190 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
the notes and critical comments which no man living ean give us, 
but one. 
In transferring our antiquarian collections, we have the satisfac- 
tion of knowing that we aid a great and, I trust, a very useful 
public object by a splendid contribution ; and, further, that we repay 
the advances of the State to the extent of above two thousand pounds 
of our private moneys from time to time sunk in the purchase and 
cataloguing of the objects themselves. The nucleus of our Museum 
was formed, by voluntary donations and purchases out of our own 
income, before we left our old residence in Grafton-street. The first 
large accession was purchased in 1840-2 from the representatives of 
the late Very Rev. Dr. Dawson, Dean of St. Patrick’s, for a sum of 
upwards of one thousand pounds, altogether subscribed by ourselves 
and our friends. The Cross of Cong, purchased for one hundred 
pounds, was the donation of a Member. The Tara torques were 
bought for one hundred and ninety pounds, subscribed by ourselves. 
So was the Domnach Argid, for upwards of two hundred pounds, raised 
in the same way. Our books contain the detail of ten other subscrip- 
tions amongst Members to purchase particular objects now destined 
for the State Museum. The whole price at which the collection 
has been acquired may be computed at between five and six thou- 
sand pounds. The mere material in gold and silver is intrinsically 
worth more than two thousand four hundred pounds. To estimate 
the artistic and historic value of the collection would be impossible. 
But celebrated and acknowledged, as it is, for the finest collection of 
its kind in existence, were it put up to auction to be bid for by the 
rival governments and collectors of Europe and America, no one 
would be surprised should it sell for ten times its cost price; and if 
that at all approach the measure of its value, the Academy, in trans- 
ferring it to the State, will go far to recoup the whole amount of 
all the subsidies it has received from Parliament, amounting in the 
entire to little more than sixty thousand pounds, during the ninety-six 
years of its existence. 
The credit of having accumulated it rests with Council and with 
successive Committees, backed by the ever-ready liberality of the 
Academy and its friends. The late Sir William Wilde was one of the 
most energetic of its promoters. He gave the gratuitous labour of 
years to its arrangement and cataloguing. If, when it goes to its 
new place of deposit, a bust of Wilde could be procured, to accompany 
it with the bust which we already possess of its chief founder, Petrie, 
it would be a gratification to those who witnessed his labours, and 
some small acknowledgment of the debt which his country owes him 
for services rewarded hitherto only by the memory of their value 
preserved among his old colleagues, and vaguely recognized by the 
public. 
It has been stated in an Archeeological Journal of authority that, 
since Sir William Wilde’s death, the antiquarian collections here have 
fallen back into the chaos from which he rescued them. I give the 
