Note 1038 — Chapter XI · MOTTE-CASTLES IN IRELAND

“Hibernicus enim populus castella non curat; silvis namque pro castris, paludibus utitur pro fossatis.” Top. Hib., 182, R. S., vol. v. In the same passage he speaks of the “fossa infinita, alta nimis, rotunda quoque, et pleraque triplicia; castella etiam murata, et adhuc integra, vacua tarnen et deserta,” which he ascribes to the Northmen. This passage has been gravely adduced as an argument in favour of the prehistoric existence of mottes! as though a round ditch necessarily implied a round hill within it! Giraldus was probably alluding to the round embankments or raths, of which such immense numbers are still to be found in Ireland. By the “walled castles” he probably meant the stone enclosures or cashels which are also so numerous in Ireland. In the time of Giraldus the word castellum, though it had become the proper word for a private castle, had not quite lost its original sense of a fortified enclosure of any kind, as we know from the phrases “the castle and tower” or “the castle and motte” not infrequent in documents of the 12th century (see Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, Appendix O, p. 328). We may add that Giraldus’ attribution of these prehistoric remains to Thorgils, the Norwegian, only shows that their origin was unknown in his day.