390 Proreedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



bvmanv of the later maps' (but not in the common-sense portolans), which 

 •• slew round " Ireland till it appears between England and Spain, sometimes 

 close to the latter coimtiy ; no sailor could have originated such maps. 



So far as I can judge (but I write with hesitation), the trade routes lay 

 across Provence — say, broadly from Italy to Bordeaux. With the latter 

 there was constant traflSc from Ireland. The next line was from Italy 

 to Flandei-s by sea; with this again Ireland came in contact, notably at 

 Bruges. The third, and in my judgment the most important, as bearing on 

 the early maps, was the constant communication of the large mass of 

 Italian bankers, merchants, money-lenders, mint-officials, and tas-colleetoi's, 

 and the great companies of Florence and Lucca resident in Ireland. These 

 constantly passed to and from Flanders, France, and Italy. By all these 

 methods the knowledge of the place-names of Ireland is only to be expected, 

 and though the prominence of the coast-names shows that it was the 

 mariners rather than the bankers or merchants (whose field of business 

 covered the inland towns) for whom the earliest maps were specially 

 intended. 



I regret that I cannot farther pursue this most important subject. If I 

 can lead others to give it special study, then this paper may fulfil an 

 important dutj" to the history of Irish industry. 



6. The Ieish Ports o>' the ilAPS. 



The rise of the chief ports in Ireland can be only imperfectly traced here ; 

 but it has a bearing on the maps here studied, and compels us to examine 

 it as briefly as can be done. Probably from the earliest times the bays and 

 creeks, especially of the west and south coasts, attracted foreigners. We must 

 free our minds from the conditions of modem shipping to see what ideal 

 harbours were Bannow, Wicklow (where probably ships could lie behind the 

 Murrough sand-spit), Dublin, Malahide, and other places, with their sandy 

 shores and shallow estuaries. The weU-known account of the "fair" 

 of Carman,^ and " the great mart of the foreign Greeks, where gold and noble 

 clothes are wont to be " there, is not improbably based on fact apart from 

 the nationality of the traders ; and we saw that the Irish were not without 

 commerce in Eoman times, whether Eome "moved her arms beyond the 

 shores of luverna " or not. The " fair " has usuaUy been located on Loch 



^ For example, an early map at Turin puts Scotia (Ireland) opposite Spain. 



11 r.-'^ ^™*" '^® *^* P"^" ^° *''* " ^""^ Senchas " ; for the prose sec Revue Celti^ue. xv, 

 pp. ill 31o. For t!ie actual fair of Carman see O'Curry's " Mauneis and Customs of the Irish," 

 ▼ol. lu, p. 047. 



