84 



III. — On the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland* By George Downes, 

 M.A.; M.R.I. A.; M. R. S. N. A., Copenhagen ; F. H.M. M.S., Jena. 



Read April 26th, 1841. 



IN the First Series of the Annals and Memoirs of the Royal Society of Northern 

 Antiquaries, published in Copenhagen in 1837, there is a small Map of this country, 

 annexed to an Essay on the Earliest Expeditions from the North to Ireland. 

 This Essay is nearly identical with an English one, already published in the same 

 .city in 1836, and incorporated in the Address of the Society to its British and 

 American Members. The Map in the latter publication exhibits some improve- 

 ments on that in the former. A new locality is introduced, and an old error 

 corrected, namely, the location of Clontarf to the north-west of Tara. The cor- 

 rection of this error is due to a distinguished member of the Academy, the late 

 Dr. William West, by whose premature decease the progress of northern litera- 

 ture in this country has been greatly retarded. 



The Norse Map of Ireland, though but a modem compilation, is so far in- 

 teresting as it exhibits the scanty amount of the Irish localities, noticed in such 

 of the Icelandic Sagas as were published previously to 1837. On these localities, 

 which are mostly given both in Norse and English, I shall submit to the Aca- 

 demy a few observations, after which I shall undertake a slight extension of what 

 may be termed the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. By Norse I mean Old 

 Danish, which was originally denominated the Danish Tongue, afterwards Nor- 

 raene, or Norse, but which has been long better known as Icelandic — the remote 

 island, though but a colony, having imposed its name on the language of its un- 



* A considerable time having elapsed since the reading of this paper, I have profited by the cir- 

 cumstance to introduce into it several corrections and improvements, in which I have received much 

 assistance from a gentleman, acknowledged to be the best living authority on the subject of ancient 

 Irish topography. 



