488 



which it lias created, the historic manuscripts which it has preserved, 

 and, above all, the great National Museum which, within the last thirty - 

 five years it has created, and that, too, on very slender means. In that 

 Museum — containing the largest and purest collection of Celtic antiquities 

 in the world, the truest exposition of the manners and arts of the ear- 

 liest races that spread over ]^orth-western Europe, unalloyed by Eo- 

 man, and but slightly tinctured by either Saxon or Prankish art, — may 

 be read the unerring page of history in more enduring and unalterable 

 characters, and upon more authentic materials, than in all the bardic 

 legends that refer to the primeval occupation of this island. Here we 

 have the rude flint weapons and stone tools of the earliest Pagan 

 colonists; and the evidences of the metallurgic skill of their suc- 

 cessors displayed in copper and bronze celts, swords, spears, and battle 

 axes of surpassing beauty, and in numbers far exceeding those 

 in any other museum in Europe. Here also have been collected 

 the personal ornaments formed out of the precious metals, which 

 clearly attest the taste and skill of a refined and wealthy people ; 

 and we likewise possess objects of mediaeval art of unsurpassed beauty, 

 in our ecclesiastical and ecclesiological remains, which bear witness 

 to the piety and artistic culture of our Christian ancestors of upwards 

 of 800 years gone by. There is scarcely an object of any kind, 

 connected with the chase or warfare, household economy or domestic 

 usage, the dress or decoration, the religion or sepulture of the early 

 or middle-age people of Ireland, that is not fully and abundantly illus- 

 trated, — with one solitary exception. That exception has been the more 

 eagerly sought for, because it is scarcely possible that warfare (a pas- 

 time in Avhich our Celtic ancestors specially delighted) could have been 

 carried on with such Aveapons as the period produced without it, and 

 because the written histories specially allude to its existence — I mean 

 the shield. Some years ago a collector brought under the notice of our 

 venerable and venerated colleague. Dr. Petrie, a small bronze shield, or 

 covering of a shield, found among some old brass and iron in a scrap 

 metal shop in Thomas-street, in this city, and which article was said to 

 have come from the "West of Ireland. Unfortunately it was not pro- 

 cured by the Academy ; but fortunately it is in the possession of Lord 

 Londesborough, a nobleman at all times willing to assist our institution ; 

 and at a fature period I hope to be able to present the Academy with a 

 model of it. His Lordship's absence in Egypt prevents my doing so on 

 the present occasion. 



jDuring the past summer a most remarkably perfect wooden shield 

 was discovered, ten feet deep in a turf bog, on the property of "William 

 Slacke, Esq., of Annadale, to wnland and parish of Kiltubride, county of 

 Leitrim, to which gentleman the Academy is indebted for having pre- 

 served and forwarded to my care thi s very ancient relic of the past. It is 

 of an oval shape ; originally, when taken out of the bog, it measured 26 J 

 inches long, by 2 1 broad, and about half an inch thick ; plain on the 

 reverse side, with an indentation traversed by a longitudinal crosspiece 

 or handle, carved out of the solid, and occupying the hollow of the 



