168 Proceedings of the Royal Iri^h Academy. 



XXIV. — On tavo new Deposits op Human and othek Bones, dis- 



y COVERED IN THE CaVE OF DxTNMOIlE, Co. KlXKENNT. (With Plate 



^ 18.) By Edward T. H.ardman, F. C. S., F. E. G. S. I. (Of the 



Geological Survey of Ireland.) 



[Eead Februarj' 22, 1875.] 



The Cave of Dunmore, situated about six miles from the City of 

 Kilkenny, has been from very early times an object of much interest, 

 and has been more or less fully described by various writers, the 

 earliest of whom, as I am informed by the Rev. James Graves, 

 M.R.I. A., was Bishop Berkeley. After him, many visitors have re- 

 corded their impressions of this weird locality, but the fullest account, 

 which, indeed, like Moses' rod, swallows up or embodies most 

 of the rest, is that of Dr. A. W. Foot,* who, in 1869, explored 

 the place, in company with Rev. Mr. Graves and Mr. Burtchaell, C.E. 

 He fully describes the principal features of the Cave, in his paper read 

 before the Royal Historical and Archaeological Association of Ireland, 

 and gives an account of a quantity of human bones, which were 

 obtained fi'om one part of the Cave. I shall, therefore, make my 

 descriptive remarks as brief as possible, as they must necessarily, in 

 part, be a repetition of that and other papers. Dr. Foot shows that 

 for at least two centuries this spot has been known to be a receptacle 

 of numbers of human bones, which were said to have strewed the floor 

 of it abundantly ; but in modern times these have disappeared, and 

 Dr. Foot's collection was obtained from a clay or silt bed, at one end 

 of the Cave. He considers the bones to be the remains of natives 

 slaughtered by the Danish invaders, about the tenth century. It is 

 possible, however, that they belong to a much more remote antiquity. 

 At the time that I conceived the idea of examining this Cave for 

 animal remains — in the course of my duty on the Geological Survey — I 

 was quite unaware that any bones had ever been really got in it, 

 although I knew there was a local rumour that some of those con- 

 cerned in the rising of '98 had taken refuge, and died these. I was 

 accompanied by Lieutenant W. W. M. Smith, of the Royal Ai^tillery, and 

 it fortunately happened that we picked up the same guides who had con- 

 ducted Dr. Foot and liis party. From them we learned of the find of 

 bones, and were taken to the spot, whence we brought away many 

 specimens. ITo other bone locality was then known to these men, but 

 on a subsequent occasion Mr. Smith and I visited the Cave again, and 



* An Account of a visit to tlie Cave of Dnnmore, Co. Kilkennj-, with some 

 remarks on Hainian Remains found tlierein. By A.Wynne Foot, M.D., F.K.Q.C.P.I., 

 Jour. Roy. Hist. Ai'chseol. Assoc. Ir., vol, i. (Foiu-th Series), Ft. i., p. 65. 



