_Gold Ornaments._--By far the largest number of important objects for personal decoration of the Bronze Age found in Ireland are of gold. The quantity that has been discovered is very large; and Ireland has perhaps the richest collection in Europe of prehistoric gold ornaments. There are many references to gold in the Irish ‘Annals’; and, judging from them, its antiquity in Ireland is great. We are told, under date 3872 A.M.: ‘It was Muineamhon that first caused chains of gold (to be worn) on the necks of kings and chieftains in Ireland.’ In the _Book of Rights_, numerous allusions are made to rings, chains, brooches, and other objects of gold and silver as tribute paid by petty kings and chiefs to the reigning monarch. The _Annals of the Four Masters_, at A.M. 3656, state: ‘It was by Tighearnmas also that gold was first melted in Ireland, in Foithre-Airthir-Liffe. (It was) Uchadan, an artificer of the Feara-Cualann, smelted it. It was by him that goblets and brooches were first covered with gold and silver in Ireland.’ A similar entry occurs in the _Annals of Clonmacnoise_.[105] The district referred to includes parts of the counties of Wicklow and Dublin. It is interesting to note that even to this day gold is found in several of the mountain streams of Wicklow. In the National Museum may be seen the model of a Wicklow nugget found in 1796 which weighed 22 ounces; in a few weeks subsequently, 800 ounces were sold for £3000. One has been found of nine and another of eight ounces. It has been computed that in the early part of the last century the jewellers of Dublin paid annually an average sum of £2000 for nuggets from the Wicklow streams, secretly sold to them by the finders. Much has been written, and various theories advanced, to show that the sources from which the ancient Irish derived gold were foreign, and not native. It has been attributed to the Levant, Gaul, Spain, and Scandinavia; while one writer labours to prove that Roman coinage was melted down to supply the material for the manufacture of ornaments. The instances here given--of Wicklow furnishing considerable quantities of the precious metal in modern times--supplies strong presumptive evidence that the main source from which the ore was derived was Ireland itself.