454 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
it in the MSS. of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when inter- 
laced patterns are still in use. It does not occur in the oldest copies 
extant of ‘‘ Leabhar Breac,” the ‘‘ Book of Ballymote,” the ‘‘ Book of 
Lecan,”’ the ‘‘ Psalterna Rann,” the ‘‘ Leabharnah-Uidhri,” the ‘‘ Book 
of Leinster,’”’ the Irish ‘‘Missal,”’ in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, 
in the Irish ‘“ Psalter”? (Brit. Museum), or the ‘‘ Book of Hymns,” 
A.D. 1150 (Trin. Coll., Dublin). Neither is it to be found in the 
‘“ Psalter”? of Ricemarch, in the same library, or in the ‘‘ Chronicle of 
Marianus Scotus,” now in the Vatican Library, Rome. It is seen in 
its most perfect development in the illuminated books of the seventh, 
eighth, and ninth centuries, but seems to die out after the year 900. 
It appears in the greatest redundance in the oldest part of the ‘‘ Book 
of Kells,’’ the date of which, I begin to believe, must have been about 
the year 690. It also appears in the ‘ Books of Durrow”; the 
‘“Gospels of Willibrord,” a.p. 739; the ‘‘ Book of Armagh,” a.p. 750 
to 807; the ‘‘ Gospels of Thomas of Honau,” a.p. 750 to 808; the 
‘“ Gospels of Mac Regol,” a.p. 820; the ‘‘Golden Gospels of St. Ger- 
manus,”’ a.D. 871 (now at Stockholm). 
The Tara Brooch and the Ardagh Chalice offer the most perfect 
examples of the use of this peculiar spiral that have been found in the 
metal-work of Irish Christian art; and we are strongly reminded of the: 
decoration of Irish MSS. from the ‘‘ Book of Kells,” cere. 690, to the 
‘Gospels of Mac Durnan,” crc. 885, when we study them. 
That these two examples of goldsmiths’ work are contemporaneous. 
there can be little doubt. They show not only perfectly similar develop- 
ments of this spiral design, but many other points of agreement be- 
sides—the same filigree wire-work; the same Trichinopoli chain-work ; 
the same circles of amber and translucent glass; the same enamels, both 
cloisonns and champlevés. The native character which distinguishes 
the art of these works has very much disappeared from the metal-work 
of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The shrine of St. Patrick’s 
bell and the cross of Cong belong to a time when the trumpet patterm 
had fallen into disuse, just as it disappears from the illuminated MSS. 
after the year 1000. 
These considerations have led me to correct my former error, in 
which, following a suggestion of M. Henri Gaidoz as to the probable 
history of this chalice, I was inclined to attribute it to the twelfth 
century. In the Christian Inseriptions of Ireland, vol. u., p. 128, 1 
brought forward Monsieur Gaidoz’s theory, that this chalice might be 
identified with that which is spoken of by the Irish annalists, in the 
year 1129, as the work of Finola, the sister of Turlough O’Conor— 
‘¢q silver chalice, with a burnishing of gold uponit, with an engraving 
by the daughter of Roderic O’Conor.” The annalists state further 
that this chalice disappeared in the year 1125, when a great robbery 
was committed by the Danes of Limerick; and that Gillacomhgain, 
the chief person implicated, was afterwards executed at Cloonbrien, 
about fifteen miles distant from the spot in which this chalice was 
found concealed. However, as the annalists state that the objects 
