Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/413

Rh traces of the smelting of iron ore, with which the bogs in this neighbourhood are in many places charged, forming deposits of an ochry nature. One gentleman informed me that in the course of reclaiming some moory land he had removed a heap of this description, consisting of many hundred horse-loads of broken stones and charcoal.

"This conjecture was lately confirmed by personal inspection of a mound of this kind on the lands of Shanboe, near Borris-in-Ossory, on the verge of what once had been a turf-bog, which is now exhausted, or according to the country phrase, "cut out." The field had been tilled for potatoes, and the mound was cut through in various directions, so that I was enabled to make accurate observations on its composition. The greater portion of the mound was composed of fragments of the sandstone grit of the district, about the size of stones used on a Macadamised road. This grit, as to its geological character, belongs to the old sandstone formation. Mixed up with these broken stones were innumerable fragments of charcoal, and most of the pieces of stone shewed the decomposing effects of fire: this of itself would indicate that the fire had been formed for the purpose of burning or smelting some mineral substance. On closer examination I discovered many pieces of an ochry substance, resembling the ferruginous deposit frequently found in the neighbouring bogs, and amongst the rest a fused mass of clinkers, comprising fragments of sandstone, charcoal, and this bog-iron ore, which would go far to prove that these heaps are the residue of large fires, kindled for the purpose of smelting the bog-iron ore of the district, while the aboriginal forests, which as we know formerly covered this country, and probably the greater part of Ireland, afforded fuel. The sandstone might have been used for a fuse, or perhaps in order to extract any iron with which the sandstone itself might be charged.

"The reason of my submitting this hurried notice to the Archæological Institute is my belief that these mounds afford proof of mining operations having been carried on in very remote times by the native Irish, for we must recollect that the Queen's county, the ancient district of Leix, was not made shire ground, or planted with English colonists, until after the year 1557, as appears by the Irish statute of the 3rd and 4th of Philip and Mary, chapters 1 and 2. (Rot. Parliament, ch. 7 and 8.) It is true that the smelting of iron was carried on in this district subsequently to that period, as Ledwich, in his survey of the parish of Oghavae, published in Mason's statistical work on Ireland, tells us, iron-works having been established by Sir Charles Coote at Mountrath, but it is not likely that the rude operations to which I have referred belong to that period; it appears much more probable that they were the work of the native Irish of the district anterior to the settlement of the English in those parts.

"That the native Irish carried on mining operations, even of more scientific character than these under notice, is certain: in the year 1770, in work-