In Ireland les had a wider meaning. S. Carthagh
was throwing up a mound around a plot of land
where he was going to plant a monastery.
"What are you about there?" asked an inquisitive woman.
"Only engaged in the construction of a little lis," was the reply.
"Lis beg!" (small lis), exclaimed the woman. "I call it a lis mor” (a big lis). And Lismore is its name to this day.
In Ireland every king had his dun. This was an enlarged rath with an outer court in which he held his hostages, for the law required this: "He is no king who has not hostages in lock-up."
Dun in Welsh is din, and dinas is but another form of the same word, and signifies a royal residence.
A gloss to an old Irish law tract says that a royal dun must have two walls and a moat for water. Dun in Scotland is applied to any fort. According to the Gaelic dictionaries, it is "a heap or mound,” and even a dung-hill is a dun.
In fact, the French dune and the Cornish towan derive from the same root. Dun so much resembles the Anglo-Saxon tun that we cannot always be sure of the derivation of a place-name that ends in tun.
Every tribe had its dun, to which the cattle were driven, and where the women and children were placed in security in times of danger. This would be in addition to the royal residence, that is the dun of the rig.
Within the dun were numerous structures of
