Geographical Distribution of the Shell-Purple Industry. 17 



Apart from the evidence afforded by the Mediter- 

 ranean instances of broken shells, this interpretation 

 •receives strong support from the interesting statement 

 made by Lenormant and Chevallier in deahng with the 

 purple industry of the ancients. According to these 

 authors the Phoenicians " also procured from the British 

 Isles a dark shade, called ' black purple,' but it has not 

 yet been ascertained with certainty what species produced 



Further evidence of the antiquity of purple in Ireland 

 is furnished by Wood-Martin in his " Lake Dwellings of 

 Ireland.'"^' On p. 104 of this work the author tells us 

 that the MS. Book of Ballymote contains an ancient 

 Irish poem, which states : " It was Tigearnmas who first 

 established in Ireland the art of dyeing cloth of purple, 

 and many colours." 



This King — variously given as Tighernmas and 



Tiernmas — is alleged to have reigned about looo B.C., 



and " was the first that smelted gold in Ireland." ^ 

 i 

 "We have many instances of the survival of this purple 



industry in the British Isles. Johnston" tells us that the 

 Venerable Bede, who wrote in the eighth century, men- 

 tions the art as known in his time, and he was familiar 

 with the beauty and permanency of the colour.** The 

 same fact is mentioned by Richard of Cirencester,'^" and 

 also in a translation of Higden's " Folichronicon " made 

 in the year 1387.'" 



Purple shell-fish were largely employed from the i6th 



"* " Manual of Ancient History of the East," London, 1870, ii., p. 214. 



'^ Dublin and London, 1886. 



'"' Kinahan, " Geology of Ireland," 1878, p. 340. 



°' Johnston, "Introduction to Conchology," 1850, p. 72. 



""^ " Hist. Eccles. Gent. Ang.," lib. i., c. 1. 



«» "Desc. of Britain," 28. 



■» Book i., ch. 38 of "Bretayn." 



