LAKE DWELLINGS. PART I. (continued 4)

In a plan-drawing of the siege of Enniskillen castle, in the year 1592, the remains of a crannog appear in the river close to the castle, where seemingly a circle of stakes encloses a diminutive island.[168] The survey or maps of the county Monaghan, made by one Francis Jobson in 1590, though meagre, and certainly—as its designer expresses in an apologetic note to Burghley—“nothing perfect,” is nevertheless highly interesting by reason of the rude sketches of the water-laved abodes of the chiefs of Monaghan. Each barony possessed one, designated “the island”; that in Farney was at Lisanisk, written Lysonske, and it is marked on the map as “The Island, Ever M’Cooley’s house.” In the year 1843 traces of this structure were discovered; the former artificial island was then a peninsula, having been joined to the shore. Seven feet below the surface of the ground, and two feet below the water level, a double row of piles was disclosed, formed of young trees with the bark still adhering, and from six to twelve inches in diameter; the area thus enclosed was an oval sixty feet by forty-two feet.[169] In Jobson’s map several crannogs are represented in Lough Mucknoe, barony of Cremorne; also “Mac Mahoun’s house,” or crannog, is shown in Lough Monnachin. According to the same authority, a sub-chief of the present county Monaghan, named Mac Kenna, resided in a crannog either on the lake of Glaslough or that of Erny in the parish of Donagh. The map is so rough that it is difficult to decide which of the lakes is intended. Francis Jobson likewise represents the residence of a chieftain named Brian Mahon, as a crannog on Lough Rouskey, in the parish of Killeevan. In 1588 Aedh O’Donnell and nine of his followers were murdered in the crannog of Mongavlin, parish of Taughboyne, county Donegal. “The crannog is not now traceable, nor is there any water in the locality in which such a structure could have existed, with the exception of Lough Foyle, on the margin of which Mongavlin is situated.”[170] In 1571 the Mac Dermots burned Inis-Floinn and Inis-Mic-David,[171] situated somewhere on the borders of Roscommon and Sligo. The statement that the islands were burned seems to sufficiently demonstrate their artificial character. In the sixteenth century the island fortress of Inishrush was held by an Irish sub-chief named Brian Carragh; and Dr. Reeves quotes a document from the State Paper Office, in which allusion is made to it in the form of a letter to a Captain Piers, dated 10th December, 1566. The writer says:—“Als mony as we migt drywe and dreaf ower ye Ban all y^e carycht y^t Brean Karriche hade … and ane innyse (i.e. Island, namely Inishrush), y^t Brean Karriche hade of befair and Oneiles servand tuk y^t, and now we have gotten y^e innys agane, and that harchips I behuffit to Sla yame to be meet to my arme.” The crannog of Inishrush (i. e. the island of the wood), or perhaps, peninsula, has long ceased to bear that name. It is a small island in the middle of a marshy basin called Green Lough, in the townland of Inishrush, barony of Loughinsholin, county Derry. Some years ago this marsh was a sheet of water about half a mile in circumference, the drainage of which was effected by means of a deep cut that carried its contents into the Clady river. About the centre of the lakelet was a circular artificial mound composed of clay and gravel, the sides gradually shelving downwards. It was girt with a circle—about one hundred and fifty feet in circumference—of oak piles, most of them still in position. Horizontal beams of oak were mortised in the upper ends, and upon this framework rested seemingly the foundation of a wooden house securely attached to the supporting timbers. An artificial causeway, leading from the western margin of the lough, appears to have formerly connected the crannog with terra firma. The sole discovery made was a fragment of chain-armour. The lake basin became again partly submerged owing to neglect of the drainage, and when Dr. Reeves visited the locality in 1859, he failed to reach the crannog. It remained, however, above water, prominently covered with a luxuriant growth of grass.[172]

In 1560 O’Rourke was drowned “whilst going to sleep on a low sequestered crannog in Muinter Eolius,” county Leitrim. Under heading of the year 1544, crannogs in the county Antrim are referred to in the Annals of the Four Masters:—“O’Donnell marched with a force into the Routes, and took (i.) Inis-an-Lochain, on which was a wooden castle and an impregnable fortress in the possession of Mac Quillan; and after O’Donnell had taken the castle he gave the castle to O’Kane. On the same expedition O’Donnell took the castle of (ii.) Baile-an-locha, and he found much property, consisting of arms, armour, brass, iron, butter and provisions, in those castles. O’Donnell also took after that (iii.) Inis-locha-Burrann, and (iv.) Inis-locha-Leithinnsi, in which he likewise found much property.” (i.) Inis-an-Lochain (i. e. the island of the little lake) lies in the river Bann, about a mile and a-half to the south of Coleraine. It is now called Loughan Island. The crannog had been erected, or perhaps, re-erected in 1170. (ii.) Baile-an-locha (i. e. the village of the lake), anglicised Ballylough, and (iv.) Locha-Leithinnsi (i. e. the lake of the half island), now known as Lough Lynch, are both situated in the parish of Billy. Lough Lynch originally covered about twenty acres, but has been drained, and the former island is now accessible by dry land. This crannog “is shown as the birthplace of Colkitto, a chief who figured in Montrose’s wars,” and who has found a place in Sir Walter Scott’s “Legend of Montrose,” as well as in one of Milton’s sonnets, written on the critics who cut up the title of his book “Tetrachordon:”—

Colkitto’s real name was Alexander Mac Donnell, a relative of the Earl of Antrim. (iii.) Inis-locha-Burrann was situated in the parish of Ballintoy; the lake is now drained, and the place known by the name of Loughavarra.[173]

In 1541 the eastern crannog in the lake of Glencar, on the borders of Sligo and Leitrim, was taken by one sept of the O’Rourkes from another. Shortly afterwards the dispossessed proprietor attempted to set fire to the “fortress,” but was discovered, pursued by boats, taken prisoner, and hanged. In the summer of 1540, O’Donnell besieged the crannog of Loch Betha, now Lough Veagh, county Donegal. He encamped round the lake shores, but failed to take the stronghold. In the autumn he, however, defeated his opponents, and “broke up and completely demolished the crannog.” Previous mention is made of it as the scene of strife in the year 1524, when Eoghan O’Donnell took Niall O’Donnell’s “town” (i.e. the crannog of Loch Betha); whilst in 1257 O’Donnell was confined to this crannog during twelve months from wounds received in a battle near Sligo. In 1512 the crannog of Mac Gauran was taken by Mac Guire. In 1495 Mac Gauran, a chief of Tallaghaw, in the present county Cavan, was drowned in Loch Crannoige of Coill-an-mhuilinn (i. e. Lake Crannog of the Wood of the Mill), now Ballywillen Lough. In 1477 a violent tempest swept over Ireland which did great damage, especially to crannogs. Had these structures not been very numerous, the chroniclers would scarcely have drawn special attention to the havoc thus wrought. In 1455 Torlogh Mac Guire took and plundered the crannog of Mac Clancy on Lough Melvin, county Leitrim. In 1452 O’Hanley was murdered by his own tribe in the crannog of Loch-Leisi (stated by O’Donovan to be now called Muckenagh Lough), in the parish of Kilmeam, county Roscommon; whilst in 1246 it is of record that O’Conor made his escape when a prisoner from the same lake-dwelling, after drowning his guards. In 1368 an O’Conor was taken prisoner in the crannog of Ardakillen, parish of Killukin, county Roscommon, and in 1388 another O’Conor burned this crannog and the Island of Loch-Cairgin (i. e. Cargin’s Lough[174]), near Tulsk in the same county. In 1365 Brian Mac Mahon, chief of Oriel, invited his father-in-law to a banquet, where he made him prisoner, and “put him in a lake to conceal him”[175]—evidently meaning his confinement in a crannog—for Mac Geoghegan states that the captive was committed “to a strong place on a lough to be kept.” In 1247 Mac Costello took and garrisoned the crannog of Cloonloch (now Lough Clean), county Leitrim, and expelled the proprietor, Mac Rannall, who, however, succeeded in recapturing his stronghold.

In 1223 William de Lacy, one of the great Anglo-Norman settlers in Ireland erected “the crannog of Inis-Laodhachain, and the Connacht men entered forcibly upon it, and let out on parole the people who were in it.” This erection of a lake-dwelling by a Norman baron is an instance of the habit laid to the charge of many of the English, of forsaking their own language and usages, and of living according to the manner of the Irish amongst whom they dwelt. “The names Inis-Laodhachain and Loch-Laodhachain are now obsolete.” In 1220 “Walter de Laci came to Erinn, and performed a great hosting to the crannog of O’Raighilligh.[176] He went upon it and obtained hostages and great power.” The crannog here referred to “appears to have been situated in Lough Oughter, county Cavan, where the old castle of Cloch-Uachtair (or Cloch-Oughter) now stands. In a letter from Guy de Chatillon to Henry III., dated July, 1224, Grennoch Oraely (as the name is therein written) is stated to have been captured from William de Lacy by Oraely, Walter de Riddelsford, and Richard Tuit, on the same day on which the castle of Kilmore (county Cavan) was taken, from which it appears to have been in the neighbourhood.”

There is evidence that some crannogs were constructed by the Northmen, for in 1170 the chief of a small territory in the barony and county Monaghan “was killed by the men of a fleet which came from the Orkneys, in the island which had been constructed by themselves in Loch-Ruidhe, i. e. Inis-Lachain.” There is no lake in Ireland now known by that name; but to the south of Coleraine there is a small island in the river Bann called “the Loughan,” which bears all the appearance of having been artificially constructed.[177] In 1150 an Irish chief was killed “on the island of Loch-Laighaire.” This crannog lay in the country of the “Sliocht O’Neills,” and, as appears from subsequent references, was situated to the south of Lifford, in the barony of Clogher, county Tyrone, and was the residence of that branch of the O’Neills. It is written Loch-Laoghaire and Loch-Laighaire, i. e. Leary’s Lake, said to have been so called from “Leary the Victorious,” one of the heroes of the Red Branch Knights of Ulster, in the first century; but for nearly two hundred years it has been generally known under the designation Corcreevy, i. e. wooded hill. In 1845, when the water had been drained off, the crannog was here discovered. There are several allusions to it in the Irish Annals. In 1325 “O’Donnell, the son of Brian O’Neill, Lord of Tyrone, died at Loch-Laighaire. In 1431 Nachtan O’Donnell went to assault the castle of Loch-Laighaire, and took it from Turlough O’Donnell, and all the spoils that were in it he carried off.” In 1436 the crannog had been seized by the O’Neills, when some of the same sept summoned Mac Guire to their assistance and “commenced constructing boats to go to the crannog, but the sons of Bryan, who were then in the crannog, came to the resolution of delivering it up.” In 1500 Hugh Roe O’Donnell “burned the crannog of Loch-Laighaire;” whilst in 1509 there is a notice of a fight between two septs of the O’Neills on the shores of the lake.

In 1025, it is stated in the Annals of Loch Cé, that a predatory expedition was made by the inhabitants of Fermanagh, on which occasion they burned the crannog on Loch-n-Uaithne (Lough Ooney), “and slew seventeen men on the margin of the lake.” Lough Ooney lies in the county Monaghan, in the barony of Dartry, the chiefs of which territory had their principal residence on this lake, whence they were sometimes designated “Lords of Loch-n-Uaithne.”

In the enumeration of various kinds of fortresses repaired by Brian Borumha, crannogs are included, as recorded in a well-known Irish ms. entitled “The Wars of the Gaedhiel with the Gaill.” In it mention is made of four crannogs, one being near Knockany, county Limerick, and situated in Lough Cend, now drained; also the celebrated crannog in Lough Gur, in the same county. The site of the crannog of Loch Saiglend has not been identified;[178] the site of Inis-an-ghaill-duibh (i. e. the island of the black foreigner or Dane,[179]) is unknown, or at least uncertain; however, in the Dublin copy of the Annals of Innisfallen, under date 1016, it is stated to have been situated in the river Shannon. We learn that in some of his numerous conflicts with the Danes, Brian Borumha pillaged various islands in the Shannon, where the invaders had placed their women and children for safety, as well as their treasure, as “there was much gold and other wealth in these islands and fortifications.” In 990 a violent tempest “sunk the island of Lough Cimbe (now Lough Hackett) suddenly, dreach and rampart, i. e. thirty feet;” this crannog was afterwards rebuilt by Brian Borumha.

With the Danes, the struggle in Ireland between invaders and invaded was carried on as much in the lakes and rivers as on terra firma. Of the importance attached to crannogs during this contest many instances might be given, but a few will here suffice. In 984 “the islands of Connaught were destroyed by these marauders.” In 933 the crannog of Lagore in Meath was burnt by them; whilst in 848 they fired and dismantled it. Lagore being the residence of one of the principal chiefs of Meath, frequent notices of it appear in the annals, where it is written Loch-Gabhar. “Gabhur” is an ancient Irish and British word for a horse, and accordingly the name Loch-gabhra, which occurs in the life of St. Aidus, is translated Stagnum-equi, the lake of the horse,[180] now euphonized “Lagore.” In 967 Beollán, “king” of this place, died; in 907 Maelogra, also “king” of Lagore, was slain; whilst in 868 the son of Edirscel, “king” of Lagore, fell fighting against the Danes. In 865 Tighernach, “king” of Lagore and “half-king” of Meath, died; and in 856 Cinaedh, chief of the present baronies of Upper and Lower Duleek, in Meath, in alliance with the Danes, “spoiled the islands” of Lagore. This entry is of great importance, as it points to the probability of the site of another crannog or crannogs in close proximity to the celebrated historical stronghold dug out of its peaty covering in 1847, and which as early as A.D. 673, must have been of importance, for in that year a considerable battle took place on the shores of the lake. In 927 and 928 the Danes plundered “the islands of Lough Neagh,” and in 922 the same fate befel “the islands of Lough Rea.”

In 847 “the island of Inis-Muinremhar,” in Lough Ramor, county Cavan, was “demolished by the inhabitants of Leyney, county Sligo, and Gallen, county Mayo, who were plundering the territories after the manner of the Gentiles.”[181] In 636 a chieftain named Maelduin was burned to death in “the island” of Inishkeen, county Louth, on the borders of Monaghan,[182] and in the same year mention is made in the Annals of the Four Masters of “a lake in which a crannog was built, situated in Oriel (but not now known), called Loch-da-damh, the lake of the two oxen.”[183]

There is an ancient poem in Irish,[184] attributed to St. Columbkille, which commences—

The Saint is flying from his enemies after the order of banishment from Erin had been issued against him: he subsequently exclaims—

A well-known Irish scholar, the Rev. Canon Bourke, gives the following translation of the same passage:—

There is said to be an ancient Life of St. Patrick which contains a notice of one of those dwellings; and in a translation into English of an ancient Irish ms., the “Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne”—two characters belonging to the earliest, indeed generally supposed mythic, period of Irish history—Fionn and Diarmuid are represented as addressing each other, and the one calls to mind that Miodhach the son of Colgan, “had a Bruighean upon land, and a Bruighean upon the wave” (i. e. an island). The word Bruighean means a palace. The island upon which this structure stood was, according to the text, situated upon the Shannon, and was approached by a “ford.”

Thus can be clearly traced a continuous historical occupancy of these structures until all written record of them ceases, and their origin is lost in the mists of antiquity: enough proof has been advanced to show that crannogs existed, as may be fairly surmised, from the first colonization of Erin. In the most diverse climates “water towns” seem to have sprung up independently, by virtue of the natural laws which govern man’s action in a semi-civilized state—

The continuance in Ireland of this very primitive form of habitation was doubtless prolonged in consequence of the restless internecine feuds and generally unsettled state of the country. However, the “silver streak” around the island homes of Ireland’s early inhabitants was not always a secure barrier; during severe winters, when the water was sufficiently frozen, it no longer presented an obstacle, but on the contrary was of considerable assistance to marauders. In the native chronicles most notices of crannogs are connected with scenes of strife, the island of the weaker party being usually given to the flames. A disturbed state of society up to a very late period was also characteristic of the sister kingdom of Scotland, and the antiquarian and poetical genius of Sir Walter Scott brings the feuds of the past before the eyes of the modern reader. The scene wherein the Lowlanders or Saxons fruitlessly essay to reach the island on Loch Katrine, where the Highlanders or Celts had placed their women, children, and goods for safety, had most probably its foundation in some real occurrence. In his History of the Rise of the Dutch Republic, Motley traces the gradual development of what is now the kingdom of Holland, from a race of ichthyophagi who dwelt upon mounds which they raised like beavers above the almost fluid soil, but whether there ever was in Erin a period purely lacustrine, or to what extent villages on terra firma may have co-existed, is a problem that will most probably never be solved. From careful examination, however, of the “finds” in lake dwellings, the conclusion may be drawn that civilization in Ireland, from the earliest dawn, has been on the whole steadily progressive, for

There is something in the continuity of these successive ages that may be considered analogous to the connecting links of a chain. The Palaeolithic, or rude stone period; the Neolithic, or polished stone age, as well as the Bronze age, in all probability overlapped more, and had a longer continuance, than elsewhere in Europe. But the mere fact of the discovery of stone implements, particularly as in Ireland, in a stone-producing country, is not necessarily proof of a barbarous state of society, for, as remarked by the Duke of Argyll, the remains of the first Chaldean monarchy plainly demonstrate that a high state of civilization co-existed with the use of stone implements of a very rude character.

END OF PART I.