2 The Soverane Herbe 



Kildare. The skeleton was asserted to be that of 

 an ancient Milesian, and in his jaw was found a 

 tobacco-pipe. Antiquaries at once showed to their 

 own satisfaction that this relic proved smoking was 

 practised in Ireland ages before the invasion of the 

 Danes. Examination of the pipe, however, proved 

 it to be identical with those used in the reign of 

 Elizabeth. Pipes of bronze are frequently found in 

 Irish tumuli; such pipes were largely used in the 

 seventeenth century, and large numbers have been 

 found on the battlefield of the Boyne, and at Chester, 

 where the troops of William III. encamped before 

 embarking for Ireland. 



No pipe or tobacco-instrument has ever been un- 

 earthed which has not borne unequivocal witness, 

 in design or character, to its manufacture since the 

 reign of Elizabeth. 



Sculptured evidence is equally false. The monu- 

 ment of Donough O'Brien, King of Thomond, who 

 died in 1267, in Corcumrae Abbey, County Clare, 

 represents him in the usual recumbent posture with a 

 short pipe, or dhudeen, in his mouth. On one of the 

 ancient chimney-pieces in Cawdor Castle there is a 

 stone carving of a fox smoking a tobacco-pipe. The 

 date of this chimney-piece and carving is confidently 

 declared by antiquaries to be 1510. Granting that 

 the tomb and chimney-piece are over six hundred and 

 four hundred years old respectively, do their engrav- 

 ings prove the corresponding age of the smoking habit? 

 Is the pipe part of the original carving or the later 

 addition of an idle or skilled hand ? There are not 

 wanting vandals who would not scruple to add a 



