Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Travels of Joseph Woods, Architect and Botanist, in 1809 (Author: Joseph Woods)
entry 28
On Saturday I walked to the Castle of Lemineg135 an ancient seat of the O'Briens. Like several of the Irish castles it consists of an ancient tower with an addition comparatively recent. The addition is a mere shell — the old tower is still inhabited by some poor families. I had imagined in England that the Irish were much in the habit of sacrificing the younger to aggrandise the eldest son. The County of Clare would offer materials of a very different story. It seems always to have been the practice to divide the estates and the [p. 113] event has almost uniformly offered the same illustration of the effect of the practice. A Father may bring up the younger son to some profession or employment and may leave the Elder
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in a state to continue the stile and respectability of the family but if he have several sons & divide his property no one can occupy his father's place in society and no one will be content with a lower. Their possessions are soon dissipated and if one more prudent than the rest do not amass instead of dispersing his wealth the estates soon pass into other hands and other names. There is I believe hardly a family in the County which has not experienced vicissitudes of this sort. Sir Donough O'Brien,136 the builder of the additional part of this castle, collected an immense property which was divided in this way & of which only a few fragments remain to his descendants. The situation of the castle is neither beautiful nor romantic — among barren looking limestone hills [p. 114] forming the extremity of that singular tract of country called the barony of Burrin. There are three crosses137 in the neighbourhood of Kilfenora and a few fragments of one or two more castles: within a short distance are some large cromlechs or Druids altars as they are here called but these are said to be larger as well as more numerous in Burrin. The most singular remains of antiquity are what are called Danish forts — these are merely thick circular walls of large stones built without cement and perhaps from 50 to 100 feet in diameter. I saw one in Burrin which I think exceeded the latter dimension. They are very numerous about Kilfenora and in the Barony. I do not know when I have been more puzzled than I was with the first of these that I met with. The large circle caught my attention. I went to it — I walked round it — I got on the top and walked round it there — I went down on the inside which was nearly filled up with rubbish [p. 115] and again returned to examine the out[side]. It had no door and its form and arrangement seemed to baffle any attempt to guess at its use. Was it ancient? Was it modern? There were indeed bushes on it but nothing that could determine any considerable antiquity. I have since learned that they are well known and are called Danish forts — why I know not and as for their use and date I am now about as much in a puzzle as ever Ledwich138 says.
[p. 116] A little below Kilfenora is a large Turlough and there are several smaller ones in the neighbourhood. These are among the singularities of this Country. They are pieces of flat land, generally very fine and rich pastures. After continued rain the water rises through some holes or under some rocks on the borders and presently converts them into lakes. After a time the water runs off again generally by the same openings. The subterraneous rivers whose overflowings supply the Turloughs are the only streams in the Limestone country — there is no continued stream of water and no constantly descending valley in which such a stream could run. Mr. Lysaght has cut thro a hill and drained one of these Turloughs at the expense of about £150 and converted a property of £15 per annum into one of about a hundred. Indeed [p. 117] it is impossible to conceive a finer & richer black mould than that of these Turloughs or a closer and more luxuriant herbage. How far this latter might suffer by the draining I cannot tell but I conceive that one advantage is the throwing into one hand what before was common to many — for these Turloughs are mostly commons and they are the only commons I met with in Ireland.