42 Ireland: Its Ancient Civilisation and Social Customs. 



Ireland. The personal ornaments, such as torques, lunalae, 

 and fibula, exhibit most intricate and exquisite workman- 

 ship and ornamentation of a very high order of merit. 

 The later metal work from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, 

 such as croziers, shrines, book-covers, crucifixes, and vessels, 

 such as the Ardagh chalice, show that Irish artists, before 

 they came in contact with the Anglo-Norman, were able to 

 produce work of rare excellence. Irishmen excelled all com- 

 petitors in the art of illuminating vellum manuscripts. Dating 

 from the middle of the 6th century onwards we have a 

 collection of these manuscripts that no other country in Europe 

 can equal either in antiquity or workmanship. The initial 

 letters in the Book of Kells are exquisite works of art. This 

 manuscript is a copy of the Gospels which belonged to the 

 Monastery of Kells, County Meath, supposed to have been 

 written in the 8th Century. It fell into the hands of Primate 

 Ussher, whose library was acquired by Trinity College, where 

 it is now kept. The book of Durrow, which belonged to 

 Durrow in the Queen's County, is another fine manuscript. 

 So highly were the Irish scribes thought of that the Eric, or 

 penalty for killing a scribe, was the same as for an abbot or a 

 bishop. We will refer to our subject under four periods — viz., 

 the Pagan, early Christian, Anglo-Norman, and modern. The 

 oldest records do not refer to the people who made the rude 

 stone implements, and who cremated their dead. The theory 

 commonly accepted is, that not alone Ireland, but the entire of 

 Western Europe, was at one time peopled by a small-sized 

 Iberian race, whose present representatives are the Lapps and 

 Finns. It is supposed that the underground caves, so well 

 known as souterraines, may have been dwelling places of this 

 race, as only men considerably less in stature than Irishmen of 

 to-day could stand upright in them. They were not agricul- 

 turists, but hunters and fishers ; they used flint and stone 

 implements, probably cremated their dead, and they may have 

 been the first to raise Cromleachs. There is no reference in 

 our annals to cremation, though cinerary urns and calcined 



