Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 221 



" Seipeoach DO jjian copca, 

 No rpian o'uipmB oub-copcpa, 

 No DO oepcnaiB oapach ouinn, 

 No DO cnoaib' palac pionn-cuill, 

 po jaibre jan racha nnn 

 I n-Qpomacha ap aon pinjinn. 1 ' 



"A. D. 1031. Flaithbhertach O'Neill returned from Rome. It was during the reign of Flaith- 

 bhertach that the very great bargain was used to be got at Armagh, as is evident in the verse : 



" A sheskeagh (measure) of oaten grain, 

 Or a third of [of a measure] black-red sloes, 

 Or of the acorns of the brown oak, 

 Or of the nuts of the fair hazle hedge, 

 Was got without stiff bargaining 

 At Armagh for on&pinginn." 



This Flaithbhertach O'Neill, whose father, Muirchertach, king of Aileach or 

 Ulster, was slain by Amlaff the Dane, in 975, succeeded his brother Aodh, in 

 the year 1005, and died in 1036, after having made a pilgrimage to Rome. 



The preceding passages seem to me quite sufficient to prove that the words 

 pinginn and screpall, among the Irish, were applied to coins, and that the 

 weight of the former was usually seven grains, and of the latter about twenty-one 

 grains ; and as we find in Ireland two classes of ancient coins which, when in 

 good preservation, correspond with these weights, we have every reason to 

 conclude that they are the denominations of money so often referred to in the 

 ancient Irish authorities. These conclusions might be strengthened by many 

 additional evidences from those authorities ; but fearing to prolong this digres- 

 sion to a tedious extent, I shall only add one more, relative to the pinginn, or 

 seven-grained piece, which is more immediately the subject of this disquisition. 

 It is found in a very ancient Glossary, on vellum, in the Library of Trinity Col- 

 lege, Dublin, as an explanation of the word pinginn, and also in several copies 

 of Cormac's Glossary, written in the ninth century : 



" P ln S lnn > , ua r' P anun 5' ' P a rr ln uncto > uel benmnjj, .1. a n-mjnaip a beann aca, .1. 

 cpumn." 



"Pinginn, quasi pan-ung, i. e. part of an ounce ; or, benn-ing, i. e. it wants benns (points), i. e. 

 [it is] round." 



If it be considered that the application of the word penning to a coin 



