natural subsidence. The enormous amount of wood

employed in the formation of a crannog, despite the mass of stones

and other material with which it was laden, must have had at first a

buoyant tendency, but according as the wood became completely saturated

with water, consolidation of a more or less pronounced character would,

in the course of time, become observable. The stones deposited over the

lower strata of fern, bracken, and branches, were indubitably used to

compress and solidify the substructure, as likewise were the stones on

the upper strata used for a similar purpose. Considerable ingenuity was

displayed in the formation of these island homes, which were frequently

constructed in a depth of twelve to fourteen feet of water; and, apart

from having served in their day as secure retreats for large numbers of

persons, they have proved their durability by resisting successfully

the ravages of time, which may be reckoned by centuries.

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.

[Illustration: 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]

[Illustration: Fig. 3.--Stone Lake Dwelling in Lough Bola.]

_Theory of Crannogs being only Temporary Refuges._--The opinion has

been frequently advanced that crannogs were merely refuges used in

case of hostile incursion--not a general or habitual residence; and if

a rath chance to be in the immediate vicinity, it is pointed out as

the abode of the chief on shore. The great mass of bones, however, and

remains of household gear, found upon and around some of the sites,

point conclusively to their having been places of residence for long

and various periods, and many of them bear signs which denote their

having been often demolished, burnt, and rebuilt, the Celt clinging to

his watery home with as much pertinacity as in latter days he clings

to his cottage on terra firma. Keller was of opinion that the great

distinction between the continental pile dwellings (_pfahlbauten_),

and the crannogs of Ireland and kindred lake dwellings of Scotland, is

that the latter served merely as places of refuge for chieftains, their

families, and property, _i. e._ strongholds belonging to individuals,

whilst the Swiss lacustrine dwellings were inhabited century after

century by groups of families; here they fabricated their pottery,

their utensils, their wearing apparel, their fishing implements, their

weapons of warfare; and hence in Swiss waters rows of huts are found,

each furnished with its hearth and its weaving loom. Although Irish

and Scottish lacustrine dwellings may have been the abode of chiefs,

yet the clan clustered around them, for in many Irish lakes a large

crannog is observable, whilst in close proximity--sometimes connected

with it--are others of smaller size and meaner construction; might we

not fairly surmise that the larger one was the abode of the chief, the

others those of his followers? The theory that these dwellings were

places of merely temporary refuge can be refuted on many grounds. The

evidences of repeated renovations and re-erection of crannogs after

having been burnt,[52] also the traces of cattle, which appear to have

been kept in them, the enormous quantity of bones contained in the

kitchen middens, the hearths, the remains of fire, of cooking utensils,

of spindle whorls, of household gear, the domestic arrangements made

in each hut for the accommodation of a family, the various articles

for personal adornment and for amusement, all tend to denote continuous

occupancy; finally, we must bear in mind the enormous expenditure of

time and labour that would be required for erection of what was, on

such a theory, to serve only as a place of temporary shelter.

_Palisades and Dwellings._--Palisaded fortifications are unquestionably

very primitive. Around the cyclopean wall of Dun Ængus and other

prehistoric forts in the Isles of Arran, county Galway, are found

palisades, or _chevaux-de-frise_, of sharp-pointed stones, and such

defences have in all ages proved effective under skilful management.

Even in the present advanced state of military science, the various

wars in New Zealand have demonstrated the formidable nature of the

Maori pah or fort. The outer range of piles around crannogs rose

considerably above the water, and thus formed a stockade or breastwork

for repelling an attack from enemies. The Lord Deputy Sidney,

describing to Elizabeth a repulse of her troops from one of these

retreats, says that at a distance it did not appear formidable, as

it was simply encircled with a stout palisade bristling with rows of

sharpened stakes; but when assaulted, the soldiers found it impossible

either to scale or undermine it. This style of defensive work was of

ancient origin in Ireland, for the Annals state that, in the year 990,

the island as well as “the dreach and rampart of Lough Cimbe” (now

Lough Hackett, county Galway) were swept away by a violent storm.

Within the area enclosed stood the hut or huts in which the families

lived; the stockade served equally for shelter and defence, fulfilling

the same purpose as did the circumvallation of the rath or _doon_ on

terra firma. Edifices constructed of logs, of wattling, and hurdles

daubed over with clay, and thatched with reeds, were in early times

considered characteristic of the Irish; even public buildings were

constructed of these materials. Bede states that an Irish monk, who

had been elected Bishop of Lindisfarn, built a church for his see

“altogether of sawn oak, and covered it with reeds, after the manner of

the Scots” (_i. e._ the Irish). We need not, however, refer to history,

or depend upon conjecture, in order to reconstruct these island

dwellings; for the foundations, and even some of the log walls, have

been exposed to view. Good examples are presented by the flooring of an

oblong house at Drumaleague, county Leitrim, and at Cargaghoge, county

Monaghan; remains of a wooden hut at Kilnock, county Antrim; and the

following in county Fermanagh--mortised beams at Loughavilly, a house

at Gortalough, angle posts at “The Miracles,” and lower framework of

a house at Ballydoolough. At Kilnamaddo, in the same county, log huts

were found buried under seventeen feet of peat; these were practically

almost perfect, wanting nothing save the roof; they were very low, the

side walls scarcely four feet in height, and they might be looked upon

rather as lairs for sleeping in, than dwellings in the modern sense of

the word; indeed, the primitive races of Ireland, whether building in

stone or wood, made use of low roofs and consequently low doors. The

openings left for egress and ingress were probably closed by hurdles

of wicker-work, as demonstrated by the old Irish proverb, _Fuair se

air suibhal eadar cliath a’s ursainn_ (he got off ’twixt hurdle and

door-post), equivalent to the saying, “he escaped by the skin of his

teeth.”

A considerable portion of the townland of Kilnamaddo (_the wood of the

dog_) had apparently, in olden times, formed the basin of a sheet of

water, and upon one of its shoals some primitive tribe had erected a

habitation. The piling can still be traced, but the chief antiquarian

interest attached to the discovery consisted in the remains of the huts

already referred to, and which were constructed of oak beams. They were

two in number, stood about fifty feet apart, and somewhat resembled the

hut exposed to view by Captain Mudge in Donegal, but differed from it

in not being divided into an upper and lower story. The Kilnamaddo huts

were quadrangular, and the larger and more perfect specimen measured on

the outside eleven feet six inches by ten feet. To make the structure,

four massive posts of oak, averaging seven feet in length and seven

feet in circumference, were set in the ground. These timbers, near

their upper ends, have mortised holes averaging eleven inches in height

by eight and a-half in breadth, through which passed the ends of beams

to which slabs of oak were attached, and the floor was also composed

of oaken planks. The roof, as well as a great portion of the sides,

did not remain _in situ_ at the time of the discovery, but a number

of timbers found immediately adjoining each of the structures were

admirably suited for the purpose of forming side walls and roofing.

The lower frame of the work appears to have been very similar to that

upon which the roof had rested. In the lower portions of the four

upright posts were very curious mortise holes, evidently intended

for the reception of beam ends. The sides of this edifice were

retained in position and pressed to the frame below by a row of small,

well-sharpened piles; no sign of pinning or grooving in the upper

portion of the frame could be discovered, therefore the conclusion may

be drawn that the huts were originally built within an excavation,

the peat was then heaped against the sides, probably even over the

roof, and a small passage left as an entrance. In short, it was a

structure of wood, but otherwise analogous to the stone-lined chambers

and passages so generally found in raths. Almost in the immediate

neighbourhood, may still be observed a subterraneous work of uncemented

stones, styled “St. Lasser’s Cell.” In it are three very small,

low-roofed chambers, connected by passages equally low; but there is

no reason to suppose they had communication with any other structure,

and, although named after a “saint,” they rather convey the impression

of pre-Christian origin. Unlike the remains of most crannogs, that of

Kilnamaddo presented no indication of having been destroyed by fire;

had such been the case, the posts would have shown undoubted signs of

charring. Evident traces of a kitchen midden were discovered in the bog

close to the hut, but at a level slightly above it. The height of the

interior of the most perfect of the huts, without making any allowance

for a sloping roof, being only four feet, they would thus correspond

to the souterrains of a rath. It has been suggested that they were

used by the crannog occupants only for the preservation of perishable

commodities; and in seeming corroboration of this theory, large lumps

of the substance called “bog-butter” were discovered in them carefully

rolled up in cowhide.

It is difficult to arrive at even an approximate estimate of the age

of these curious structures: the mortise-holes, pierced clean through

timbers more than seven feet in circumference, could hardly have been

formed by the aid of stone hatchets or chisels: several of the piles

and other portions of the work show traces of long, clean cuts, such as

are given by sharp metallic tools; yet the only implements found here

were of stone, and by the aid of such it is possible that some of the

timbers were more or less worked. The roots and part of the trunk of a

yew were found _in situ_ in the bog, on a higher level than the roof of

the more perfect hut. It has been computed, from the girth of this yew,

that it would take at least one thousand years to attain the bulk it

showed when first laid bare, and the eleven feet of bog by which it

was covered would take at least another thousand years to grow.[53]

[Illustration: Plate I.

Crannog Hut, Kilnamaddo. Restored from existing Remains.]

Plate I., fig. 4, represents the most perfect of the Kilnamaddo

huts restored. When the drawing was taken, all the timbers in the

illustration were on the spot, and some of these retained their

original position. Fig. 3 is a slab of oak measuring six feet by two

feet nine; it is not so thick as fig. 2, which represents a slab of

oak five feet ten inches in length by one foot six inches in breadth,

the depressions at its broader end being five inches by six, and it is

one foot two inches in thickness; this and fig. 3 were found lying by

the side of the hut, and it is conjectured that they formed a portion

of the roof. Fig. 1 represents an angle-post five feet six inches

in length, and four feet ten inches in circumference. This style of

construction appears, as far as is yet known, to have been confined to

the north-west portion of Ireland, the two somewhat similar huts being

those discovered by Captain Mudge in Donegal, and by Mr. Morant in

Monaghan.

A representation is given (plate II.) of the wooden hut discovered

in 1833, by Captain W. Mudge, R.N., in the bog of Drumkelin, parish

of Inver, county Donegal, it being the most perfectly preserved

primitive dwelling of that material yet brought to light in Ireland.

It was surrounded with a staked enclosure; portions of the gates

also were discovered. The flooring of the house (plate III., fig. 3)

rested on hazel branches covered with a layer of fine sand; a paved

causeway (plate III., fig. 4), over a foundation of hazel branches and

logs, led from the door of the house to a fireplace, on and around

which lay ashes, charred wood, and half-consumed turf. This unique

structure was nearly square, twelve feet wide, and nine feet high,

formed of rough logs and planks of oak, apparently split by wedges,

the interstices filled with a compound of grease and fine sea sand.

One side of the hut, supposed to be the front, was left entirely open.

The framework[54] consisted of upright posts and horizontal sleepers,

mortised at the angles, the end of each post being inserted into the

lower sleeper of the frame, and fastened with a large block of wood.

The discoverer states that the mortises were very rough, as if made

with a kind of blunt instrument, the wood being bruised rather than

cut, and it may be inferred that a stone celt found lying upon the

floor of the house was the identical tool with which the mortises had

been formed (plate III. figs. 6 and 7). By comparing the chisel with

the marks of the tool used in making the mortises and grooves, it

was found to correspond exactly with them, even to the slight curved

surface of the chisel; but the logs had evidently been hewn with a

larger instrument in the shape of an axe, undoubtedly of stone, as the

marks, though larger than those the chisel would have made, are of the

same character, being somewhat hollow and small cuts, not presenting

the smooth surface produced by a common iron axe. A second but larger

stone was also found on the floor, which, being ground at one end to

an edge, was probably used as a wedge for splitting timber (plate III.

fig. 5). There was also a flat freestone slab, measuring three feet

by one, and two inches thick, having a hollow in the middle about

three-fourths of an inch deep; large quantities of whole and broken

nuts were found near it, together with several round shingle stones.

The hollow in the flag is supposed to have been a receptacle for the

nuts, the small stones being used as hammers to break them.

[Illustration: Plate II.

Crannog Hut discovered at Inver, Co. Donegal. Drawn from the Model in

the Museum, R. I. A.]

The interior of the structure was divided into two stories, _each

about four feet in height_ (plate III. figs. 1 and 2); its flat roof

was sixteen feet beneath the original surface; therefore, nearly

twenty-five feet of bog must have grown around it since its first

erection; a piece of a leather sandal,[55] a flint arrow-head and

wooden sword were found; the latter relic was quite perfect when dug

up, it was subsequently broken into two pieces, one of which--the

pointed end--may be seen in the Museum, R.I.A., and is here

represented (fig. 4); the portion remaining measures twenty-seven and

a-half inches in length, its greatest breadth being three inches.

[Illustration: Plate III.

Front, Side Elevation, Ground Plan, &c., of Crannog Hut, discovered at

Inver, Co. Donegal.]

The depth at which the hut was buried, and the flint and stone

implements found in it, seem to prove unquestionably its extreme

antiquity; added to which, upon the level of the floor, and extending

all around, were the corkers of a forest of hard wood trees that had

co-existed with the occupation of this structure. Wood, in large

masses, when either thoroughly immersed in water or buried under

ground, lasts longer in a semi-decomposed state than is generally

supposed, for calcined ends of timber antæ and rafters were dug out

from the pseudo site of Troy.[56]

[Illustration: Fig. 4.

Remaining Fragment of Wooden Sword found at Inver.]

At the time of Captain Mudge’s discovery, so little was known on the

subject of lake dwellings, that many were the conjectures floated in

connexion with this Donegal “find.” Now, however, this famous log

house is pronounced to be simply a very well preserved example of the

ordinary crannog hut of an extremely early period, _i.e._ of a time

when axe-heads of stone were still in use, and when metal, if known

at all, was so precious that ordinary weapons were occasionally at

least formed out of hard wood. That the structure in question occupied

a crannog will be sufficiently obvious to any inquirer who examines

the model of it preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. The stakes

represented _in situ_, to the left of the illustration (plate II.),

are plainly remains of the stockade, one timber of which appears in

the foreground; and, in the sides of the drain made to carry off the

water from the excavation, Captain Mudge observed a number of ends of

large oak logs placed in regular order, portion evidently of the usual

crannog foundation.[57]

[Illustration: Fig. 5.

Sketch of Ancient Floor in the townland of Cargaghoge, barony of Farney.

From A to B, 18 ft. 4 in.; from C to D, 17 ft. 6 in.; from B to E, 11

ft. 6 in.; F, fireplace; G, large tree stump; H, remains of posts; I,

dotted line showing ends of planks bared by the tenants.]

In 1867, the remains of a dwelling brought to light in the townland

of Cargaghoge, near Carrickmacross, county Monaghan, is thus

described:--[58] A man engaged in cutting turf, having uncovered the

ends of three planks of oak, the circumstance, when reported to Mr.

G. Morant, induced him to have the superincumbent bog carefully dug

away, and after some hours’ work the floor of a house became exposed

to view; as the explorers approached its level, they were particularly

careful to examine the layers next to it, in the hope of discovering

some relics of its inhabitants; but, beyond ashes, nutshells (both in

considerable quantities), some pieces of very rude pottery, and a few

small worked flints, nothing was found. The floor, as may be seen by

the accompanying engraving, is approached by a narrow causeway of black

oak planks, similar to those of the floor itself, very rudely formed,

of unequal size, and laid loosely, without any apparent fastening,

except by occasional posts, as marked on the sketch. At the end of the

causeway nearest to the floor are the remains of posts, which probably

formed the entrance to the house, and at one side is a large tree stump

of some soft wood resembling sallow. The timbers of both causeway and

floor have evidently been fitted to the boll of the tree, proving that

it must have existed before either the causeway or floor was laid. The

latter sloped at a considerable angle to the south-west, owing to the

withdrawal of the water from a small lake not far from the site of

this ancient floor; the bog in former days was at least fourteen feet

deep over it. In the memory of persons still living, this portion of

Cargaghoge was entirely covered with water. About the centre of the

floor was a collection of stone slabs, closely fitted together, with a

substratum of blue clay, but all laid on planks of timber forming part

of the floor. On this fireplace there was a quantity of ashes, and on

the edge of the hearth a small corn-crusher of stone. Underneath the

planks, as far as could be observed without disturbing them, a thick

deposit of hazel and birch branches formed a foundation for the support

of the flooring.

From the descriptions given in Irish MSS., it would appear as if the

very earliest wooden dwellings were either rectangular or of oblong

form, but there is absolute proof of the co-existence of circular

houses, made chiefly or wholly of wicker-work. Similar dwellings of the

Gauls are figured on Roman bas-reliefs; the plan of this kind of house

resembled a tent; the poles were driven into the ground in a circle,

the spaces between filled in with wicker-work, and the interstices made

weather-tight by daubing them with clay. In the centre of the interior,

a stout post, commensurate with the required height of the conical

roof point, was firmly erected, and to this the rafters were attached,

descending at a steep incline to the upright wall poles. According as

they radiated from the central post their distance from each other

correspondingly increased; in these spaces cross-beams were inserted,

and across the radial rafters narrow slips of wood were fastened,

forming a complete covering from the conical point of the roof to the

eaves; a sheeting of rods was laid over this at right angles, and the

framework of the roof was then thatched with straw, rushes, or sedge

bound down with scollops.[59]

[Illustration: Fig. 6.

Section of roadway in soft ground.]

_Gangways._--Some crannogs were connected with the shore by a wooden

gangway supported on piles driven into the bed of the lake. The

artificial island in the lake of Effernan, county Clare, affords a good

example of this kind of passage. It has been often stated that the

characteristic feature of Irish lake dwellings was their insularity,

their complete disconnection with the land; yet it would be tedious to

enumerate the many instances in which remains of both pile gangways

and stone causeways have been discovered; although with regard to the

latter it is quite possible that in some cases the so-called causeways

may have been merely the stones that had been deposited around the

base of the piles, to give solidity to the uprights supporting the

footpath.[60] It has been suggested that these gangways, being under

the water level, were meant to provide on sudden emergencies a means

of secret access to the crannog, and that their oblique, sometimes

even tortuous, course was for the purpose of preventing any but those

accustomed to the submerged path from making use of it. Is it not

more probable that the people who made it merely availed themselves

either of a shoal or of the best foundation into which uprights might

be driven? Wooden roads and causeways across the deep, treacherous

morasses and soft miry banks with which lake dwellings were environed

have been frequently discovered. A roadway, evidently made for

convenience of the crannog in Loughnahinch, county Tipperary, was

covered with a great accumulation of peat.[61] Another submerged

roadway, constructed somewhat like an American corduroy road, was

discovered in a bog between Castleconnell and the Esker of Goig, in

county Limerick.[62] In the north portion of the Wexford estuary was

a causeway that in ancient times connected Begerin to other islands;

there were two rows of oak piles on which, apparently, had formerly

been transverse beams.[63] In Duncan’s flow bog, Ballyalbanagh, county

Antrim, was a wooden roadway laid on the surface of the _black_ turf,

level with stumps of deal corkers; this road was seven feet wide,

formed of longitudinal oak beams sheeted with transverse planking of

the same material. In the centre of the bog, where the foundation was

soft (fig. 6), there were eight longitudinal beams, whilst in the

firmer ground (fig. 7), near the edge of the bog, there were but three,

one at each side and one in the centre. The roadway, with the exception

of one log, was formed entirely of oak; holes worn in the oak planking

had been mended (fig. 8) with pieces of _deal_ fixed in position

across the aperture. “On the roadway there are now five feet of uncut

turf, while ten feet of ‘good turf’ are said to have been cut away.

Over the good turf there must have been ‘white turf’ and clearing,

which would add at least about five feet more to the thickness of peat

over the cash,” or roadway.[64] A paved causeway, covered to the depth

of eight or nine feet with bog, leads down to what used to be the edge

of the water, at Kilnock crannog, county Antrim.[65] On an ancient

wooden causeway or road in Ballykillen Bog, barony of Coolistown,

King’s County, a remarkable axe, formed of bone (fig. 9), was found

seven feet below the then surface of the bog; the axe is eight inches

long, and the sharp cutting edge at the small extremity had been formed

by an oblique cut of the bone. With it was a flint arrow-head (fig.

10) in a briar-root shaft, the thong which tied it still adhering.[66]

Remains of cut reeds, ferns, heather, and sand or clay, are very

frequently found strewn on the roads thus leading into crannogs.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.

Section of roadway in firm ground.]

[Illustration: Fig. 8.

Plan of roadway, showing repairs.]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.

Axe-head of Bone.]

[Illustration: Fig. 10.

Flint Arrow-head, Shaft and Thong still adhering.]

_Kitchen Middens and Refuse Heaps._--The most usual site of the kitchen

midden, or collection of refuse thrown out of the dwelling, is at

the entrance to the crannog, where was formerly the landing-stage

or gangway leading to the shore; and what more natural than that

prehistoric housekeepers should take the easiest method of getting

rid of refuse by merely throwing it out of the door, a practice

followed, on terra firma, by many of their descendants in Ireland at

the present day. The accumulated mass of bones (invariably found in

a broken state for extraction of the marrow) is in some instances

immense; it is estimated that at Dunshaughlin, in Meath, about two

hundred tons were sold for manure, three hundred tons were exhumed from

the kitchen midden of one of the lake dwellings in Loughrea, county

Galway, and fifty tons from that of Ardakillen, county Roscommon; the

bones in the heaps have, evidently, in some instances, been gnawed by

dogs after their owners had extracted the marrow, for which dainty

the Irish appear to have had a peculiar relish, judging from their

proverb, _Ma bhris tu an cnamh char dhuighail tu an smior_, i. e.,

though you have broken the bone, you have not sucked out the marrow:

equivalent to saying, “you have done the most difficult part of the

work, though you have not completed it.” Refuse heaps may be said to

form also a perfect mine of antiquities, for every “cast” article of

household gear was thrown into them; hence, the objects though numerous

are generally fractured. After bones the next most frequent “find”

consists of fragments of fictile ware. It has been remarked that if the

former site of a crannog becomes again exposed to the light of day,

by the _gradual_ cutting away of the peat under which it lay buried,

perhaps during centuries, then many objects calculated to excite the

interest of archæologists might be turned up from time to time without

attracting particular notice, and thus no means would be left to form

even an approximate estimate of the date of the crannog; but if careful

examination be made of a kitchen midden, exposed to view by the simple

drainage of water from the site, then the antiquities discovered afford

tolerably correct and safe data from which to calculate the age of the

structure.

_Canoes._--Some crannogs appear to have been veritable islands, the

only means of communication with the land being by canoes; of these,

in Irish and Scottish waters alike, remains have been frequently found

near the dwelling, in some instances alongside the landing-stage, as

if sunk at their moorings.[67] A canoe formed by hollowing out the

trunk of a tree seems to have been almost universally the first attempt

at boat-building, and to effect this, a people even in the rudest

state of existence would possess sufficient ingenuity. Canoes are so

universally found associated with crannogs, that their discovery in

lakes and bogs in Ireland has been considered an indication of the

existence of lacustrine dwellings in the immediate vicinity; but it

may be safely concluded that, unless implements or articles of stone

or bronze are found with “dug-outs,” they do not of themselves carry

us back to prehistoric times, nor do they necessarily indicate the

great antiquity commonly attributed to them. Canoes have been found

of the oldest type known, and yet containing articles of iron of very

modern form; therefore, it may be surmised that a people of primitive

habits like the lake dwellers clung tenaciously to old customs, and

their models remained unchanged during many ages. Irish single-piece

canoes may be roughly divided into three classes or varieties--(1) the

first, generally either sharp or rounded at both extremities, averages

twenty feet in length, and about two in breadth, some however have

been discovered square at both ends. Again, some are flat-bottomed

and others round: the inside depth varies according to their state

of preservation; (2) the second kind is generally of much greater

length; one found, measuring forty feet, was round in the bow, but

square in the stern, which was formed of a separate piece, let into a

groove within a few inches of the extremity: this make is altogether

more heavy and clumsy than the preceding; (3) the third variety is

trough-shaped, and has been appropriately designated “the portable

canoe”; the length is from eight to twelve feet; it is square at both

ends, round in the bottom, and having projecting handles at either

extremity, apparently for the convenience of carrying it from lake

to lake. All alike seem to have been hollowed out of a single tree,

probably in the fashion described by Captain Speke, in his _Travels

in Central Africa_, wherein he says the negroes fell a large tree,

lop off the branches, shape the timber, then cover its upper surface

with wet mud, as it lies on the ground, and set fire to it, burning

out the core, and finishing off with roughly-constructed hatchets

the part unconsumed by fire.[68] In Lough Owel, county Westmeath, in

the immediate neighbourhood of a crannog, a very large canoe was

found in company with two of smaller size. The prow was in shape like

a curved beak; it might be expected that the principle of the curve

would have been carried out in its after end, but, whilst the entry is

spoon-shaped, the stern is square, and a hollow but shallow groove cut

at the very end was formerly filled by the stern board. This canoe was

round in the bottom; twenty-four holes were drilled through the sides,

and the same number through the floor. A canoe twenty feet nine inches

long, four feet seven inches broad, and one foot eight inches deep, was

found at Derryhollagh, county Antrim; another in the lake of Moynalty

was twenty-four feet in length.[69] One unearthed at Ardakillen

measured forty feet in length, by four feet across the bow,[70] whilst

another in Drumaleague Lough, county Leitrim, was only eighteen feet

long by twenty-two inches broad--not formed for speed, certainly--being

square at stem and stern. A canoe at Cahore, in Wexford, was twenty-two

feet in length, two-and-a-half feet across amidships, and eleven

inches in depth (plate IV. fig. 1). At a place called Cornagall, about

six miles from Cavan, was found one more than half consumed by the

conflagration which had destroyed the crannog itself; in the bottom

of this boat lay a complete set of tools, belonging to an ancient

craftsman who had lived at a period subsequent to the adoption of iron

tools.

In consequence of the low level of the Boyne in the summer of 1837,

workmen engaged in taking gravel from the river, near the obelisk

erected to commemorate the period

“When James and William staked a Crown,

And cannons they did rattle,”

discovered a well-preserved “single tree” canoe, which was for many

years after exhibited as a curiosity in Liverpool, but finally

presented to the Royal Irish Academy. The length of this canoe is

eighteen feet nine inches, it averages two feet ten inches in width, is

twenty inches high in the side, and has three circular and artificial

apertures in the bottom, as shown in the illustration[71] (plate IV.

fig. 2.) Three canoes were found at Toome Bar; the one figured

(plate IV. fig. 3), is hollowed out of a single piece of oak, the

length, fifteen feet, with projecting beaks at prow and stern; it is

twenty inches wide, fourteen inches deep, and is flat-bottomed; it lay

“from six to eight feet below the surface, in a bed of sand and Lough

Neagh clay.”

[Illustration: Plate IV.

Fig. 1. Single-piece Canoe from Cahore, Co. Wexford.

Fig. 2. Single-piece Canoe from the Boyne.

Fig. 3. Single-piece Canoe from Toome Bar.

Fig. 4. Supposed Single-piece portable Canoe from near Enniskillen.

Fig. 5. Paddle from Toome Bar.

Fig. 6. Stone Anchor.

Fig. 7. Iron Anchor or Grappling from Toome Bar.

Single-piece Canoes, Paddle, and Anchors.]

The discovery of an ancient canoe beneath the waters of Lough Erne was

made in a somewhat romantic manner. A steamer plying upon that lake

attempted, in consequence of the unusual height of the water, to make

a short cut, but grounded on a bank, and in so doing pushed upwards

her ancient sister into the light of day. The “dug-out” thus found

is of oak, eight feet in length, by one foot five and a-half inches

in breadth, its internal depth is seven and a-half inches, the sides

averaging about an inch and a-half in thickness. In shape it differs

from any other canoe in the Museum, Royal Irish Academy, and, taken as

a whole, conveys the idea of the elongated bowl of a table spoon; it

also presents a peculiar characteristic, in that a number of holes at

almost regular intervals, in sets of three, have been pierced through

its floor; there are three sets of these holes, each about an inch in

diameter; they cross the boat in threes, at right angles with a line

drawn through the middle from end to end.

During the operation of changing a line of road about a mile and a-half

from Enniskillen, the antique figured (plate IV. fig. 4), was exposed

to view. Its position was almost equidistant from Lough Erne and Lough

Rossole. Owing to the smallness of its proportions as regards beam,

objections have been raised to its claim to be classed as a canoe, and

it has been suggested that it was perhaps a brewing vat for manufacture

of some kind of drink. Impossible to say what the original length of

this square and hollowed block of oak may have been, but the remaining

portion measures about fifteen feet: the sides and bottom are thin,

the depth is one foot, the breadth at its remaining end only one foot

three inches; that end, however, is seven inches thick, and from it, on

the exterior, two handles cut out of the solid block project, as shown

in the drawing.[72] The great difference between the thickness of the

sides and end may be accounted for by the presence of the handles, as

they would need to be attached to solid timber if required for use as

lifting agents; the diameter of these handles is about three inches,

the length six inches, and at the end, between the handles, there

is a hole by which this antique could be drained. If it be really a

canoe, the handles would prove most serviceable for the purpose of

transportation from one lake to another, and for the chase of wild

fowl on lake or river, would meet the requirements of the primitive

sportsman. A groove cut upon the interior of what may be termed the

remaining portion of the gunwale, seems as if intended for reception

of a covering in the style of an Esquimaux canoe, and, owing to the

extreme narrowness of the supposed craft, this arrangement would be

absolutely necessary for the safety of the occupant.[73] A portable

single-piece oaken canoe or trough of similar description, twelve feet

in length, by three in breadth, and furnished with handles, was found

in the bog of Ardagh, parish of Maghe-Ross, and is figured in Shirley’s

_Dominion of Farney_.

The foregoing furnish specimens of the three classes into which canoes

may be divided; in all, about fifty have been found in Ireland.[74]

Owing to the preservative properties of peaty matter, the wood of

some of these canoes was in a fairly sound state when dug up: one of

the largest and most perfect found in connexion with the Strokestown

crannogs, was cut up by a “grim utilitarian” for roofing material, and

the best canoe belonging to the Ballinderry crannog was split into

firewood.

_Paddles._--For the purpose of propelling a canoe paddles were

essential, and of these numbers have been discovered: there are several

in the Museum of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association at

Kilkenny, as also in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin.

The paddle, two feet seven inches long, by five and a-half inches

across the blade, as represented (in plate IV. fig. 5), was found in

the immediate neighbourhood of a crannog site at Toome Bar, on the

Lower Bann. It is the largest of two from the same locality; both are

imperfect, the handle of each being fractured in the same spot, so

that the original length cannot be ascertained; but as they were not

more than half an inch thick, they could only have been employed in

propelling a very light craft, perhaps a portable canoe.[75]