142 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



century B.C. This divergence in date is caused by the different view taken 

 as to the time the Bronze Age ended in Great Britain and Ireland. 



The second find has been in the Academy's collection for many years. 

 It consists of two leaf-shaped swords and two leaf-shaped spear-heads 

 (fig. 4), described as found with a number of similar objects in the lands of 

 Knockadoo, near Lough Gara, Co. Sligo, the property of Viscount Lorton. 

 With his permission they were deposited in the Academy's museum, 16th May, 

 1840, by Sir William Wilde, forming the nucleus of the collection of Irish 

 bronze weapons since acquired by tlie Academy.' A sentimental interest 

 attaches to this remnant of what was apparently a large find of bronze 

 weapons. The fate of the remainder has not been recorded. 



The spear-heads are of the ordinary type ; the socket of each is pierced 

 for a single rivet. One of the swords is broken across ; its edge has been 

 much hacked. Leaf-shaped swords, with fish-tail-ended tangs, are common 

 in Ireland. Some seventy specimens, the great majority having notched 

 blades, are preserved in the Irish National Museum. Evans- (1881) gave 

 the number of bronze leaf-shaped swords then in the collection as nearly 

 or quite 100 ; but he included among these swords of Hallstatt type, also 

 those in which tlie tang is rounded or rectangular, not of the fish-tailed 

 form. 



The third find (fig. 5) contains three leaf-shaped swords. In two cases 

 the handles are broken ; but in one it is of the fish-tailed variety, and there 

 can be little doubt that the others were of the same form. The swords were 

 found on loth March, 1866, by John Hogan, when making a fence, about 

 eighteen inches below the surface of the ground at Latteragh, Upper Ormond, 

 Co. Tipperary. 



The fourth find (fig. 6), acquired in 1866, consists of two leaf-shaped 

 swords and two leaf-shaped spear-heads. These are registered together as 

 found near Youghal, Co. Cork. Though it is not expressly stated that they 

 were discovered in association, of this there can be little doubt ; all being 

 acquired at the same time, and their considerable patination being similar. 

 The swords are of the ordinary type ; their handles are much broken. It is 

 worth noticing that in both the small space between the end of the hilt and 

 commencement of the edge is thick in section ; especially is this so in fig. 3, 2, 

 where it measures -^ of an inch. This peculiar feature is particularly 

 marked in another specimen in the collection, the upper portion of the 

 handle-plate of which is decorated with punched ornament extending as far 

 as the notches in the blade. Evidently this ornamented portion was not 



1 Wilde, op. cit., 511. ^ "Bronze Implementa," 1881, p. 291. 



