At a period rather more than two thousand years ago, a warrior-queen, Maca by name, founded a great fort and citadel at Emain, some two miles west of Armagh, in the undulating country of green hills and meadows to the south of Lough Neagh.  The ramparts and earthworks of that ancient fortress can still be traced, and we can follow and verify what the ancient bards told of the greatness of the stronghold of Maca.  The plans of all forts of that time seem to have been much the same—­a wide ring of earthwork, with a deep moat, guarded them, and a stockade of oak stakes rose above the earthwork, behind which the defenders stood, firing volleys of arrows at the attacking host.  Within this outer circle of defence there was almost always a central stronghold, raised on a great mound of earth; and this was the dwelling of the chief, provincial ruler, or king.  Lesser mounds upheld the houses of lesser chiefs, and all alike seem to have been built of oak, with plank roofs.  Safe storehouses of stone were often sunk underground, beneath the chief’s dwelling.  In the fort of Emain, as in the great fort of Tara in the Boyne Valley, there was a banqueting-hall for the warriors, and the bards thus describe one of these in the days of its glory:  “The banquet-hall had twelve divisions in each wing, with tables and passages round them; there were sixteen attendants on each side, eight for the star-watchers, the historians and the scribes, in the rear of the hall, and two to each table at the door,—­a hundred guests in all; two oxen, two sheep and two hogs were divided equally on each side at each meal.  Beautiful was the appearance of the king in that assembly—­flowing, slightly curling golden hair upon him; a red buckler with stars and beasts wrought of gold and fastenings of silver upon him; a crimson cloak in wide descending folds upon him, fastened at his breast by a golden brooch set with precious stones; a neck-torque of gold around his neck; a white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with threads of gold, upon him; a girdle of gold inlaid with precious stones around him; two wonderful shoes of gold with runings of gold upon him; two spears with golden sockets in his hand.”

We are the more disposed to trust the fidelity of the picture, since the foundations of the Tara banquet-hall are to be clearly traced to this day—­an oblong earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked; as for the brooches and torques of gold, some we have surpass in magnificence anything here described, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the refinement of spirit that conceived and the skill that fashioned them.  Spear-heads, too, are of beautiful bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket of great excellence and charm.

[Illustration:  Powerscourt Waterfall, Co.  Wicklow]