Transcriber’s Note:
The term “halberd” and “halbert” have bothbeen used on numerous occasions. “Halbert” is a variant of “Halberd”and has been left as printed in the original text.
THE BRONZE AGE IN IRELAND
THE BRONZE AGE
IN IRELAND
BY
GEORGE COFFEY
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY
HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES OF IRELAND
KEEPER OF IRISH ANTIQUITIES IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM
AND PROFESSOR R.H.A. DUBLIN
WITH ELEVEN PLATES AND EIGHTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS
HODGES, FIGGIS, & CO., Limited,
104 GRAFTON STREET, DUBLIN
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO.,
LONDON
1913
Printed at the
By Ponsonby and Gibbs.
PREFACE
In this book on the Bronze Age in Ireland I have collected andcollated all my work on the period. Much of it I have alreadypublished in the “Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy”and elsewhere. I have long felt the need of a book on theBronze Age in Ireland, as hitherto none has appeared dealingadequately with the archæology of that period in this country.
Within the last few years it has been recognized that theBronze-Age civilization in Europe did not consist of a seriesof isolated communities, each developing its own type of objectsand decorations, but that there was a community of ideas andforms extending from Mycenæ all over the European continent.
I have described the various forms of Bronze-Age implementsof peace and of war found in Ireland, and have shownhow they are connected with similar types on the continentof Europe. M. J. Déchelette, of the Roanne Museum, one ofthe first authorities on the Bronze Age, agrees with mein ascribing a Mycenæan origin to certain forms of Bronze-Ageimplements.
How this Mycenæan influence penetrated to Ireland is amatter on which there is some difference of opinion, andpossibly new discoveries may throw additional light on theproblem. As I have shown both in this and in former works,the most probable route seems to be that of the Danube andthe Elbe, and thence by way of Scandinavia to Ireland. It isto be hoped that now—with a concentrating of Irish interestson Irish affairs a new impetus will be given to the studyof the history of our country, and that many workers maybe found in the fields of archæology and of all subjectsconnected with our past.
In my “Guide to the Celtic Antiquities of the ChristianPeriod” I have given the history of Irish art in the Christianperiod; in “New Grange (Brugh na Boine) and other IncisedTumuli in Ireland, the influence of Crete and the Ægeanin the extreme west of Europe in early times,” I have givenas much as is known of the pre-Christian period up to theBronze Age; and in this, my latest work, which has beenmuch interrupted by illness, I have endeavoured to completethe history of ancient art in Ireland.
I have to thank the Councils of the Royal Irish Academyand of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland for the loanof a number of blocks. In other cases drawings have been madedirect from objects in the National Museum by Miss E. Barnes.
The plates are from photographs taken by the photographero