1 66 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



remarks : " There is a beautiful crimson obtainable from the peri- 

 winkle and a species of limpet," and Plancus asserts, " The turbo 

 clathrus yields the Syrian purple. 



Dress, Ancient C^/Zi-.— Although the woollen manufacture of 

 Ireland was well known and duly appreciated at the beginning of the 

 thirteenth century, and we have conclusive evidence of its fabrication 

 long before then, we really know but little regarding the costume it- 

 self of the various classes. I have no doubt the illuminated MSS. 

 represent approximately, not only the color but the shape of the 

 dress as it appeared to the respective scribes. A human body, in 

 remarkable preservation, clad in deer-skin tunic, was discovered in 

 182 1 in a peat-bog at Gallagh, Galway, the head, legs and feet un- 

 covered. It was replaced, exhumed some years after, and deposited 

 in the Dublin Society in 1829 ; the teeth, hair long and dark, and 

 beard were perfect ; a portion of the dress now in Dublin was sub- 

 mitted for microscopical examination to Professor Queckett, but he 

 was unable to determine whether it was made from the hide of the 

 extinct elk or not. A skin cap of dark fur, otter I think, is or rather 

 was, in a gallery of the museum ; it belongs to Mr. Walker's collec- 

 tion. No doubt even long after textile fabrics were in general use 

 leather or deer-skin shirts would have been worn by swineherds and 

 hunters. In the Western Islands off Connaught, the inhabitants wear 

 moccasins yet of untanned hide, fastened in sandal fashion ; they 

 readily adapt themselves to the shape of the foot when they become 

 hard and firm ; they are better suited for cliff-climbing and far more 

 comfortable to the wearer than an ordinary shoe. The hair is on the 

 outside ; they are in all respects like the description given of the ten 

 thousand pairs of brogues left behind by the Scottish army, when by 

 an extraordinary forced march they baffled the pursuit of King 

 Edward III., leaving their worn-out foot-gear as the only trophy of 

 the inglorious expedition. (See Planche's History of British Cos- 

 tume.) Many of the shoes and half-boots in the Irish collection are 

 handsomely ornamented, especially the tan ones ; some are stitched 

 with gut, others with woollen thread, and later with flax or hemp. 

 In some instances the buskins were found attached to the tight-fitting 

 trews (trousers) as in the case of the body of the man discovered in 

 the bog at Killery, Sligo ; he was dressed in woollen costume. 

 The material itself was used for the purpose probably by the primi- 

 tive colonists, but we have no authentic foundation for the opinion. 



