Side by side with the gold ornaments in the National Museum in Dublin are relics of the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages in Ireland— stone and bronze discs and axes, decorated spear heads, daggers, swords, etc., showing a development covering several thousand years.
Sepulchral Monuments.— Belonging to the same distant age that produced this wealth in gold are the great sepulchral monuments that rise above so many Irish landscapes. The vast incised tumuli of New Grange, Knowth and Dowth are among the most remarkable in the world and rank after the pyramids of Egypt in the stupendous labor that must have been expended in their erection. They are the lead ing elevations in the assemblage of artificial moats, cairns, forts, chambers, catacombs, caves, crypts, monolith circles and pillar stones, figur ing in Irish literature as the royal cemetery of Brugh-na-Boinne, the burial place of the first authentic kings of Ireland of the Tuatha de Danaan. Here, near Slane, on the north bank of the River Boyne, nearly a score of the habitations of Ireland's royal dead are spread over an area three miles long by over a mile broad. At Dowth the general plan is of three central chambers, from the largest of which a long corridor leads to the world outside. Round the tumuli are the remains of circles of giant sentinel stones, after the plan of the Celtic me morials at Stonehenge. The names of the royal personages interred at Brugh-na-Boinne arc given in an Irish tract, the Senchas-na relec, or History of the Cemeteries, contained in the celebrated vellum compilation, na h'Uidhre," or °Book of the Dun Cow," a 12th century work copied from older Irish manuscripts. The cemetery of Croghan is called in the old documents Relig-na-Rig, or Burial Place of Kings, and has numerous sepul chral monuments. Tailtenn also figures in Irish literature as a royal seat and cemetery, and is still more celebrated as the scene of the Irish Olympics, the annual fairs and funeral games on the lines of those in Greece. Ceme tery, palaces, raths, stadia, sporting greens, beds of artificial ponds, etc., have been nearly obliter ated, and one large rath is the chief remnant of Tailtenn's former grandeur. At Ballylochloe in West Meath there is still a vast and won derful moat, the chief relic of a pagan ceme tery, and another near Clonard, visible for miles around. Of many of the others the material evidences remain, but the history is lost. There is, for example, a remarkable city of the dead on the ridge of the Loughcrew hills near Oldcastle in Meath. It comprises a truly marvelous collection of giant tumuli, cairns, cromlechs, funeral chambers, stones mystically carved and stone saucer-shaped sarcophagi of the same general character as those of Brugh na-Boinne. Yet not a word about this sepul chral assemblage is to be found in the old Irish books.
Royal Seats and Strongholds.— No less remarkable than the remains of these habita tions of the dead are the ruins of the habita tions of the living, and among these the great strongholds and residences of the Irish mon archs are of primary interest. Almost all the ancient residences of the high kings as well as of the minor kings, are known at the present day, and as there were many kings of several grades, and as each was required by the old Irish laws to maintain at least three separate establishments, the royal houses were numerous. Teimar or Tara was pre-eminently for cen turies the capital and chief royal seat in Ire land, and was at its zenith in the reign of the monarch Cormac, the son of Art, who reigned from 254 A.D. to 277, and is accounted among
the greatest of Ireland's kings. Cormac is credited with founding a university, having three separate colleges, and one reputed prod uct of his pen, the 'Teagasg Flatha,' or 'In structions to a Prince,' written for the benefit of his son, Cairbre, who succeeded him, has been preserved to us. On the northern slope of the hill are the remains of the great Ban queting Hall, where the Feis or Parliament of Tara held its sessions, the only structure in Tara that is not round or oval. The founda tions and ramparts of other buildings cele brated in Irish history are still to be seen — the Duma na Giall or Mound of the Hostages, the Rath Laegaere, the Rath Grainne, the Rath Caelchon, the Rath of the Kings, the House of Cormac, the Foiiad or Forum, the Rath na Sea naid or Rath of Synods, as well as wells and crosses, and the junction of the ancient national highways that led through the five provinces. Ailech of the Kings, a residence of the kings of Ulster, was another Irish royal seat of the first rank. Better preserved than Tara, it remains one of the most important ruins of Europe, with a great circular stone cashel of dry masonry, with walls 13 feet thick at the base and sloping gradually inwards. It is in teresting to observe that Aileach is one of the few spots in Ireland marked in its proper place by the geographer, Ptolemy of Alexandria, who flourished in the 2d century. Aileach is dis tinguished by Ptolemy as a royal residence. Another Irish royal seat is represented now by the ruined palace of Emain, now called Navan (N-Emain) Fort. It was for 600 years the residence of the kings of Ulster and attained its greatest glory in the 1st century of the Christian era during the reign of Concobair (Connor), the son of Nessa. It was the centre round which clustered the romantic tales of the Red Branch Knights, chief among whom was the youthful Cuchullain, the Achilles of the great Tain Bo. The imposing remains, con sisting of a great fortified mound surrounded by an immense circular rampart and fosse, the whole structure covering about 12 acres, lie two miles west of Armagh. They are typical of the condition of the other royal seats throughout the five principalities of Ireland. such as Cruachan, the chief palace of the kings of Connacht; Ailenn, now Knockaulin, one of the highest forts in Ireland, Dinnrigh, Nags, Liamhain (Leevan), Belach-Chmglais or Bal tinglass, the more important residences of the kings of Leinster, in all of which the great circular raths remain. There is another class of ancient palace, more patently strongholds than royal residences, and these are almost the earliest of all — great stone cashels or circular walls of immense thickness, enclosing large spaces, unmortarea; in which there are great quantities of masonry. Around their summits a chariot might be driven, within the area en closed horse races might be run. The most singular and imposing of these is Dun Aenghus on Inishmore, the chief of the Aran Islands, one of the remarkable ruins of the world. Inishmore, the most westward of the Aran Is lands, is fretworked from one end to the other with ruins and memorials of pagan and early Christian times. There is hardly a place in western Europe of similar area enclosing a like multitude of archeological records; its nearest parallel is •Carnac in Brittany.