17S The Irish Natttralist. Nov. Dec, 



caves as shelters in past times, and everything was thus 

 broken up while the dogs may have completed the 

 destruction of the skeletons. In most cases where the 

 remains could be identified they certainly belonged to a 

 domesticated stock. 



Mr. Armstrong, the Keeper of the Irish Antiquities in the 

 National Museum, was good enough to point out to me 

 that probably the oldest pig remains he had in his charge 

 were those excavated by Thomas Plunkett from a cairn in 

 Co. Fermanagh. As this cairn certainly belongs to the 

 Bronze Age these remains are of special interest. Unfor- 

 tunately they consist altogether of tusks or lower canine 

 teeth of a boar. They are figured in Mr. Coffey's paper 

 which describes this find.^ To judge from their great size 

 — a left canine measured 210 mill. =8J inches, and a right 

 one 205 mill. =8 inches in length, the measurement being 

 taken round the outer edge — I think they must have 

 belonged to a wild boar. Hence wild swine probably 

 lived in Ireland already in pre-Christian times. Then we 

 possess in the National Museum of Dublin the skull of a 

 pig discovered at Killeshandra, Co. Cavan, nine feet below 

 the surface in black turfy mud. This is no doubt very 

 ancient and exhibits all the characteristics of a wild pig. 

 Several other skulls seem to have lain in bogs for a long 

 time, to judge from their colour, but we possess no record 

 as to the part of Ireland in which they were found. Finally 

 we have some specimens of pigs from the Dunshaughlin 

 crannog which dates from about the tenth century, and a 

 few quite modern Irish skulls showing traces of admixture 

 with foreign breeds. 



Except the skull from Killeshandra, which seems to be 

 the oldest, all others exhibit distinct traces of domestication, 

 this being more pronounced in the modern ones. So far 

 our enquiries would tend to the conclusion that in very 

 remote times Ireland was inhabited by a wild pig which 

 became extinct a few centuries ago, whereas the domesticated 

 pig was either introduced from abroad or produced in 



^ Coffey, G., " On a cairn excavated by Thomas Plunkett on Belmore 

 Mountain, Co. Fermanagh." Proc. R. Irish Acad. (3) vol. iv., 1896-98. 



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