Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/202

108 This last period must have immediately preceded the Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland. It is well known that there was a close intercourse between Ireland and Denmark at that time, both of a predatory and friendly character. In proof of this, it may be adduced that Scandinavia, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands owed the introduction of Christianity to Irish monks. A considerable part of the east of Ireland was colonised by the Norsemen. Dublin, Waterford, and Wexford, were inhabited by them. They had their bishops, and they first introduced a national coinage into Ireland.

This summary of results arrived at in the minds of the Northern philosophers, after long and patient deduction (in which I beg to disclaim the least pretension to originality), is most lucidly illustrated by the valuable collection of specimens and casts lately presented to the Royal Irish Academy by the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen.

It is quite evident that everything found at Lagore belonged to the iron age. It is, however, a nice question to determine whether it was a real Danish entombment or not. From the rare occurrence of such a one—I am not aware of any other similar instance—it could not have belonged to a people constituting the bulk of the population. Yet several circumstances militate against its being Danish. The situation is rather too distant from the coast. In a Danish rath one would have expected to find some amber ornaments: on none of the articles is there any imitation of ships or galleys, or inscription either in Norse or Runic characters. The swords, also, appear to me to differ materially from those of undoubted Danish origin. The one in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, with the name of the owner on the hilt, and also the three presented by the Northern antiquaries, have all a peculiar knob at the end of the hilt, which is said to be characteristic. Such is not the case with those found at Lagore, which appear to have had wooden hilts, of which we have no remains. The enamel, also, contained in one of the ornaments, is pronounced, by good judges in these matters, to be of the true opus Hibernicum. So that, upon the whole, the most probable supposition is, that Lagore was occupied by some half-cast race, who, without abandoning all the habits of their Danish forefathers, had, probably, allied themselves to the Celtic aborigines, and adopted many of their usages and customs.