2 16 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



Academy's collection — notably a brooch, 1 of exactly the same type as that 

 under discussion, and a bronze pin 2 found at Clonmacnois. It has been 

 pointed out by the author of a work on enamelling 3 that if such glass-work had 

 been true enamelling it would have indicated a development of the art 

 nowhere else to have been found in the seventh or eighth century ; while, on 

 the other hand, any bronze- worker would have been capable of making use of 

 pieces of patterned glass, if not of fusing them together. The pin of the 

 Trinity College brooch measures 7 inches in length, and the greatest diameter 

 of the hoop is 2*7 inches. It may be provisionally dated at about 600 A.D. 

 (fig. 1, (upper), p. 244). 



The thistle brooch, which, as mentioned above, was found at Cashel, 

 County Tipperary, belongs to a type that is also well known, and can be 

 dated to the early part of the tenth century. Similar brooches have been 

 found in hoards of silver objects discovered in Lancashire, Yorkshire, the 

 Isle of Man, and Orkney, in association with coins dated from 910 a.d. to 

 975 a.d. The brooch is in admirable preservation; the pin measures 

 13'8 inches, and the greatest external diameter of the hoop is 5 - 4 inches. The 

 round bosses on the pin-head and terminals are ornamented with numerous 

 small spikes, and resemble a thistle, from which these brooches have acquired 

 the name of " thistle brooches." The backs of the pin-head and terminals are 

 ornamented with a triskele encircled by a ring, the spaces between the figure 

 being filled in each case with three leaf-like forms ; the flat top of the pin- 

 head has a cross in a circle engraved upon it with the spaces between the 

 arms filled with a kind of key-pattern. The shank of the pin is engraved on 

 the front with a species of imperfect fret pattern, and has a slight ornament 

 at the back. The neckings of the pin-head and terminals are decorated with a 

 plain chevron ornament (fig. 2, p. 245). The Academy's collection contains four 

 perfect specimens of these brooches, including the one found with the Ardagh 

 Chalice, and three detached pin-heads. One of these latter found in County 

 Kilkenny is very large, and if the rest of the brooch was in proportion, the 

 hoop would have had a diameter of some 10 inches and the pin a length of 

 2 feet. A brooch of this type found at Cloneen, County Longford, is in the 

 British Museum, and another found at Ballymoney, County Antrim, is in the 

 collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London, while another is stated to 

 have been found at Ballinrobe, County Mayo * but the present habitat of this 

 is unknown to the writer. Therefore, at least eleven thistle brooches, or 

 portions of them, have been found in Ireland. 



The most interesting and remarkable of the four brooches is the one 



1 Royal Irish Academy's Cuideto the Celtic Christian Antiquities, 1910, p. 2'2, fig. 28. 



2 Early Christian Art in Ireland. Stokes (revised by Count Plunkett), 1911, p. 68. 



3 Enamelling. Lewis Day, p. 27. 



4 Proceedings Society of Antiquaries of London, 2nd ser., vol. xxi, pp. 69, 71. 



