Clare Island Survey — Agriculture and its History. 5 23 



details. That part of the work has not yet been subjected to close research ; 

 and so we are limited to general statements, some of which can carry no more 

 than inferential value. We cannot say, with even approximate accuracy 

 what proportion of the land, tribal or non-tribal, was tilled ; how much the 

 spade was used and how much the plough ; how many stones of grain were 

 sown and how many harvested ; how many stock were kept or how many 

 stones of beef or gallons of milk were produced to the acre. We can only 

 state what the times were likely to have allowed and how much it was 

 possible for the Brehon framework to contain, and then check our statements 

 by such contemporary references as can be found to the point. 



At the time the Brehon laws were still operative in the northern half of 

 Ireland — say, till 1600 — the following field-crops were common in western 

 Europe : — wheat, oats, barley and bere, rye, beans, and peas ; while flax was 

 grown widely in small patches.* Beans and peas are not mentioned in 

 Brehon Ireland. But, if we assume that the translators have got the true 

 English equivalents, and that the dates at which the old Irish words were in 

 use are truly fixed, then, judging from " The Vision of Mac Conglinne," the 

 rest of the crops mentioned above were known in Ireland in the twelfth 



*Note by Me. E. C. R. Armstrong, National Museum, Dublin :— 



The Royal Irish Academy's collection contains a number of bronze sickles found in various parts 

 of Ireland. In sliape they vary from a short angular implement with a slightly curved blade 

 6f inches long, and a socket an inch and a half high to a curved diminutive bronze representation of 

 the modern iron reaping-hook 7 inches round the convex edge. All the sickles in the R.I.A. 

 collection have a socket for the insertion of the handle, but recently a mould for a sickle has been 

 found in Co. Antrim, which is not socketed, and resembles the examples found on the Continent. It 

 may certainly be dated at 1000 B.C. The other might be two centuries later. Sir John Evans 

 ('Ancient Bronze Implements," 1881, p. 194) says : — " Sickles are the only undoubtedly agricultural 

 implements in bronze with which we are acquainted in this country. Already in the Stone Period 

 the cultivation of cereals for food appears to have been practised." In " Ancient Stone Implements," 

 2nd edition, 1897, p. 358, the same author says : " 1 am inclined to think that these curved flint 

 knives may not impossibly have supplied the place of sickles or reaping-hooks, whether for cutting 

 grass to serve as provender or bedding, or for removing the ears of corn from the straw. We know 

 that amongst the inhabitants o: the Swiss Lake-dwellings some who were unacqmiinted with the use 

 of metals had already several domesticated animals, and cultivated more than one kind of cereal ; 

 and it is not unfair to infer the same was the case in Britain." 



* Note by Professor Carl Maustrander : — 



The question as to the kinds of grains cultivated by the Celtic race in the British Isles in early 

 times, can only he settled on linguistic and archaeological grounds, where there is a lack of literary 

 tradition. Celtic archaeology is still in its infancy, still awaiting the master-mind capable of compre- 

 hending and utilizing the many branches necessary to one who would investigate the history of 

 West and Middle Europe in prehistoric times. And as to the literary tradition, it takes us, here as 

 elsewhere, back to comparatively recent times only. Nor does philology invariably provide a 

 reliable base for investigation, partly owing to the scarcity of the material, and partly because of its 

 unreliability or lack of verification, as for instance where the name of a grain has merely the support 

 of a grammarian. Moreover almost all Gaelic names of grains are unconnected not only with 

 Britannic, but with all the related Indo-European tongues. 



Comparatively Old-Irish sources furnish the following names of barley, rye, and various kinds of 

 wheat and oats : — 



