_Lough Gill_ is one of the numerous localities in Ireland to which is attached the legend of a buried city. Amongst the peasantry there long lingered a tradition that these waters had overspread a plain whereon stood the ancient town of Sligo, the numerous islands being supposed to represent former knolls on its green expanse. As the result of recent extensive drainage operations in the county Leitrim, a large additional amount of water has, through the river Bonnett, been directed into Lough Gill at its eastern extremity. The consequent greatly increased height of surface would, of itself, present an insuperable bar to exploration, so that no means remain of ascertaining if an extensive lacustrine settlement had ever really existed here of old. Within the actual bounds of the lake, which is seven miles in length, the islands, highly picturesque, and of some extent--one of them contains twenty-five acres--are of undoubted natural formation; there is, however, near the site of the ancient Castle of Annagh--noticed in the _Annals of the Four Masters_, under date 1533--one small islet, bearing a crannog-like appearance, but, as far as can now be ascertained, no traces of occupation have been found around it. The short stretch of the Garvogue, or Sligo river, which forms the outlet from the lake to the sea, seems to present the peculiar features characteristic of sites the most favoured by a lacustrine population, viz., good fishing-ground, and wide borders of marsh on the adjoining mainland. The ancient name of the demesne of Hazlewood was Annagh (_a swamp_), and a portion of the grounds which skirt the river, and now remarkable for its peculiarly ornamental planting, was so late as sixty years since a mere spongy bog, on which no firm footing was obtainable. The opposite shore, called Cleveragh, was of still softer and more watery nature, and its name implies that either hurdles or rude wicker-work bridges had been formerly used for crossing the river or the marshy spots near it.[263] Along this side, and but a short distance from the shore, there were, at varying intervals of space from each other, three shoals, about the size of ordinary crannogs, and nearly circular in form. They were occasionally so little perceptible as to prove an obstruction for boats, and in the early part of this century the proprietor, after surrounding each shoal with a low wall of masonry, caused a sufficient quantity of soil to be conveyed to them for the growth of a few trees. At that period nothing was known respecting former lacustrine populations in any part of Europe, so that no special examination was made of the nature of the shoals in question. In the present day, however, with the aid of the light thrown upon the construction of lake dwellings by modern discoveries, the position and aspect of the three islets becomes striking, and cannot fail to call to the mind of an observer the old tradition of a “buried city” in Lough Gill.