778 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



There can be no reason for doubting that numerous gold articles 

 were melted down in former times, especially during the last century. 

 Under the present regulations in Ireland of Treasure Trove, all finders- 

 of ancient gold become absolute owners, for if deposited by them with 

 the police or forwarded direct to this Academy, it will be purchased at 

 a price above its standard value and commensurate with its antiquarian 

 interest or else returned to the owner for his benefit. All goldsmiths 

 throughout the country are perfectly aware it is more to their advan- 

 tage to sell us these objects uninjured and not melt or break them up ; 

 still mistakes are liable to occur. The finder of a piece of golden 

 bronze sometimes supposes he has the good fortune to get a quantity 

 of gold, and is correspondingly disappointed at the result, or an orna- 

 ment of pure gold may be mistaken for brass and find its way to 

 decorate a pig's snout, or into the satchell of a wandering ragman. 



Gold ornaments have been dug up over all Ireland ; apparently the 

 finds are more numerous in the south and west of the country, as 

 compared with the north, in other words, in the more fertile and 

 therefore better populated districts. The present exhibits were 

 obtained on the confines of "Wexford and "Waterford. 



If the ISTorsemen carried oif great treasures of Irish gold which I 

 believe they did, it may be asked why in the present day are such 

 ornaments so seldom found in Scandinavian countries. To this query 

 I would offer a simple solution. Norsemen were skilled workers in 

 metals and used up the gold they obtained for purposes of personal 

 decoration, inlaying with it even the handles of their swords, instead 

 of hoarding it up in the form of rings and fibulae as the Irish did, 

 hence their gold plunder gradually disappeared, and circulated in other 

 ways. It is somewhat otherwise respecting the great quantities of 

 silver coin they levied in England. Much of this must have fallen into 

 the hands of private soldiers, and was in many instances on their 

 return homewards hoarded and buried by them in the earth. Certain it 

 is that any collector desirous of obtaining Anglo-Saxon silver coins 

 will have no difficulty in purchasing them, not in England, but in 

 Scandinavia, where to this day finds of such coins are made with 

 exceptional frequency. 



Ireland had no gold coinage at any time, and our silver coins 

 originated with the Danish kings of Dublin and Waterford, therefore 

 there was no inducement to melt ornaments of gold for commercial 

 purposes in these early ages. In England and all Continental lands 

 the most destructive enemy of golden antiquities was the mint. The 

 frequent recoinages of British gold has in addition to absorbing the 



