[5] "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy," May, 1896. The tools and appliances necessary for producing the fine gold fibulæ of a private collector, which Mr. Johnson examined, would be, he says, "a furnace, charcoal, crucible, mould for ingot, flux, bellows, several hammers, anvil, swage anvil, swages, chisels for ornament, sectional tool for producing concentric rings." On one of them, he says, "there is a thickened edge and a beautiful moulded ornament on the outer side only, which quite puzzles one as to how it was produced without suggesting what are considered to be modern tools." [6] A splendid find of gold ornaments made last year near the estuary of the Foyle river, of a golden model of a boat, evidently a votive offering, fitted with seat, mast, oars, and punting poles, an exquisitely-wrought gold collar, decorated in relief with the most beautiful embossed work, torques, neckchains, etc., has been dated from internal evidences as work of the second century, the neck-chains being clearly provincial Roman work of that date. It is to be regretted that these exquisite articles have found their way to the British Museum, where they will be practically lost, instead of being added to the unique Irish collection in Dublin, to which they properly belong. [7] Greenwell's "British Barrows," p. 62, quoted by Coffey. [8] O'Donovan, in his preface to "The Book of Rights," gives some reasons for believing that it may have been held only septennially. [9] _See_ the Forus Feasa, p. 354 of O'Mahony's translation. [10] _See_ Petrie's "Antiquities of Tara Hill," p. 129. [11] This seems a plain allusion to the Fenians, believed in Ireland to have been Cormac's militia. [12] Bede mentions, if I remember rightly--I forget where--a church built in the north of Britain, _more Scotorum, robore secto,_ "of cleft oak, in the Irish fashion." The Columban churches were also of wood and wattles, contemporaneous with which were the beehive cells of uncemented stone, probably less warm and less comfortable than the thatched houses. "Ce que nous savons des anciens édifices irlandais," says M. Jubainville, "donne le droit d'affirmer que la plupart des constructions élevées à Emain macha [_i.e._, Emania, the capital of Ulster, and of the Red Branch heroes, two miles west of Armagh] pendant le période épique de l'histoire d'Irlande, ont dû être en bois; cependant il y avait été employé au moins quelques pierres." Angus the Culdee has a noble verse relating to the stones of Emania, the finest, perhaps, in the whole Saltair na rann, "Emania's palace has vanished, yet its stones still remain, but the Rome of the western world is now Glendaloch of the gatherings," "is Ruam iarthair beatha Gleann dalach dá locha." [13] _See_ "Silva Gadelica," p. 111, and O'Curry's MS. Materials, p. 595. [14] Aibhinn in tech in atá, Idir fira is maca is mná, Idir dhruidh ocus aes ceóil, Idir dhailiumh is dhoirseoir.