[20] "A anam a naem-chleirigh ni mó iná trian a scél innisit na senlaeich út, or dáig dermait ocus dichhuimne. Ocus sgribthar let-sa i támlorgaibh filed ocus i mbriathraib ollamhan, or bud gairdiugad do dronguibh ocus do degdáinib deirid aimsire eisdecht fris na scelaib sin" ("Agallamh," p. 101. "Silva Gadelica," vol. ii.) O'Grady has here translated it by "tabular staffs." Táibhli is evidently a Latin loan word, tabella. The thing to be remembered is that Ogam writing on staves appears to be alluded to.
[21] O'Curry found this piece in the MS. marked H. 3. 18 in Trinity College, Dublin, and has printed it at page 472 of his MS. Materials. Kuno Meyer has also edited it from a MS. in the British Museum, full of curious word-equivalents or Kennings. (See "Revue Celtique," vol. xiii. p. 221. See also a fragment of the same story in Kuno Meyer's "Hibernica Minora," p. 84.)
[22] Pronounced "Bal-a," and "Al-yinn."
[23] In Irish, Lughaidh.
[24] "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1894.
[25] See "Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. xxvi. p. 263.
[26] "Studies in Irish Epigraphy," London, 1897, part i., by R. A. Stewart Macalister, who gives a most lucid study of the Ogam inscriptions in the Barony of Corcaguiney and of a few more, with a clear and interesting preface on the Ogam words and case-endings.
[27] It is thus he explains such Ogam forms as "Erc maqi maqi-Ercias," i.e., [the stone] of Erc, son of, etc. But "Erc" is nominative, "maqi" is genitive, hence "Erc maqi" must be looked upon as one word, agglutinated as it were, in which the genitive ending of the "maqi" answers for both. As a rule, however, the name of the interred is in the genitive case in apposition to "maqi."
CHAPTER XII
EARLY IRISH CIVILISATION
It has been frequently assumed, especially by English writers, that the pre-historic Irish, because of their remoteness from the Continent, must have been ruder, wilder, and more uncivilised than the inhabitants of Great Britain. But such an assumption is—to say nothing of our literary remains—in no way borne out by the results of archæological research. The contrary rather appears to be the case, that in point of wealth, artistic feeling, and workmanship, the Irish of the Bronze Age surpassed the inhabitants of Great Britain.
When we read such accounts as that, for example, in the Book of Ballymote, of Cormac mac Art, taking his seat at the assembly in Tara, all covered with gold and jewels, we must not set it down to the perfervid imagination of the chronicler without first consulting what Irish archæology has to say upon the point. The appearance of Cormac (king of Ireland in the third century, and perhaps greatest of pre-Christian monarchs), is thus described. "Beautiful," says the writer, quoting probably from ancient accounts now lost, "was the appearance of Cormac in that assembly, flowing and slightly curling was his golden hair. A red buckler with stars and animals of gold and fastenings of silver upon him. A crimson cloak in wide descending folds around him, fastened at his neck with precious stones. A torque of gold around his neck. A white shirt with a full collar, and intertwined with red gold thread upon him. A girdle of gold, inlaid with precious stones, was around him. Two wonderful shoes of gold, with golden loops upon his feet. Two spears with golden sockets in his hands, with many rivets of red bronze. And he was himself, besides, symmetrical and beautiful of form, without blemish or reproach." The abundance of gold ornament which Cormac is here represented as wearing, is no mere imagination of the writer's. It is founded upon the undoubted fact that of all countries in the West of Europe Ireland was pre-eminent for its wealth in gold. How much wealthier was Ireland than Great Britain may be imagined from the fact that while the collection in the British Museum of pre-historic gold from England, Scotland, and Wales together amounted a couple of years ago to some three dozen ounces, that in the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin weighs five hundred and seventy ounces. And yet the collection in the Academy contains only a small part of the gold-finds made in Ireland, for before 1861, when the new law about treasure-trove came into force, great numbers of gold objects are known to have been sold to the goldsmiths and melted down. The wealth of Ireland in gold—some of it found and smelted in the Wicklow mountains[1]—must have at an early period determined continental trade in its direction, and we have seen that Tacitus reported its harbours as being better known through trade than those of Great Britain, or, on the most unfavourable reading of the passage, as being "known by commerce and merchants."[2] This is also borne out by archæologists. Professor Montelius, who has traced a close connection in pre-historic times between Scandinavia and the West of Europe,[3] regards much of the pre-historic gold found in the northern countries as Irish. Speaking of certain gold ornaments found in Fünen, which show, according to him, marked Irish influence, he writes: "Gold ornaments like these have not been discovered elsewhere in Scandinavia, while a great number of similar ornaments have been found in the British Isles, especially in Ireland, whose wealth of gold in the Bronze Age is amazing." Again he writes, "As certain of the gold objects found in Denmark have been introduced demonstrably from the British Islands, probably from Ireland, the thought is obvious—is not a great part of the other gold objects found in Southern Scandinavia also of Irish origin, and of the Bronze Age there? … for this island [Ireland] was, during the Bronze Age, one of the lands of Europe richest in gold." "No other country in Europe possesses so much manufactured gold belonging to early and mediæval times," writes Mr. Ernest Smith.[4]
It is true that the Irish Celts, despite their mineral wealth, never minted coin, a want which has been adduced to prove a lack of civilisation on their part. But, as Mr. Coffey points out, coinage is a comparatively late invention; the Egyptians—for all their civilisation—never possessed a native coinage, and even such ancient trading cities as Carthage and Gades did not strike coins until a late period. "A little reflection," says Professor Ridgeway, "shows us that it has been quite possible for peoples to attain a high degree of civilisation without feeling any need of what are properly termed coins." "The absence of coinage," adds Mr. Coffey, "does not necessarily imply the absence of a currency system, and Professor Ridgeway has shown that the ancient Irish possessed a system of of currency or values, and a standard of weights."
A most interesting paper by Mr. Johnson, a Dublin jeweller, recently read before the Royal Irish Academy,[5] has shown with the authority due to an expert, the marvellous skill with which the pre-historic Irish worked their gold, and the wealth of proper appliances which they must have possessed in order to turn out such unique and admirable results.[6]
The workmanship of Irish bronze articles is also very fine, and fully equal to that of Britain, while Greenwell considers their clay urns and food-vessels superior to the British. In Ireland he says the urns, "and especially the food vessels, are of better workmanship, and more elaborately and tastefully ornamented than in most parts of Britain. Many of the food vessels found in Argyleshire, and in other districts in the Southwest of Scotland, as might be perhaps expected, are very Irish