MEMOIRS

O F

DUNA MASE

AND

SHEAN CASTLE,

IN the earlier ages of fociety, the wants of mankind and their provocations to injuries seem to have been few; and yet ambition and jealousy teo frequently called forth the ferocity of untamed nature and the exertions of brutal force; difturbed the favage inhabitants of the wilderness, and compelled them to seek fecurity on (a) eminences, and in places of difficult accefs; to inclofe an area with a ditch; or form an abatis of trees. Convenience and emergency pointed out these different modes of defence, and this kingdom is full of those ancient fortreffes. Separated from the chain of neighbouring hills, and precipitous on all fides, except to the south-west, Dunamafe offered a fafe afylum to the firft poffeffor: and if any L2 reliance

(a) See Cæfar's account of thofe antient Forts, and Plat de Leg.

reliance is to be placed on its (b) name, it was a place of ftrength in the remotest times.

Dûn na maes in Celtic is-The Fort of the Plain. The plain is the Great-Heath of Maryborough, lying to the north-eaft of the Dûn; a flat of confiderable extent. Ptolemy makes Dunum an inland Irish town, but (c) Cambden places it in Ulfter, and fays it is Downpatrick. Ware (d) believes the British antiquary hath affigned it an improper fituation, which fuppofition of Ware's, Harris doth not contradict. But the latter writers are certainly mistaken; for Dunamase, from the narrowness of its circumference, never could contain but a few cabbins, and in records it is conftantly mentioned as a fortress; whereas Downpatrick, as Cambden rightly observes, was a very old town, an epifcopal fee, and memorable on other accounts; befides, Ptolemy's information was very imperfect as to the interior of the island, but tolerably accurate as to what refpects the fea-coaft. "We are (e) told, but upon apocryphal authority, that the remarkable building near Maryborough,

in

(6) Dûn na maes, the hill of the plain, and metaphorically, the fort. Maes is Magh in Irish. Luid. Adverfar. pag. 271. ; Sir The records in Birmingham tower call it Dunemafc John Davis, Duamafe; Ware, Dunemaufe; and Baron Finglas, with ftill greater propriety, Dunnamause; all corruptions of its Celtic original. Dun-mow, or Dun-magh is the fame. The French call fuch hills, Dunes, and the Dutch Duynen. Ut aggeribus arenarum illic copiofis, quod Dunas vocitant, fere coæquaretur. Annal. Bertin. A. D. 838.

(c) In ipfius ifthmo Dunum floruit, cujus meminit etiam, fed non fuo loco Ptolomæus, nunc Down, vetuftæ fane memoriæ oppidum, fedes epifcopalis, &c. Britann. pag. 707.

(d) Cambdenus quafi fub alio fole locat, et Dunum vult effe in agro Dunenfi. Warai Antiq. pag. 51.

(e) O'Halloran's Hiftory of Ireland, vol. 1. pag. 267.