confrere from Ballinderry, as it rent in drying, but has not become either warped or twisted like the great majority of wooden utensils exhumed from peat. [Illustration: Plate XX. Fig. 104.--Willow Platter from the Crannog of Ballinderry, Co. Westmeath. (Museum, R. I. A.) Fig. 105.--Carved Platter made of Fir, from Ballykeine Bog, Co. Antrim. Wooden Platters.] “Meadar,” or “_Mether_,” is the Irish designation for a species of drinking cup, so called, it is said, because it was employed to contain “mead.” It seems to have been commonly made of yew, was quadrangular at the lip, and round at the bottom. It was usually provided with two or more handles for the purpose of passing it round from hand to hand. There was a curious cup of this description in one of the crannogs of Lough Rea, county Galway, too much decomposed, however, to be dug out in an entire state; and at Lagore, near Dunshaughlin, was a four-sided drinking vessel, composed of horn, and very small, being only 2½ inches in height; it resembles one discovered in the parish of Tamlaght O’Crilly, county Derry.[119] The use of the _Mether_ appears to have been universal in Ireland, and continued to a late period, whilst judging from the great depth at which it is found buried in peat, its antiquity must be extreme. In drinking out of the _Mether_, it was not the side, but one of the four corners that should be applied to the mouth. It is related that when Lord Townsend’s term of the Irish Vice-royalty had expired, he carried over to England, on his return, two large methers, which were always produced at his dinner parties. His guests generally applied the _side_ of the vessel to the mouth, therefore seldom escaped without a drenched neck-cloth, vest, or doublet, and the host (after enjoying the joke), if an Irishman chanced to be present, called upon him to teach the Saxons the _mether drill_. [Illustration: Fig. 106.--Mether, or Drinking Cup, from Tamlaght O’Crilly.] Dean Swift, in his translation of “O’Rourke’s Noble Feast”--a poem written about 1720, in the Irish language--thus alludes to this species of drinking cup-- “Usquebaugh to our feast, in pails was brought up, An hundred at least, and a _madder_ our cup.” [Illustration: Fig. 107. Wooden Mallet from Lisnacroghera.] [Illustration: Fig. 108. Wooden Peg from Glencar.] The object here represented (fig. 107), is a wooden mallet, 1 foot 7 inches in length, found about fifteen feet below the original surface of the crannog of Lisnacroghera.[120] Fig. 108, about 10½ inches in length, may be also a mallet, but was more probably used as a peg to keep some part of the framework in position. It rested on one of the beams of the western crannog in Glencar, county Sligo. [Illustration: Fig. 109. Bone Spindle Whorl from Ardakillen.]