364 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
LIIJ.—Descrierion oF a ‘‘SmHaLre CHARK”’ OBTAINED IN THE City oF 
Dusimy From THE Bep oF tHE Popprte River in 1882, wir 
OpsErvations. By Wrt11am Frazer, F.R.C.S.1., Member of 
Council, Royal Irish Academy. 
[Read, February 15, 1885.] 
In commencing my description of this early specimen of earthenware, 
it might be desirable to explain what is meant by calling it a “‘ Shale 
Chark;” the phrase has become obsolete from long disuse, but in the 
sixteenth century it was applied to an article then well understood, 
and in ordinary domestic demand in household economy. Thus we 
find it employed in an ‘‘ Inventory of the Household Effects of Lord 
Deputy Lord Leonard Gray, taken in the year 1540,” immediately 
after his being recalled to England, and previous to his execution, by 
beheading, on Tower Hill, on the 28th June, 1541. The catalogue of 
his possession was made by the express direction of Henry VIII. and 
through the chief Officers of State, and is preserved in the Irish State 
Papers, but is accessible from the published account that appears in 
the Ulster Journal of Archeology: see vol. vii. p. 201. The writer of 
this communication im the pages of the Ulster Journal offers us, in a 
footnote, the following explanation, or, as he terms it, ‘‘a guess at 
what these ‘shale charks’ were.’ ‘‘ Shale in the olden time signified 
earthenware, and the verb ‘to chark’ meant to expose new ale in 
shallow vessels to the action of the atmosphere, so that it might 
acquire acidity, and be the sooner fit for drinking.” As to the former 
word, ‘‘shale”’, I am not quite satisfied that it means ‘‘earthenware”’, 
and prefer the explanation given by Stephen Skinner in his Atymo- 
logicon Lingue Anglicang, 4.D.1671. He considers ‘‘shale” equivalent 
to ‘‘shell’”’, and explains it by the synonym siliqua, and in a secondary 
sense patera—in fact it simply means a flat dish. As to the word 
‘‘chark”, he says it is a common Lincolnshire word, where they con- 
stantly practise the exposure of fresh beer to the air in an open vessel, 
until it gradually acquires some degree of acidity, becoming clearer, 
and more speedily potable; and he refers the word itself to an Anglo- 
Saxon origin. The necessity for such an exposure becomes more 
intelligible when we recollect that malt liquids were formerly made 
without the addition of hops, and that the sweet decoction of malted 
barley would require to be ripened or acidified by exposure to the air 
to render it a palatable and potable liquor. 
This flat earthen dish now exhibited seems to me to correspond in 
every respect with the description of vessel that was formerly em- 
ployed for ‘‘ charking”’ malt liquids. It was obtained by a workman 
who was employed in clearing out the bed of the Poddle river where 
it passes through Ship- (the ancient Sheep) street, which, covered 
over like a common sewer, runs to join the Liffey by passing through 
the grounds of the Old Castle of Dublin, and close to the spot where 
its muddy waters flow beneath the Castle gates, and also near the 
place where the Round Tower formerly stood, of which the sole 
surviving record is a sketch made by Gabriel Beranger. 
