I907- 17 



HISTORICAL NOTES. 



BY C. BARING. 



To the foiegoing description of Lambay it has been thought 

 desirable to add a short account of the island in relation to its 

 human inhabitants, since human occupation has naturally 

 exercised a considerable influence on the flora and fauna. In 

 order to avoid the introduction of matter that would be 

 unsuited to these pages, the briefest summary that is consistent 

 with clearness and truth is all that will be attempted. For an 

 historical notice of the island, reference may be made to D'Alton's 

 " History of the County Dublin," which has been used as the 

 authority for many of the dates and statements that appear 

 below. 



That the island was colonised in Neolithic times would appear 

 from the presence of flakes and cores of flint, which are mentioned 

 above by Mr. Seymour and Mr. Hinch. The presence of man 

 in the later Bronze Age is suggested by the fixiding on the island 

 of a gold band, chastely ornamented (fig. i, p. 16), which is 

 referred to that peiiod. The cairn which crowns Knockbane, too, 

 is clearly artificial, and no dcubt prehistoric, though no evidence 

 is forthcomiiig as to its age. 



When \ve come to historical times we find Lambay identified 

 by writers on church history with the Rechra cr Rechru of early 

 chronicles and the Rechen or Rochen of mediaeval documents, 

 names that still survive, it is thought, in Portrane, formerly 

 Port-Rechran, the nearest point of the mainland to Lambay. 

 This identification, hardly satisfying in the case of Rechen, is 

 complicated in the case of Rechra by the fact that at least one 

 other island, namely Rathlin, off the Antrim coast, is known to 

 have borne that name : from which it seems to follow that what 

 is recorded of Rechra cannot be referred with certainty either to 

 Rathlin or to Lambay. Leaving on one side the interesting 

 question thus raised, which concerns the philologist and the 

 historian, we may apply ourselves to the consideration of Lambay 

 under the name which it now bears. This name it is thought 

 to have acquired about the tenth century from the Danes ; 

 but it is not impossible that there may have been an older name 

 (perhaps discernible in the Limn us of Ptolemy and Pliny) on 



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