122 REPORT—1874. 
in the fabrication of tools, weapons, and ornaments. From these two races sprang 
the Fairy Mythology of Ireland. 
It is strange that, considering the amount of annals and legends transmitted to 
us, we have so little knowledge of Druidism or Paganism in ancient Ireland. That, 
however, may be accounted for in this wise:—That those who took down the 
legends from the mouths of the bards and annalists, or those who subsequently 
transcribed them, were Christian missionaries whose object was to obliterate every 
vestige of the ancient forms of faith. 
The Dannans spoke the same language as their predecessors, the Firbolgs. 
They met and fought for the sovereignty. The “man of metal” conquered and 
drove a great part of the others into the islands on the coast, where it is said the 
Firbolg or Belgic race (so called) took their last stand. Eventually, however, 
under the influence of a power hostile to them both, these two peoples coalesced, 
and have to a large extent done so up to the present day. They are the true old 
Trish peasant and small farming class. 
The Firbolg was a bagman, so called, according to Irish authorities, because he 
had to carry up clay in earthen bags to those terraces in Greece now vine-clad. As 
regards the other race there is more difficulty in the name. Tuath or Tuatha 
means a tribe or tribe-district in Irish. Dannan certainly sounds very Grecian ; and 
if we consider their remains, we find the long, bronze, leafed-shaped sword, so 
abundant in Ireland, identical with weapons of the same class found in Attica 
and other parts of Greece. 
Then, on the other hand, their physiognomy, their fair or reddish hair, their size, 
and other circumstances incline one to believe that they came down from Scandi- 
nayian regions after they had passed up as far as they thought advisable into North- 
western Europe. If the word Dane was known at the time of their arrival here, it 
would account for the designation of many of our Irish monuments as applied by 
Molyneux and others. Undoubtedly the Dannan tribes presented Scandinavian 
features, but did not bring any thing but Grecian art. After the ‘‘Stone period,” 
so called, of which Denmark and the south of Sweden offer such rich remains, I look 
upon the great bulk of the metal work of the North, especially in the swords in the 
Copenhagen and Stockholm Museums, as Asiatic; while Ireland possesses not only 
the largest native collection of metal weapon-tools, usually denominated “ celts,” 
of any country in the world, but the second largest amount of swords and battle- 
axes. And moreoyer these, and all our other metal articles, show a well-defined 
rise and development from the simplest and rudest form in size and use to that of 
the most elaborately constructed and the most beautifully adorned. 
I believe that these Tuatha-de-Dannans, no matter from whence they came, 
were, in addition to their other acquirements, great masons, although not ac- 
quainted with the value of cementing materials. I think they were the builders 
of the great stone Cahirs, Duns, Cashels, and Caves in Ireland; while their 
predecessors constructed the earthen works, the raths, circles, and forts that 
diversify the fields of Erinn. The Dannans anticipated Shakespeare’s grave-digger, 
for they certainly made the most lasting sepulchral monuments that exist in Ireland, 
such, for example, as New Grange, Douth, Knowth, and Slieve na Calleagh and 
other great cemeteries, Within the interior and around these tombs were carved, 
on unhewn stones, certain archaic markings, spires, volutes, convolutes, lozenge- 
shaped devices, straight, zigzag, and curved lines, and incised indentations, and a 
variety of other insignia, which, although not expressing language, were symbolical, 
and had an occult meaning known only to the initiated. These markings, as well 
as those upon the urns, were copied in the decorations of the gold and bronze 
work of a somewhat subsequent period. The Dannans conquered the inferior tribes 
in two celebrated pitched battles, those of the Northern and Southern Moytura. 
On these fields we still find the caves, the stone circles, the monoliths, and dol- 
mens or cromleachs that marked particular events, and the immense cairns that 
were raised in honour of the fallen chieftains, 
Although many of the warriors of the Firbolgs fled to their island fastnesses on 
the coasts of Galway and Donegal, no doubt a large portion of them remained in 
the inland parts of the country, and in that very locality to which I have adverted, 
which is almost midway between the sites of the two battles, in a line stretching 
