290 



the more remarkable and important articles of our Museum, with 

 remarks on their history, and use. But a more fitting occasion for 

 this will perhaps be found, when The Dawson Collection is pro- 

 perly arranged and displayed, as I hope it soon will be, in a room 

 fitted for its reception. 



" I must say a few words of the coins and medals before I can 

 conclude this Report. 



" They may be divided into three classes : 



" 1. The Banish Irish coins of the ninth and tenth centuries. 



" This series comprehends the coins of Domnald and some of 

 the sovereigns unknown ; a coin of Ivar, A. D. 872, and a large 

 collection of the Dublin coins of Sitric, A. D. 980 and 989. Also 

 the Dublin coins of .^thelred, and some of great singularity and 

 rarity, which bear the impress of the Dublin mint, and which the 

 Dean, on grounds however admitted by himself to be doubtful, was 

 at one time disposed to refer to the reign of iEthelstan. 



" 2. The coins strucTi in and for Ireland by British sove- 

 reigns. 



" Among these are a magnificent series of the coins of John, 

 minted in Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, between the years 1177 

 and 11 99 ; and a singularly perfect series of the coins struck in Ire- 

 land from the reign of John to that of George IV., containing many 

 varieties of great rarity and value. 



" 3. A series of medals struck in Ireland. 



" The most complete that has ever been collected. This series 

 is particularly interesting to the Academy, because the late Dean, a 

 very short time before his decease, contributed to our Transactions 

 a valuable paper on the subject of Irish Medals, in which the most 

 remarkable of these very medals are noticed and described. 



" On the whole, I would congratulate the Academy, and not the 

 Academy only, but the country, on the possession of this important 

 and invaluable Collection, As one of those who enjoyed the pri- 

 vilege of an intimate acquaintance with its late lamented owner, I 

 cannot help expressing the gratification which I feel in the reflection 

 that this, the national part of his Museum, is saved from dispersion, 

 secured to Ireland, and presented to the Academy, for which he 

 had destined it. I feel a melancholy satisfaction, in which his 



