82 



"Vy. R. Wilde, Esq., Y. P., read the following paper : — 



0:s Antique Gold Oe^aments pound in Ieeland peioe to the 

 Yeae 1747. 



The learned antiquary and oriental traveller Richard Pococke, 

 Bishop of Ossory in 1756, and aftervv^ards of Meath in 1765, was the 

 first, so far as I can learn, to make a collection of Irish antiquities. 

 After his death in September, 1765, the majority of the articles from his 

 museum came into the possession of the Eev. Mervyn Archdall, rector 

 of Slane, his lordships' chaplain, and author of the "Monasticon Hi- 

 bernicon ;" and many of them were delineated for the Right Hon. W. 

 Conyngham's projected atlas of Irish antiquities, by Gabriel Beranger. 

 Several of these articles were engraved and published by General 

 Yallancey, in his " Collectanea." The principal gold antiquities in the 

 bishop's collection were sold in London after his death. 



In 1757, his lordship communicated "an account of some antiqui- 

 ties found in Ireland" to the London Society of xintiquaries ; and in 

 1773 it was published in the second volume of the Archaeologia," to- 

 gether with plates of twelve of these articles. In that paper, the bishop 

 alludes to a communication made some years previously by " the late 

 Mr. Simon of Dublin," which, it would appear, had not been printed, 

 the Society of Antiquaries not having then issued any publication. 



James Simon, a merchant of this city, is well knov/n by his essay 

 on Irish coins, Avhich issued from the press in 1749, and which was 

 not only the first systematic work on that subject in point of time, 

 but is acknowledged to be one of the ablest contributions to numis- 

 matic science which had then appeared in the English language. In 

 1747, he communicated to the London Society of Antiquaries the ac- 

 count of Irish golden antiquities, to which Bishop Pococke alludes, 

 in his article in the " Archaeologia," and that paper, together with the 

 drawings which accompanied it, having been recently discovered in 

 their archives, I have obtained permission from that learned body to lay 

 it before the Academy. It possesses considerable interest, not only from 

 the circumstance of its having been the production of a distinguished 

 Irish antiquarj^, but on account of its being, so far as we know, the first 

 record of gold ornaments found in Ireland, and also because several of 

 the articles specified therein belong to varieties of which there are now 

 no examples known to exist. 



The following communication has been carefulty transcribed for me, 

 by Mr. C. K. Watson, Secretary to the Society of Antiquaries. The 

 accompanying woodcuts will assist to explain the author's meaning. The 

 articles are reduced from the tracings upon Mr. Simon's paper. 



" Our Vice-President Eolkes communicated to the Society a letter 

 to him, dated from Dublin, 26. May, 1747, with the di'aught of several 

 pieces of anticpities : — 



' Hon'^ Sir, — I had the honour to write to you lately, when I 

 sent you impressions of some very curious Irish coins of Sitricus, Ethel- 

 red, and Edward the Ecurth, which I hope came safe to your hands. 



