Chapter XXV: Appendix: L

THE CASTLE OF TULLOW OR "COLLACHT," p. 335

This information is kindly supplied by Mr Goddard H. Orpen, who writes to me: "I visited Tullow lately, and asked myself where would a Norman erect a mote, and I had no difficulty in answering: on the high ground near where the Protestant church stands. When I got up there the first thing that I noticed was that the church stood on a platform of earth 10 to 14 feet higher than the road, and that this platform was held in position by a strong retaining wall, well battered towards the bottom on one side. I then found on enquiry that the hill on which it stood and the place to the N.W. of it was called the 'Castle Hill.' On going round to the N.W. of the church I found a horseshoe-shaped space, scarped all round to a height of 6 to 10 feet, and rising to about 16 feet above the adjoining fields. There is no doubt that this was the site of the castle, and that it was artificially raised. To my mind there was further little doubt that it represented an earlier mote. In a field adjoining on the W. I could detect a platform of about 50 to 70 paces, with traces of a fosse round the three outer sides.... This was certainly the Castellum de Tulach mentioned in the deeds concerning Raymond le Gros' grant to the Abbey of St Thomas.--_Dublin Reg. St Thomas_, pp. 111, 113."

APPENDIX M

THE CASTLE OF SLANE

Mr Westropp says that the "great earthworks and fosses" on the Hill of Slane are mentioned in the "Life of St Patrick" (_Journ. R. S. A. I._, 1904, p. 313). What the _Life_ really says is: "They came to Ferta Fer Fiecc," which is translated "the graves of Fiacc's men"; and the notes of Muirchu Maccu-Machtheni add, "which, as fables say, were dug by the slaves of Feccol Ferchertni, one of the nine Wizards" (_Tripartite Life_, p. 278). It does not mention any fort, or even a hill, and though Ferta Fer Fiecc is identified with Slane, there is nothing to show what part of Slane it was.

APPENDIX N

THE WORD "DONJON"

Professor Skeat and _The New English Dictionary_ derive this word from the Low Latin, _dominionem_, acc. of _dominio_, lordship. Leland frequently speaks of the keep as the dungeon, which of course is the same word. Its modern use for a subterranean prison seems to have arisen when the keeps were abandoned for more spacious and comfortable habitations by the noble owners, and were chiefly used as prisons. The word _dunio_, which, as we have seen, Lambert of Ardres used for a motte, probably comes from a different root, cognate with the Anglo-Saxon _dun_, a hill, and used in Flanders for the numerous sandhills of that coast.