324 



making the thing Taboo, private property of the party making it. This 

 is only what any person ignorant of writing would do at the present 

 day : when called on to sign a paper, and to show that it is his act and 



Ms 



deed, he gives his mark thus: — John + Smith, 



mark. 



Human nature is the same all over the world ; and man under similar 

 circumstances must, of necessity, have recourse to similar expedients. 



The Academy then adjourned. 



MONDAY, APRIL 27, 1863. 

 The Yery Eev. Charles Graves, D.D., President, in the Chair. 



The Eight Hon. the Earl of Belmore was elected a member of the 

 Academy. 



"W. E. "Wilde, V. P., made the following communication : — 



I HAVE asked formal permission from the Council to make the following 

 presentations with which I have been intrusted, as I am anxious to 

 have this particular branch of the antiquarian section of the Academy 

 brought prominently before the members ; because I think it due to the 

 donors ; and in the hope that by so doing it may induce other public 

 bodies, noblemen, and gentlemen to assist in increasing our national 

 Museum. 



Erom the Commissioners of Public "Works — The sculptured and in- 

 scribed stones which formed part of the monument that existed on the 

 southern battlement of the old bridge of Athlone, and of which the fol- 

 lowing notice is not without interest : — 



There was a natuml ford on the Shannon at Ath-luain — The Pord 

 of Luan" — which was passable at low water, and was successfully 

 crossed by the "Williamite armj' in 1691. In later days it was occupied 

 by an eel- weir. The Annals of Boyle state that, in 984, the Conna- 

 cians were defeated, and driven out of Athlone by the "Westmethians 

 in all probability over this ford. The earliest distinct reference to this 

 crossing-place between the kingdoms of Meath and Conn aught is given 

 under the date A. D. 1000, when the kings of those two portions of 

 the island agreed to build a Toher, or causeway," as O'Donovan has 

 very properly translated it, over the Shannon. ''The causeway of 

 Ath-luain was made by Maelseachlainn, the son of Domhnall, and by 

 Cathal, the son of Conchobhar." — See Annals of the Pour Masters, and 

 also Annals of Boyle. 



This Toiler I believe to have been nothing more than a rude road 

 or crossing, over large stepping stones ; several of which structures I re- 

 member over the Suck, and other rivers in Connaught, before the recent 

 drainage operations ; and it was, in all probability, an erection of this 

 nature which supported the hurdles at the ford from which the city of 

 Dublin derived its ancient name. Toher s were also made across bogs and 



