Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Journey to Connaught, April 1709 (Author: Samuel Molyneux)
entry 5
Sunday, 17th— I left Killeglan at 8 ½ in ye afternoon, in order to go to Gallway. We came in 2 hours, thro' good roads and an open country; nothing of enclosures, but some scrubs and boggs, a great deall of stony ground, with some sheepwalks, to Ballynasloe15, which is a very pretty scituated village on ye river Suck16, which divides ye county of Roscommon from ye county of Gallway. Here is a Danes-mount17, with a large trench round it: 'tis so flat one might allmost take it for a fort: this, with one more, were the only mounts I saw on all ye road between Killeglan and Gallway, tho' their forts were all along mighty frequent. From this village we reach'd in 2 hours more to Killconell, thro' a better country, the land it self better, and not near so stony. We pass'd by Garbelly18 and some other pretty scituated
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seats, besides a number of Danes-forts, in one of which, on ye lands of Dungongon19, belonging to my uncle Usher, we were told there was a vault under-ground: we went to it, and enter'd it at one end by a hole accidentally discover'd at (a). The first vault, which run north and south, was, from (a) to (b), 26 f. ½ long, 5 ½ broad, 5 ½ high; the next vault, from (d) to (e), every way the same dimensions, as was the 3rd also, from (g) to (h), only 6 f. longer. The walls that made ye sides of these vaults were stones, layd without lime or water (sic) flat on one another from ye ground: the covering was large flagstones, which were so large as to reach from side to side. In ye vault (d) (e), ye flat stones that made ye walls advanc'd and hung over one another, so as to make a kind of arch, and came so near at the height of 5 ½ that the covering flagstones at the top were not nere so broad as in ye other vaults: at (b) there seems to have been a partition of stones, which is now thrown down, as also another at (g); the little place (b), (c), (d) has its floor of one broad flag, and rais'd so that you ascend about 2 or 3 f. at (b), (a), (d), descend as much at (d), thro' a narrow passage of about 2 f. square left for that purpose there: at (e) you ascend again by alike narrow passage into another little apartment as before; from thence you descend on ye rubbish of a ruin'd partition, as it seems to have been, at (g), into ye last and inward vault, whose end, (h), was stopp'd, as (a), with stones, but is now broke open up to the air, and, as we judg'd, was nearly the center of the mount. They seem not to have been pav'd, unless by a few stones thrown loose here and there on ye earth. Having view'd this curiosity, we went to take up with sad lodging at the poor
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village of Kilconnel, where was miserable accommodation of all things but good wine from Gallway.