FrazeER—On a Great Sepulchral Mound. 47 
is short, wide, and often turned up, with depressed bridge. The lower 
jaw is softer in outline, less massive, rounded, and does not possess 
the harsh shape and strong markings of the Scandinavian type; the 
chin is little, if at all, prominent, and the appearance of the face is 
such as we have numerous examples of still in the south and west of 
Treland, especially in inland districts, where the Celt has remained 
free from intermixture with Danish blood. I believe this form of 
skull represents a race that inhabited this country from a much earlier 
date than our Danish colonists. 
The contributions to Irish ethnology have heretofore been few ; but 
since writing the above account I have read over the Paper which was 
published by the late Sir William Wilde, and laid before the King and 
Queen’s College of Physicians in the year 1844, upon the ‘‘ Ethnology 
of the Ancient Irish Races.”’ Sir William regarded the question from 
a considerably earlier period in our history, for his observations relate 
almost without exception to those forms of crania which were obtained 
from barrows, tumuli, and kistvaens, all primitive varieties of inter- 
ment employed by races in Ireland in distant ages, far antecedent to 
the date at which the Donnybrook mound was formed. The conclu- 
sions at which he arrived may be compared, with much interest, along 
with those that appear justified by our examinations of the Donny- 
brook remains. Thus he has directed special notice to two different 
varieties of crania, both belonging to, and distinctive of, our early Irish 
races, whilst he further figured and described, as referrible to a much 
later period in time, the crania of Danish and Scandinavian origin, the 
latter being similar to those which I have obtained possessing Danish 
characteristics. 
Now of the two primitive Irish races which he designates as Fir- 
bolg and Celt, he has given typical figures. One of these, the Fir- 
bolg cranium, will, in all probability, correspond with the remarkable 
dolichocephalic skull that I have described. These ‘‘ long-headed, 
black-visaged, dark-haired, swarthy aborigines,’’ possessed skulls that 
are principally characterised by ‘‘ their extreme length from before 
backwards,” or what is technically termed the ‘‘ antero-posterior 
diameter’ and the flatness of their sides. He says in addition, ‘‘ Now 
we find similar conditions of head still existing among the modern 
inhabitants of this country, particularly beyond the Shannon, where 
the darker Firbolg race may still be traced as distinct from the more 
globular-headed, light-eyed, fair-haired Celtic people who live to the 
north-east of that river.”’ 
The earlier primitive interments of the Celtic race are to be found 
in kistvaens or sandstone chambers, and probably they were the race 
that used urn-burial also. Their origin, whence they came, and what 
countries they inhabited before arriying here, has proved a fertile 
field for speculation, but still remains an unsettled question. They 
may be, and probably are, the race termed in old Irish annals the 
“Tuatha de Danaan,” who are said to have invaded and overcome 
the original Firbolg inhabitants, and they would seem to haye intro- 
