166 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
buried in a cist of dry stones, similar to those in which human bones 
were interred there, and so placed, probably for concealment, at a 
period when the Norsemen overthrew Christianity there foratime. The 
drawing represents it as somewhat similar in shape to our bell, which, 
I think, may have been buried in the Castle Island of Torquil, as the 
least likely place to be explored. It is a most perfect bell. It has 
the Christian emblem of the Cross faintly, but distinctly, marked 
upon it in outline on two sides. It hasalso an elegant traceried orna- 
mentation engraved in the Celtic manner, forming a border. Two 
portions of this border will be seen represented in the figure on 
Plate XII., which is drawn to a scale of one-third; the ornamentation 
of the border, represented in the annexed wood-cut, is on the side 
opposite to the border seen in the Plate below the Cross; the orna- 
mentation on the borders of the two sides without the Crosses are the 
same pattern. 
The bells of that early period seem to have been generally quite 
plain, ornamentation being reserved for their cases or shrines. 
The Lough Lene bell is very similar, as respects its size and 
general form and the design of its line ornamentation, to two other 
ancient bronze bells, viz. that found near the site of the Abbey of 
Bangor, county Down, about fifty years ago, which is now in the 
possession of Captain M‘Cance, Belfast, and that found at Cashel, in 
1849, which is now the property of Lord Dunraven. Illustrations of 
these two bells are given in ‘‘ Church Bells of Devon,” by Rev. 
H. T. Ellacombe, and one of the last mentioned is given in the 
‘History of Adare Manor,’’ by the Countess Dunraven. Petrie had 
never seen any bells like these. He declared them to be obviously 
contemporaneous, and believed them to be of the seventh century, and 
certainly not later than the eighth. 
It may not be too much to say that these three bells are so 
similar to each other that it seems not unreasonable to believe that 
they were all made at the same place (though cast in three different 
moulds), and perhaps even ornamented by the same hand. 
Petrie’s opinion as to the age of the Bangor and Cashel bells lends 
countenance to the suggestion that I have independently thrown out 
above, that the Lough Lene bell may have belonged to St. Fechin of 
Fore, who flourished in the middle of the seventh century. 
