Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 8.djvu/168

 1-2-2 ARCHAEOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE. panied by notices of their history. A memoir was read by Mr. Robertson, illustrated by numerous drawings, representing the remains of St. John's Abbey, Kilkenny, the earliest religious estabUshment in that town, founded by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, about 1220. The tower is described, in 17S0, as an object of beautiful and picturesque character: it was undermined and fell during the building of the barracks. The east window of the Abbey Church, with great part of the choir, remained, and possessed features of considerable interest ; but the greater portion of these ruins had been demolished. The late William Robertson, Esq., had fortu- nately employed artists to make drawings of every building of antiquarian interest in the county, and thus preserved the memorials exhibited to the meeting. During the destruction of the remains, various sculptured orna- ments were found, glazed decorative tiles, tombs, and a bulla of Pope Sixtus IV. Mr. Ferguson, of the Record Department, Four Courts, Dublin, gave an interesting account of a mass of legal documents lately brought to light by the Chief Remembrancer and Commissioners of Inquiry into the Public Records. They had been deposited in damp vaults, totally neglected, and comprised many valuable evidences, commencing with the reign of Henry III. Mr. Ferguson sent some curious extracts relating to the com- missiou, for the purpose of enforcing the Ecclesiastical laws in the times of Elizabeth. A communication was also read from Mr. Prendergast, regarding the proceedings of the assembly of Confederate Catholics in Kilkenny, which, for ten years, from Xovember, 1642, performed the part of a Parlia- ment, raising taxes, making laws, and, in short, exercised sovereign power. Mr, Graves reported the result of his inquiries in quest of the records of their acts, believed to be still extant. Mr. Prim gave some curious illus- trations of ancient manners, being sumptuary enactments in the bye-laws (rf the Corporation of Kilkenny, regarding feastings, especially at christenings, civic repasts, <kc. An account of antiquities in the Piltown district wag sent by Mr. Blackett, comprising raths, stones of memorial, a remarkable cromleac, the curious sculptured crosses and ruined church at Kilkieran. At the March Meeting, the Right Hon. W. F. Tighe, Patron of the Society, took the chair. Lord Charles Butler presented a number of coins, and relics, found in the grounds of Kilkenny Castle. Various antiquities of stone and bronze, celts, the impression of a seal of the thirteenth century, found at Roscrea, being that of Galfr. Cornwall, and other curious objects, were given to the museum. Mr. Gbave.s read a notice of a supposed Pelasgic Inscription, on a cromleac- shaped monument at Tory Hill, Co. Kilkenny, first noticed by the late Mr. Tighe, in his statistical work on that district, and taken by Vallancey and other writers as their sole basis of theories regarding the Phoenician origin of the early colonists of Ireland. Mr. Windele had called the atten- tion of the Society to this supposed altar of Baal, at a previous meeting ; and the Right Hon. W. Tighe, then presiding, had proposed a careful examination of the original stone, existing in his garden at Woodstock. Mr. Graves now stated, that having visited the spot, in company with his brother secretary, they felt convinced that the supposed Pelasgic characters are of recent date. He read a letter from Professor 'Donovan, which conclusively destroys the theories of the Vallancey school, showing the inscription to be merely the name of a well-known mill-stone cutter, named Emond Conic, and the true reading to be— E. CONIC. 1731. This " Phoenician " relic, copied by Gough in his edition of the Britannia, is still