58 IJ. C. Lawlor on 



This is confirmed by our own investigations, in which we found 

 remains of domestic glazed pottery clearly of this date, to say 

 nothing of bone hair combs of the crannog type found by Dr. A. 

 M. D'Evelyn, of Ballymena, already referred to. 



Reverting to raths, on the question of their connection with 

 purely Irish social life. I rather think that such investigations 

 as time and opportunity have enabled me to make, tend to 

 confirm Mr. Goddart Orpen's views. From Geraldus we learn 

 that they were at any rate for the most part, erected by the Northmen 

 or Danes in their invasions of the 9th century. That on arrival of 

 the Normans in the 12th century, the Danes having departed from 

 the hinterland they had fallen into almost complete disuse. That 

 they were not long in actual occupation seems to be confirmed by 

 the paucity of remains to be found near the surface in raths even 

 where the land has not been tilled. In many of these, circular hut 

 sites may still be seen, but on excavating these, little has been 

 found, a few broken cooking pots in hearth sites, a few cooked 

 bones of various domestic animals and birds, a small stone ring of 

 mysterious utility. The finds, such as they are, are not in layers 

 like the Crannog finds, so that the idea of long continued 

 occupation is precluded. In the immense ring fort, merely a trench 

 and rampart thrown round the summit of the circular hill of 

 Maghera Knock, near Ballynahinch, but enclosing about two acres, 

 now for a long time under tillage, we made a find of peculiar 

 interest in the form of an iron sword, single edged, with a bone 

 handle, attached to the iron haft by bronze rivets. (Plate VII., 

 No. 1.) I may call it unique, as I cannot find a similar or so 

 well preserved a specimen in the collection of either the Royal Irish 

 Academy or our City Museum, where in all specimens of the kind 

 the handles are gone. This was found just under the sod on the 

 top of the rampart. Its probable date and origin are Norse or 

 Danish of the ninth or tenth century. 



Before concluding I cannot help referring to an article in the 

 journal of the Belfast Naturalists Field Club of the year 1894, 

 written by Mr. J. M. Dickson. Quite unconscious that Mr. 

 Dickson had already studied and written so ably on the Rath 



