Uses of the Round Towers of Ireland, fyc. 223 



ianity about the year 948, and that the first of them recorded as Christians 

 lived in the time of Godfrid, son of Sitric, who succeeded Blacar II. as king 

 of Dublin in that year. And certain it is that the earliest ascertained Danish 

 money, minted in Ireland, is that of the brother of Godfrid, Sitric III., 989, 

 while according to Mr. Pinkerton himself, we have well struck pieces of an 

 Irish king Donald, who, that writer states, is probably Donald O'Neill, 956 ; 

 so that we would have greater reason to suppose that the type on those coins 

 of the latter, which resembles that on the coins of Donald, was derived from 

 it, than that the coins of Donald were struck in imitation of those of Sitric. 

 Nor can it be fairly supposed that the usual type on the coins of Sitric was 

 derived from a Saxon prototype ; for, if we look for such among the money of 

 the Saxon princes, we find it only on the coins of Ethelred II., 979, 1015, 

 which for their peculiarity, are known among numismatists as coins of the Irish 

 type, and it is remarkable that many of them were minted in Dublin. Doctor 

 Ledwich has, indeed, been rash enough, in opposition to Ware and the whole 

 body of our annals, to assert, in the first edition of his Antiquities of Ireland, 

 that the Danes were christianized in Ireland in the time of Sitric I., 893 ; and 

 in the second edition he ventures to assert, that they were Christians even in 

 the time of Ivar I., 870, and this on no other evidence than that he finds a cross 

 on a coin, which he says was minted in Dublin, and which exhibits the legend, 

 " Ifarus Re Dyflin." But, as there were more Ivars than one, he should have 

 given some reason for ascribing this coin to Ivar I., who, according to all the 

 Irish annals, was a pagan, rather than to Ivar II., who was a Christian : besides, 

 no such words as Re Dyflin appear in the legend on the coin to which he refers, 

 and even if they did they would not prove it a coin of the first Ivar, as Ivar II. 

 was also king of Dublin. Indeed it is now generally acknowledged to be a coin 

 of Ivar or Ifars II. 993 ; for, as Mr. Lindsay well observes, " the coins formerly 

 assigned to Ifars I., bear such a strong resemblance to those of Sihtric III., as to 

 render it nearly certain that they ought to be assigned to Ifars II." View of the 

 Coinage of Ireland, p. 12. 



With much greater appearance of probability Dr. O'Conor, who repudiates 

 the assertion of Dr. Ledwich, finds on a coin, published in Gibson's edition of 

 Camden, an inscription, which, he thinks, proves it to be a coin of Aedh Finn- 

 liath, monarch of Ireland from the year 863 to 879, and the last Irish monarch 



