IRISH ARCH/EOLOGICAL REMAINS. Ireland has been called the wonder of Europe for the wealth and beauty of its relics of the past. Those relics range in scale from cyclopean structures like Dun Aenghus on the isle of Aran and Staigue Fort in the ancient kingdom of Kerry, that awe the mind by their massive strength and the evidences of their vast antiquity, to dazzling collections of gold ornaments the chief characteristic of which is their delicate minuteness of finish. Between these there is a multitude of other memorials, some of them Unique and remarkable. There are for example the solemn burial places of great chieftains like the City of Tombs in the valley of the Boyne, the great stone circles like those of Carrowmore, and the remains of royal seats in which Ireland is very rich. From Ireland's distant pagan period cairns, dumas, tumuli, moats, menhirs, dolmans, cromlechs, earthworks, beehive cells, Idstywns, pillar stones and Ogham stones have been preserved to us in great numbers. From both the pagan and the early Christian period there have been counted as still existing over 2,000 chambered and un chambered mounds piled up by human hands, ethe circular raths andprincely palaces of earth* of the Irish epic tales. The early Christian period introduces us to an Ireland honeycombed with monasteries and schools, dominated by great monastic universities such as those of Armagh, Clonard and Clonmacnois.
In architecture, in sculpture, in metal work and in the production and ornamentation of manuscripts, Irishmen were then the chief exponents and teachers, and the material evi dences of their superior skill, despite the ruin of centuries, may be still gazed upon and handled to-day. It was during this period that the decorated high crosses and round towers, that are among the chief glories of Ireland, began to rise over the land. Earlier than the round towers are the tiny stone churches, cyclopean in construction and primitive in char acter, like those of Maghera and Banagher, Temple Cronan, Devenish, Saint MacDara's Isle, Inishmurray and numerous others. There AS hardly an Irish isle indeed that does not carry some memorial or ruin belonging to that prolonged mediaeval period when Ireland was the school of the West and the quiet habitation of sanctity and learning. For that period in deed we have to look for Irish memorials not merely in Ireland but in almost every country in Europe, for it was the period of Irish mis sionary enterprise when Irishmen carried their art and learning over all the West. Heinrich
Zimmer has counted over 200 Irish manuscripts in libraries on the continent dating from before the 11th century. There are probably many more. But these manuscripts represent only part of the valuables formerly carried out of Ireland. When the reign of peace, covering more than a thousand years of freedom from foreign invasion, finally-was broken in the 9th century by the Danish wars, much that was precious began to be carried for safety across the seas, so that in some directions Irish art may be represented better abroad than at home.
Gold Foremost in interest to many among the heirlooms bequeathed by Irish antiquity are the truly marvelous collec tions of solid gold ornaments to be seen in the Royal Irish Academy and elsewhere. Some 500 golden ornaments of old times have been there gathered together in the last 80 years ,• their weight is 570 ounces against a weight of 20 ounces in the British Museum from all Eng land, Scotland and Wales. If these Irish re mains represented the total wealth of gold of the Bronze Age in the •island, the amount, as Sir Hercules Reid points out, would probably exceed that of any ancient period in any coun try, except perhaps the republic of Colombia in equatorial America. But the known remains can only be a small portion of the original wealth of Ireland. Vast quantities must have been discovered from medimval times onward, nearly all of which would be melted down and carried out of the country. Sir William Wilde, as he testifies in his knew indi vidual jewelers through whose hands passed large quantities of Irish gold, the amount in one case being valued at $50,000. Attention has often been drawn to the fact that up to the 15th century in the literature of no country are there as many references to gold as in Irish literature. Thus we read in the of the Four Masters) at the year 1169 A.D. that eDonough Ua Cearithaeil, Lord of Airgialla, died after bestowing 300 ounces of gold, for the love of God, upon clerics and Ireland's wealth in gold from the Bronze Age onwards, if stated in sober figures, says Sir Hercules Reid, would appear so enor mous as hardly to be credited. In the colleo tion in the Dublin Museum may be seen circlets, fibula, diadems, torques, bracelets, rings, garters, crescents, brooches, braid balls, tiaras, ear-rings, etc., all of pure gold and the most exquisite workmanship.