A Smaller Social History of Ancient Ireland

By P W Joyce

1906

THE HOUSE

Naas.--In old times Naas was a place of great celebrity, where the Leinster tribes held some of their periodical aenachs or fair-meetings, from which it got the name of Nás-Laigen [Naas-Lyen], i.e. the 'assembly-place of Leinster,' corresponding exactly with the name of Nenagh in Tipperary. There were here two royal houses, the forts of which still remain. One is an ordinary circular, flat rath, now called the South Moat, situated near the southern end of the town. The other, called the North Moat, is a high, flat-topped mound on which the citadel once stood, but which is now occupied by an ugly modern house. Naas continued to be a residence of the Leinster kings till the tenth century.

FIG. 101. North Moat, Naas: remains of ancient palace. House on top modern. (From a drawing by the author, 1857).