Some illustrations are described as “One-half size” or similar. These descriptions relate to the size of the image in the original printed book and not to the size they are displayed in this e-text. For reference: a full page was 26cm in height; Plate XIX is an example of a full page image; efforts have been made to retain the sizes of images relative to each other.

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THE
LAKE DWELLINGS
OF
IRELAND:

OR ANCIENT
LACUSTRINE HABITATIONS OF ERIN,
COMMONLY CALLED CRANNOGS.

BY
W. G. WOOD-MARTIN, M.R.I.A., F.R.H.A.A.I.,
LIEUT.-COLONEL 8TH BRIGADE NORTH IRISH DIVISION, R.A.;
Author of “Sligo and the Enniskilleners”;
“History of Sligo, from the Earliest Ages to the close of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.”

DUBLIN:
HODGES, FIGGIS & CO., GRAFTON STREET.
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
LONDON:
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.
1886.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

DUBLIN: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

[Pg v]

The object the writer has in view in this Publication is to place on record the remarkable discoveries made in a department of Archæology hitherto almost unnoticed in Ireland, except in the Proceedings, Catalogues, and Journals of various learned Societies. So far back as 1861 a writer remarked that such a work would be “a real boon to archæology,” yet in the interval none has appeared. The cause is not far to seek. A publication treating of the habits and social economy of long-forgotten generations is little calculated to gain a rapid foothold with the general public, by whom the study of the past may probably be considered dull as well as useless reading. To many, however, it proves most interesting to observe—despite widest variations of climatic conditions—the great similarity of the ways and habits of man while in a rude uncultivated state—acting as it were by a[Pg vi] common instinct—and again to trace his upward progress towards civilization. A wide tract in this field of archæological research is fortunately opened up by a comparison of the Irish Lake Dwellings and their “finds” with those of other countries, more especially with the discoveries brought into such prominent notice by Keller in Switzerland, and Munro in Scotland.

To the late Sir William Wilde belongs the honour of first drawing general attention to the water habitations of Erin; his labours have been ably followed up by W. F. Wakeman, who has so largely contributed to the Journal of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association of Ireland both Papers and Drawings illustrative of the subject. In the present work, Kinahan, Reeves, Graves, Wilde, and other specialists, have been freely quoted, as evidenced in the text; in short, the observations of every author have been utilized, provided they touched on points that could tend in any degree to elucidate the subject under consideration. “A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees further of the two”: thus the writer, standing in this line of investigation on the eminence created by his predecessors, may perhaps be enabled to lay before his readers a distinct and comprehensive view of the Ancient Lake Dwellings in Ireland. Recent discoveries and new matter will be found in these pages; but the special intention has been to collect carefully all the information hitherto furnished by the explorers of Irish Lake Dwellings, and to present that information in a condensed form, “an abridgment of all that is pleasant,” so as to render it acceptable to[Pg vii] archæologists, and perchance agreeable to the general reader, who, not having had his attention previously directed towards the subject, can scarcely be supposed willing to explore the voluminous records of scientific societies in search of items connected with the question of lacustrine remains in Ireland.

This Publication may, perhaps, help to diffuse more generally the knowledge already possessed, so that when fresh discoveries are made in any new locality increased care may be devoted to the exploration; for every artificial island is not necessarily of remote antiquity, and the most careful examination is essential before arriving at a decision respecting the probable period of the primary construction of a crannog. It would be fortunate indeed should these pages excite sufficient attention to prove, even remotely, the cause of having the various relics indicative of the social economy and industries of the inhabitants of our ancient “water-towns” arranged systematically in the new Museum of the Science and Art Department, now in course of construction in Dublin. The facility thus afforded of studying these antiquities—some of them safely protected during untold centuries by their covering of peat and water—could not fail to lead to a clearer comprehension of the real condition of ancient culture and civilization in Erin.

The Council of the Royal Irish Academy most generously permitted for this work the use of all the woodcuts in their possession illustrative of lacustrine remains, and the same favour was accorded by the Royal Historical[Pg viii] and Archæological Association of Ireland, through the Secretary, the Rev. James Graves.

Plate VIII. and figures 18, 27, 57, 129, 188, 196, 197, and 216 were granted by the Council of the Royal Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland; figures 206 and 207 by the Society of Antiquaries of London, together with plate III. taken from The Archæologia; figures 6, 7, and 8, by the Anthropological Society; figures 214 and 215 by the well-known antiquary, John Evans; plate XXXVIII., by W. T. Lockwood; and by permission of Robert Mac Adam figures 126, 147, and 148, are reproduced from the Ulster Journal of Archæology. As far as practicable, every hitherto published illustration bearing on the subject was applied for, and, with but one exception, most kindly granted.

Much valuable information was furnished by W. F. Wakeman, who has also drawn most of the illustrations, their character and expression being well carried out by the engraver, William Oldham.

Cleveragh, Sligo,
October, 1885.

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Pages 74, 168, n., 182, 234, for Cervus elephas, read Cervus elaphus.

Page 90—fig. 65, for No. 1 Crannog, read No. 4 Crannog.

” 180—Crannog-na-n-Duini (see p. 150) is omitted in the enumeration of sites in the Co. Donegal.

” 181—Fort Lough is situated in the Co. Donegal, not (as given) in the Co. Derry.

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ORIGIN, CONSTRUCTION, AND CIVILIZATION

OF THE

ANCIENT LACUSTRINE HABITATIONS OF IRELAND,

AS ILLUSTRATED BY THEIR REMAINS, AND THE ANTIQUITIES
FOUND IN AND AROUND THEM.

[Pg 1]

LAKE DWELLINGS OF IRELAND.

Let us travel back in thought some thousands of years, and picture to ourselves the aspect of Erin at that period. After all, this retrospect is comparatively short, if we take as correct the present computed period of man’s existence on this globe. Geology now assigns to the human race a duration it was long considered heterodox to imagine: generation upon generation, who shall say how many, lie beneath the sod over which our footsteps now pass.

The words of Genesis are in no way antagonistic to the discoveries of modern geologists, nor even to the theory of evolution. That the term “day,” as used in the Book of Genesis, is not to be understood as confined to a mere duration of twenty-four hours, but should be taken as an undefined period of time, is a point now so generally admitted that it is scarcely needful to quote the words of Scripture, that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” In common parlance we speak of events that occurred “in days of old” without intention to limit the idea to periods of twenty-four hours: the form of expression may be held to cover an indefinite number of centuries. In the modern acceptation of the word used to denote the duration of twenty-four hours, we consider the day to be represented by the morning and the evening: there is the brightness of morn followed by the gloom[Pg 2] of eve. How different is the idea conveyed by the words of Moses, who was versed in all the learning of the Egyptians, “the Evening and the Morning were the first day,” and so on to the end of the six days or intervals of time. While in its course through the heavens our planet was in process of solidifying, “the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Here we have the evening: afterwards “there was light,” that is to say, morning followed, marking full completion of the first day, or interval of time in the earth’s progress towards its present state. It is therefore plain that the term evening cannot be considered to represent a decline from the state of the previous period; rather it betokens the nature of the morn about to follow. We watch with interest the signs of the evening, not in relation to the day which has already passed away, but as foreshowing the kind of morn that is to succeed.

In looking back through the pages of history we arrive at a period when all written records cease; but the remains of the dwellings of man, of his arts and industries, enable us to trace out in some degree the general routine of his every-day life. In the matter now under consideration, prehistoric archæology interests chiefly as demonstrating, in a practical manner, the state of the people who occupied Erin long before the beginning of authentic history. Recent researches enable us to lift the veil that heretofore concealed the past of subsided lake-dwellings in Ireland, to bid

to realize to a great extent the physical past of their inhabitants, and in imagination to partake of their daily life. If till lately the learned were on this subject purblind, it is the less surprising that the uncultured fisherman, gliding in his skiff over the placid surface of the waters and peering into the clear depths, should have failed to recognize that the mouldering stems projecting from the[Pg 3] oozy bottom were traces of the love of security of his forefathers, that in the muddy matrix of the ever-accumulating lacustrine deposit, are preserved material evidence of a state of society long since passed away.

Until the first half of this nineteenth century all memory of the ancient lake-dwellers of Ireland seemed to have vanished completely, but with the study of ethnology the interest excited in tracing out the idiosyncrasies of the various races of man penetrated to Ireland also, and now “few things can be more interesting than the spectacle of an ancient, long-forgotten people, thus rising, as it were, from the waters of oblivion to take that place which properly belongs to it in the history of the human race.”[1] Beyond the limits of history and archæology there extends a boundless period of human existence. Far back in this indefinite past we catch glimpses of a shadowy race, the first dwellers in Erin, who, it may be fairly surmised, were in a very rude state—nomad hunters and fishers, subsisting by the chase, which they supplemented by indigenous wild fruits:

They formed their ordinary implements and their weapons of warfare from flint, stone, bone, shells, and even wood.

New comer succeeded new comer in Erin. This epoch was eminently characterized by the sway of brute force—a warlike front alone secured immunity from spoliation; in short, these times were governed on

Wooded nature of the Country.—The ancient classical name of Ireland was Ierne, which some etymologists derive through its Greek form from the Celtic, signifying, they say, “the extremity,”[2][Pg 4] the “Ultima Thule” of classic writers; a mystic land, girded by unknown seas, and protected by phantom dangers, the product of imagination,

The witty and eccentric Dean Swift, remarking on the custom of writers of his day, said:—

It is strange how long this ignorance both as regards Ireland and the “Dark Continent” continued. One of the earliest names of Ireland, given her by her own native poets, is very descriptive, Fidh-inis, “the woody island.” This name at once brings before our minds the then characteristic feature of the country, even as its modern poetical designation, “The Emerald Isle,” depicts the luxuriant vegetation watered by the cloud-masses of the Atlantic. The bogs of Ireland, however, speak even more eloquently on this point than her bards, for in these bogs vestiges of ancient forests are found buried, sometimes at great depth below the present surface; the remains of oak, birch, mountain ash, alder, yew, beech, deal, &c., testify to the variety of the arboreous vegetation: they lie either prostrate in a horizontal position, or bear marks of having been felled by man. According to old bardic accounts, the first proceeding chronicled of the earliest settlers was the clearing of timber off many great plains in various parts of Ireland, evidently showing the paucity of arable land.

Wild Animals.—This continuous forest must have swarmed with wild animals of every description. Wolves, which even in the present day prove a scourge occasionally in parts of Europe, were numerous; the caves which abounded in the country were the home of the bear, and the boar fed beneath the deep forest shade. In these remote times, too, the Irish elk, with its huge, broad, branching antlers, a creature of immense size and strength, was existent. Remains of this gigantic deer, the Megaceros Hibernicus, have been found, covered by the peat at various depths, sometimes close to the surface; and from allusions in Irish poetry and legends[3][Pg 5] it is more than probable that it continued to exist down to a much later period than most of the other animals now extinct. In a very curious legend, one of the great Irish bards who is reputed to have lived in the third century, and to have himself attained a very advanced age, is described as reciting at a banquet a poem in which he extolled the greatness and strength of his contemporaries and forefathers, and described the tall gigantic deer hunted by them. His listeners laughed incredulously, whereat the old man rose in anger, and going to a neighbouring heap where were piled the relics of bygone hunts, he selected therefrom a shank-bone, and returning to the banquet, took from the table one of the shank-bones of the deer on which the guests were then feasting, and dropped it through the hollow of the bone he had brought in. This legend of the dim old times tends to prove that at a very remote period tradition alone kept up the memory of the Irish Bighorn.[4] The fact of the co-existence of the Megaceros with man does not, however, rest on mere legend; for in a locality called the “Elk Hole,” Co. Wexford, numerous skeletons of the extinct deer have been found in company with the remains of man, also a skull and horns, in the “kitchen midden” of the largest of the lake dwellings in Loughrea, Co. Galway, measuring over 13 feet from tip to tip of the antlers;[5] whilst in the refuse heap at Breagho, Co. Fermanagh, portion of an antler (according to the opinion of Professor Owen) was discovered, sawn and perforated with holes. It does not necessarily follow that this relic had belonged to an animal killed and utilized by the lake-dwellers; the horn may have been found by them on some spot where it had rested for ages. However, in the lake-dwelling at Cloonfinlough, Co. Roscommon, bones of the Megaceros Hibernicus have been dug up in a very broken state, as if fractured for the purpose of extracting the marrow, whilst remains of the Megaceros, in company with a greenstone celt, were discovered in a cave at Cappagh, the bones broken and formed into implements by the hands of[Pg 6] man.[6] In Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, wherein is the site of a lake dwelling, remains of the Cervus tarandus, or reindeer,[7] were found, together with those of the bear; and near Ballybetagh, Co. Dublin, similar remains were associated with those of the Megaceros, whilst elsewhere bones of the Cervus alces, or true elk, have been exhumed, and traces of the mammoth, Elephas primigenius, have been found near Dungannon.

Climatic Changes.—If reliance can be placed on the accounts of classical writers, it would appear that two thousand years ago an excessive degree of cold prevailed in the climate of Europe. The great number and extent, of forests, lakes, and morasses, which according to classical authors existed in their time, must have rendered the climate of Europe exceedingly cold and moist. The forests have nearly all been felled, the stagnant water drained, thus producing a very considerable difference between the temperature described as existing in these latitudes 2000 years ago and in the present day. What occurred on the Continent occurred also in Ireland, which, shaded with forests and abounding in marshes, must have had an atmosphere more frigid than if its soil were then, as now, freely exposed to solar influence.

Claudian applied to Ireland the epithet ‘icy’: Strabo looked on it as a country scarcely habitable; Mela described the climate as cold and unfavourable: however, to counterbalance these authorities, it may be inferred from Tacitus that Ireland was considered milder in climate than Gaul; in that point of view Æthicus says it was superior to Britain, and Solinus states that it abounded in pastures. Owing to the disappearance of Erin’s former leafy mantle, and the absence of pestilential exhalations from stagnant fens, the summers have become much colder and the winters warmer than in remote times.

The turf-cutter in Ireland finds that[Pg 7] “usually the roots and trunks of the trees under the peat, or in the lowest strata, are principally those of the oak and yew, as if prior to the growth of the peat the low country was a vast forest of these trees. It would appear that subsequently mosses and other peat-producing plants began to grow and flourish, until eventually they stopped the drainage, and formed an envelope of peat, thus killing the trees, which one by one toppled over and were buried in the succeeding growth of peat. After the disappearance of the major portion of the oak trees, the bogs, year by year, gradually increased in depth, until apparently suddenly, for some as yet unexplained cause, their growth ceased, and on their surface forests, principally of deals, sprang up.”[8] Thus we see that since the glacial period there have been great changes in the aspect and the surface of Ireland: first, the great oak forest age; then an age in which was an active growth of peat; thirdly, a period when forests of deal sprang up; fourthly, again a period of luxuriant peat growth.

The remains of human handicraft, in the form of log-houses or lake-dwellings, have been found buried under each and all these peat growths: a depth of 25 feet had overgrown the log-house discovered at Inver, Co. Donegal, and on the floor-level, outside the building, were traces of the corkers of the great oak forest age. It is practically impossible to estimate the rate at which a bog grows: if there be a fall, and consequent drainage, it will increase but little, whereas an undrained bog augments with considerable rapidity: so many contingencies are thus introduced as practically to invalidate in a great degree calculations regarding the growth of peat over prehistoric or other remains. G. H. Kinahan has estimated that in undisturbed conditions each year’s growth, represented by a layer or lamina somewhat resembling the markings on a forest tree, would average one hundred laminæ to the foot in white or surface turf, two to three hundred to the foot in brown turf, and six to eight hundred to the foot in black turf, so that the accumulation of 25 feet above the log-house at Inver, according to this painstaking calculation, would represent an age of startling remoteness.

Lakes.—Ireland was a land of lakes as well as of forests, for the white-shell marl, which forms the substratum of peat bog in low-lying situations, was formerly covered by water, till gradually displaced by the encroachments of the surrounding[Pg 8] bog. Many of the smiling districts of to-day were then covered by water—

Lakes were thickly scattered over the face of the country—lakes of irregular shape connected by stagnant shallows—the majority of small size, half marsh, half water, fringed with forest, and abounding in fish: The axe of the primitive pioneer and the modern engineers’ spade have revolutionized the aspect of the landscape: this process however was gradual, the forests were only driven back little by little, and it is comparatively yesterday since draining operations on a large scale have been carried out; within the memory of persons still living there were numerous localities throughout the kingdom, where

It is only after drainage on a great, or rather thorough scale, that anything like complete inspection of the original structure of a lake dwelling, or any extensive “find” can be hoped for, the majority of such sites being surrounded by soft pulpy bog to such a depth and extent as to bewilder the most enthusiastic explorer.

Lough or Loch is the term applied both in Ireland and Scotland to a lake: it also signifies an arm of the sea. The shores of small sheets of water, and marshes with sedge-grown borders, were generally surrounded by bog, and the annual growth of this latter substance gradually encroached on the lake, till its former shining surface was changed into a peat moss.

It has been remarked, that occasionally the silt now occupying the former lake-bed, demonstrates the fact, that the under stratum was formed in great measure by decomposed vegetable matter, probably aqueous plants and the shed foliage of the encircling forest: the later deposit is considerably mixed with fine clay. The most probable solution of this problem is, that on the disappearance of the woods the exposed surface of the soil was washed down from the surrounding heights by every shower that fell, and if the land were tilled this denudation would be accelerated. Consequent upon the discharge of the water deepening and extending the outlet, and the contemporaneous deposition of matter held in solution in the lake-bed, small loughs in some[Pg 9] instances now occupy sites which, from natural evidences, it is apparent must formerly have been extensive sheets of water; in other instances the large lake of ancient days, is now represented by several of diminutive size, connected by marshes that had at one time formed part of a great whole. In ancient times, however, the lakes most frequently appear to have gradually increased in height: this was due to the silting up of the outlet, under any circumstance a long and tedious process; for though the aqueous growth on the bottom of the outlet would, during the summer, impede and catch the heavy particles washed down or held in solution by the current, yet in winter, when it decayed, most of the accumulated matter would be swept away, so that in a hundred years the increase in height of the outlet would be scarcely perceptible. What then must be the age of lake dwellings, where three and even four superincumbent floors testify to the necessity of providing against the ever-rising water level!

Lakes, marshes, and woods, have in all ages afforded shelter to the conquered, and have often enabled them to set the invader at defiance. Pliny describes the Caledonian forests as “Romanorum armis terminus.” A race inferior in numbers, in arms, or in physical development, would avail themselves of artificial or natural bulwarks to ward off the attacks of dreaded enemies, and water and woods have from the earliest times formed important factors in the art of defence.

One cause to which may be ascribed the first erection of lake dwellings in Ireland was the original paucity of open country, for on the arrival of the first colonists (if credence is to be given to the early native annals) the only plain not covered with forest was the level district stretching between Dublin and Howth. This statement of the superabundance of forest is, to some extent, corroborated by the vast number of local names derived from Irish words signifying woods or timber of some description. However, the most probable cause of their erection was to serve as places of refuge, for these island homes would necessarily provide safety and protection; indeed such, in their later or historical existence, was undoubtedly the cause of their continuous occupation. It is quite obvious that in primitive times, especially, a habitation on water was of great security—more secure than could be a stockaded doon or fort.

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Lake dwellings have been universally employed both in ancient and modern times: similar physical surroundings originated practically the same style of structures amongst far distant and even ocean-separated tribes. “Man is moulded to a remarkable degree, physically as well as mentally, by manner of living, food, and climate. Among barbarous nations,” says Humboldt, “we find a tribal, rather than an individual physiognomy; there are no varieties of intellectual development to stamp the face with diversity of character: thus the slave-dealers in Upper Egypt never ask for the individual character of a slave; they only inquire where he was born, his character being that of his tribe.”

Let us now, like Puck,

and inspect these habitations for ourselves. Ancient classical writers are not altogether silent on the subject. Hippocrates, who lived upwards of 400 years B.C., when describing the manner of life of the inhabitants of Phasis, a region of the Black Sea, says that the country was fenny and wooded, the climate warm and humid; but despite these disadvantages, the natives lived entirely in the swamps, “for their dwellings are constructed of wood and reeds, and are erected amidst the waters.” He adds that they seldom practise walking, either in the city or the market, but sail up and down in canoes constructed out of single trees, for there are many canals there.[9]

An account is given by Herodotus of the abode of a Thracian tribe, the Pæonians, who lived on Lake Prasias, now Lake Takinos, situated in the country known in the present day as Roumelia. The habitations of this tribe were reared on platforms, raised on piles above the water, and connected with the shore by a narrow causeway of similar formation. This tribe successfully resisted the attack of a Persian army under the satrap Myabyzus. The Father of History thus describes this settlement:—[Pg 11]“The habitations on the lake of Prasias are of this nature—floors laid on lofty poles stand in the middle of the lake,[10] with a narrow entrance by one bridge from the mainland. All the inhabitants used to drive, at their common expense, the piles that served to support the floors. Subsequently they have adopted the following regulation: for every woman a man marries he is to drive three piles, which they procure from a mountain called Orbelus. Now, every man takes several wives. They dwell here in the following manner: each has a hut in which he lives, and a trap-door in the floor opening down to the water. To their horses and draught cattle they give as fodder fish, of which there is such an abundance that when one opens his trap-door, and lets down his empty basket into the lake by a cord, after waiting only a short time, he hauls it up full of fish.”[11] The fishermen of this lake still continue, as in the time of Herodotus, to inhabit huts built over the water.[12]

In Layard’s work, descriptive of the discoveries on the site of Nineveh, there is an engraving of a bas-relief from the palace of Sennacherib, which represents an artificial island, apparently formed by weaving together the tall reeds that grew on the banks of the Euphrates; and a prehistoric age is indicated by the dwellings which existed in the Gocktscha lake in Armenia.

It is certain that lake dwellings were used as places of permanent abode. Remains of such works of ancient date are, on the continent of Europe, by no means confined to the area of Switzerland, to which country they were for some time popularly supposed to belong exclusively; they have been found in Savoy, in the north of Italy, Würtemberg, Bavaria, Austria (Carinthia), Hungary, Mecklenburg, Denmark, Pomerania, Brandenburg, and also in France. If dependence can be placed on remains found in these numerous and widely-distributed sites, many of them would appear to have been occupied so late as the period of the Romans; and the silence of their historians on the subject is therefore singular, as in general the characteristic traits of the tribes with which the Roman legions came in contact were depicted with remarkable fidelity.

In Switzerland, during the year 1829, an excavation was made on the shore at Ober Meilen, on the lake of Zurich, for the purpose of deepening the harbour; and although piles and other antiquities were then discovered, they appear to have attracted no attention. So matters stood till the winter of 1853-4, when an extraordinary drought and long-continued frost caused the lakes to sink to a[Pg 12] level never before known. This circumstance presented great facilities for the reclamation of land along the shores, and the inhabitants of Ober Meilen proceeded to rescue from the water some of the land thus temporarily exposed. When making excavations to form an embankment, they came upon a net-work of wooden piles, a great number of stags’ horns, and various implements, only two of which were of bronze. The discovery of this settlement aroused peculiar interest, not merely on account of its being apparently the first recorded, but because it evidently belonged almost exclusively to the stone age. Similar structures were immediately after discovered in almost all the lakes of Switzerland, the favourite site being a sunny sheltered bay, with soft and gently-shelving bottom. They were of three classes—first, pile dwellings: the piles, sometimes 30 feet in length, were driven into the bottom of the lake, and occasionally further strengthened by the deposit of stones around their base: these constructions always occur in deep water. Secondly, frame pile dwellings, in which the piles, instead of being driven into the mud, were fixed by a mortise and tenon arrangement into split trunks lying horizontally along the bottom of the lake. Thirdly, fascine dwellings, formed by layers of fagots, alternating with brushwood, clay, gravel, and stones, one over the other, till the top reached the required level above the surface of the water; piles were driven in around to bind the heap together, and the whole overlaid by a wooden floor, upon which the dwellings were erected.

This construction bears a close family resemblance to the Irish type, in which the huts stood, so to speak, on terra firma, and not en l’air, above the surface of the water. Like Irish dwellings of analogous formation, this species of substructure has as yet been found only in small lakes with soft and muddy bottoms, and of little depth and extent; they owe their origin to the fact, that piles driven into the oozy lake bottom could not have supported the necessary weight; for, if heavily laden, they must have sunk altogether below the surface of the water, or at least could not have retained their relative positions. This formation seems to have[Pg 13] been of more ancient date than the artificial stages upon piles alone, inasmuch as few, if any, instances have been discovered in which bronze remains are associated with fascine dwellings. So far as can be judged from the manner in which the timbers are mortised together, as well as from the characteristics of the fictile ware found, their inhabitants differed in nothing from those who, owing to their better acquaintance with metal, constructed dwellings of greater solidity, in deeper water, and under more varied conditions. “It was impossible to adopt the fascine structure in the larger lakes, for it must have been foreseen that the waves which could drive amongst the upright piles of the usual pile dwelling without injuring them, would, in stormy weather, wash over the edges of the fascine platform and tear it in pieces.”[13]

The “fascine” lake dwelling in the lake of Fuschl, near the Mondsee in Austria, resembles, in most respects, those found in Switzerland, Ireland, and Scotland. This little lake is rich in fish, and its banks abound with game; on its western shore, in a little inlet, lies an artificial island nearly circular, about fifty paces in diameter, separated from the mainland by a narrow channel, now almost choked with peat-moss and marsh plants. The islet is only just above the ordinary water-level, and on inspection its construction was found to be as follows:—

First, a thick layer of peat-moss, then a stratum of branches, principally of mountain pine and dwarf birch: the foundation consists of large boughs or trunks of pine trees, the top pointing inwards. Small piles were driven through the different layers to hold the mass together, whilst on the exterior, a number of much smaller piles were driven into the lake-bed, probably to protect the structure from wave action. The difference in general constructive details between the dwellings on Helvetian and Hibernian lakes may be accounted for by the depth of water of the former, and the shallow muddy bottoms of the latter. Remains of a dwelling have been found embedded in the peat-bogs by which the hill of Chamblon is surrounded. The peat-cutters of Les Uttins, discovered horizontal beams with mortises, and a wooden roadway across the marsh leading to the spot. There are two settlements here, both very ancient: one is situated at a distance of 1850 yards from the lake, the other at a distance of 2200 yards, in an alluvial[Pg 14] plain formed since their erection. Dr. Keller also describes ‘steinberge’ or stonehills, i. e. elevations on the bottom of the lakes, composed of stones and gravel artificially deposited. These were formed by the natives on natural shallows, for the purpose of lessening the depth of water. At Nidau, in the lake of Bienne, there is an artificial island encircled with piles, planks being laid horizontally at the bottom to retain in place the stones of which it is composed. At Möringen, in the same lake, there is a structure of similar type; whilst a large canoe, which had probably been used at its formation, was found lying at the bottom laden with a cargo of stones. Structures almost identical with the Irish have been found in the lakes of Inkwyler, Nussbaumen, and Wauwyl. The pile dwellings of Switzerland, i. e. those erected in deep water and in the larger lakes, bear a much closer resemblance to the description given by Herodotus than to the dwellings discovered in Ireland and Scotland. The settlement at Morges, on the Lake of Geneva, was 1200 feet in length by 120 in width, so that if entirely covered by a platform its area, according to the computation of M. Troyan, would have been sufficiently ample to accommodate a population of upwards of 1200 souls. Sometimes, as at Wangan, the villages were built close to the shore, and seem, as in Ireland, to have been protected by palisades.

The framework of the huts was probably made of logs and wattles, or of hurdles plastered over with clay: portions of the latter, with marks of the wattling still distinct on them, have been drawn from their watery bed. The Swiss dwellings appear to have been rectangular, resembling perhaps the châlets of the present day: it has not been decided whether they were divided into rooms, but, just as in the Irish dwellings, each hut had its hearth, of which the flat stones still often lie in situ; the invariable presence of clay weights indicates that most families possessed a loom, whilst from the remains of straw and reeds, it may be inferred that the roofs were thatched. The wide chronological range of these remains is very remarkable. The settlements in which stone implements have been found are more widely spread and more numerous than those of the metallic period. In Switzerland these lake villages appear to have commenced to decay, or to have been abandoned towards the close of the bronze age, and to have almost ceased to exist on the introduction of iron. In the stone era the bones of wild animals, of stags, of urus, of aurocles, and wild boar, are[Pg 15] found, whilst in the metallic ages remains of domesticated animals preponderate more and more, till the final abandonment of these “water-towns.” The remains of human handicraft around the dwellings illustrate the habits, domestic usages, and skill, of their inhabitants during untold centuries; but the most striking fact is not so much their similarity to the Irish structures, as the identity in form and use of the articles discovered in them, both those employed in war and in the chase, as also the culinary and domestic implements, the objects of personal decoration, and those employed in the toilet.[14]

Scottish archæologists were aroused by the lacustrine discoveries on the Continent to investigation of similar remains occurring in their own country. It was found that early historic references to island forts, and incidental notices of the exposure of artificial islands, consequent on drainage operations, had been entirely overlooked. A crannog, that of Lochinadorb, in Moray, was honoured by a visit from Edward I. in 1303, and was considered of such importance, that thirty-three years later Edward III. led an army to its relief. A crannog in Loch Kinord, in Aberdeenshire, is mentioned in history in the year 1335: it received James IV. as a guest in 1506, and enjoyed a continuous existence until 1648, when its fortifications were razed by order of Parliament. Forty years after the dismantling of this island fortress, the crannog of Lochan-Eilean, in Strathspey, is described as “useful to the country in times of trouble or wars, for the people put in their goods and children here, and it is easily defended.” Artificial islands formed of wood or stone, often identical with those a short time previously ascertained to have existed in Ireland, were found more or less spread over the entire of Scotland. These have been lately classified and considerably added to by Dr. Munro, and in his work[15] at least fifty-three well-authenticated discoveries of wooden lake structures in Scotland are enumerated.

The Dowalton settlement, in the lake of that name, in Wigtownshire, seems to have been abandoned by its inhabitants at an early period: nothing mediæval was found on the site; a copper coin indeed (described, however, as of doubtful character) was picked up; but as it may have been dropped into the water at any period,[Pg 16] its presence need not disturb such inference as we may draw from the other articles discovered. Mr. Stuart says, “there is a peculiar interest in the small colony of Dowalton, from its neighbourhood to the site of Ptolemy’s Roman town of Leucophibia … and that at least one object of Roman workmanship … has been found amongst the relics of the old inhabitants of the islands. It was only a matter of conjecture how it came there—whether in the course of commerce, by gift, or by appropriation after the removal of their Roman neighbours. It seems, however, not unreasonable to regard the occurrence of a Roman vessel at Dowalton, associated as it is with relics which are elsewhere found in early sepulchral cairns and British hut circles, as pointing to a period of occupation of the islands not later, and probably earlier, than that of the Roman settlement.” The list of antiquities brought to light at Dowalton is therefore extremely valuable for Irish Archæologists, as it included specimens of almost everything usually found in Irish crannogs (with the exception of the copper coin of doubtful character), also of a bronze vessel of undoubted Roman manufacture.

The Irish lake dwellings have, over and over again, yielded articles precisely similar to the annexed list,[16] but as a rule they are more prolific in objects of early manufacture, which, from their style of ornamentation, are commonly referred to a period from the fifth to the tenth century. Dr. Munro remarks, that although we cannot “argue definitely from the present geographical distribution of Scottish lake dwellings, the indications are so clearly suggestive of their having been peculiar to those districts formerly occupied by Celtic races, that the significance of this generalization cannot be overlooked.”

The unlooked-for discovery of lake dwellings in Yorkshire, resembling those of Ireland and Scotland, proves that in Britain[Pg 17] also there had been a lacustrine population in times probably prehistoric. During the execution of drainage operations in the Holderness district, bone tools and fragments of piles were exhumed: this led to the discovery of the remains of lake dwellings. The excavations made it apparent that the construction, as is observable also in many Irish crannogs, was of two ages—the stone and the bronze. In the upper stratum, bronze objects, then rude stone, flint, and bone weapons. As in the Irish so in the British remains, the very dressing of the timber framework demonstrates the fact of the constructors having worked in the lower portion with stone, and in the upper with metal hatchets.

It may be remarked that the great city of London seems to have risen from a collection of rude pile dwellings, as traces of these structures have been found both near London-Wall and at Southwark. They are thus described by General Lane-Fox:—“Upon looking over the ground, my attention was at once attracted by a number of piles, the decayed tops of which appeared above the unexcavated portions of the peat, dotted here and there over the whole of the space cleared.… Commencing on the south, a row of them ran north and south on the west side: to the right of these a curved row, as if forming part of a ring. Higher up, and running obliquely across the ground, was a row of piles having a plank about an inch and half thick, and a foot broad, placed along the south face, as if binding the piles together.… The points of the piles were inserted from one to two feet in the gravel, and were for the most part well preserved, but all the tops had rotted off at about two feet above the gravel, which must have been the surface of the ground, or of the water at the time these structures were in existence.”[17] The vast majority of the relics belonged to the Roman era, but there were others of ruder workmanship. The kitchen middens contained cockle, mussel, oyster, and periwinkle shells: amongst the animal remains were those of the red deer, horse, wild boar, goat, dog, and the Bos-primigenius, Trochoceros, Longifrons, and Frontosus. The superincumbent strata varied from 18 to 21 feet in depth. The Thames, formerly a less deep but[Pg 18] wider river than at present, appears to have had a pile-dwelling population established on its shallows at various favourable points. At Kew, near the mouth of the Brent, piles have been disclosed to view, marking as is supposed the site of an ancient “water-town;” and at Barnes, in the opposite bend of the stream, similar remains have been observed associated with flints, celts, and other primitive relics. Well-authenticated lacustrine sites have been discovered at Wretham Mere, in Norfolk;[18] at Barton Mere, near Bury St. Edmund’s;[19] on Cold Ash Common, Berks;[20] and in Llangorse lake, near Brecon, South Wales.[21]

Dr. Munro is of opinion that the lake dwellings of Scotland were erected by the semi-Romanized Celtic inhabitants, as a means of protection when they were left to contend against the attacks of the Angles, the Picts, and the Scots, upon the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain; but when Cæsar arrived on the banks of the Thames the use of wooden stakes, palisading, and piles, for defensive purposes, was, as described by him,[22] common amongst the Britons—defences which were in fact of the nature of the palisading with which Irish and Scotch lake dwellings were surrounded. These works seem to have been of an enduring character, for the Venerable Bede, writing at the commencement of the eighth century, states that some of the stakes retained their position even in his day. A very interesting account given by Adulfeda, Syrian Prince and historian, who wrote about the commencement of the fourteenth century, depicts the Apamæan lake as a collection of small sheets of water of little depth, linked together by huge swamps. The string of lakelets was margined with dense borders of reeds, flags, and willows, and abounded in game and fish. Adulfeda describes the most northerly lake of this chain as “commonly called the lake of the Christians, because[Pg 19] it is inhabited by Christian fishermen who live here on the lake in wooden huts built upon piles.”[23]

Venice, the once proud Queen of the Adriatic, the whilom mart of Europe, with her lofty campanile, her beautiful temples, and her marble palaces, rising vision-like from her watery bed, was in origin but a cluster of fisher huts perched on piles in the shallow lagoons at the mouth of the Po, a site selected by these toilers of the sea for security and refuge from the ravages of the Huns under Attila. In the commencement of the sixteenth century, when the Spaniards marched on Mexico, “they saw, as they passed along, several large towns resting on piles, and reaching far into the water, a kind of architecture which found great favour with the Aztecs.” These first founders of what now is the city of Mexico, after enduring the casualties and hardships of a migratory life, at length resolved to erect a permanent abode; and to protect themselves from their surrounding enemies, laid the foundations of the future city “by sinking piles into the shallows, for the low marshes were half buried under water: on these they erected their light fabrics of reeds and rushes, and sought a precarious subsistence from fishing, and from the wild fowl which frequented the waters, as well as from the cultivation of such simple vegetables as they could raise on their floating gardens.”[24] The Spaniards who first visited the shores of Maracaibo, to the North of the South American Continent, found the natives living in huts on piles in the water. They named the locality Venezuela i. e. “Little Venice”: that name now embraces a forest tract as large as France, a mountain tract larger than Switzerland, and steppes like those of Mongolia. Vasco Nunez failed in an attack on a tribe in Dabaybe, who lived in huts stretching from tree trunk to tree trunk growing in a watery swamp. The city of Tchakash is built over the river Don, and it has been suggested that the huts raised on piles by the fishermen of the Bosphorus may represent there the last lingering traces of an ancient custom.

Captain Hiram Cox, in his Journal of a Residence in the Burmhan Empire, written in the year 1796-7, describes the villages along the banks of the Rangoon river as “built of bamboo and cadjan,[Pg 20] raised on piles in the manner of the Malays,” and throughout his diary he makes frequent allusion to this singular custom. Forrest says that in many parts of the coast of New Guinea the people live in huts placed on stages erected on posts, as a means of protection against the attacks of their enemies, the Haraforas, from the interior of the country. On these stages they haul up their proas or canoes. Similar structures have been described by travellers in the Celebes, the Caroline Islands, and elsewhere in Polynesia.

D’Albertes, in his New Guinea, states that the house inhabited by him at Salwatee was suspended over the sea on piles, and adds, “all, or nearly all, the houses are built like ours, on piles, and are surrounded by water at high tide, some indeed at all times, and the people go to and fro by means of a bridge made of the trunks of small trees. At a distance of little more than half a mile there is another small village.” On the river Ramoi, D’Albertes saw four or five houses built on piles about 20 feet high; and when describing a native village, of the people of Mausniam, he states that all “the houses are built on wooden piles driven into the sea, and approached by a bridge constructed of the trunks of small trees.” At Lorony nearly the entire village was over the water. “The houses of Mafor are built entirely in the water, so that a little bridge is necessary to enter them from the shore.” “The Arfahs live in small villages, in houses built on piles.”[25]

In the bay of Dorei, in New Guinea, there are four villages erected on piles over the sea. Each village contains from eight to fifteen houses; each house consists of a row of distinct rooms, and contains several families. These structures are entirely formed of wood very roughly finished. The same writer states, “Formerly the entire town of Tondano was erected in the lake, the only means of communication from one house to another being by boat. In the year 1810, relying on the strength of this position, the inhabitants, who were at strife with the Dutch, tried to shake off their yoke, took up arms, and were beaten. It was with difficulty the Dutch succeeded in subduing them, for which purpose they had to employ artillery and to build gunboats. To avoid a repetition of similar troubles, the natives were forbidden in the future to construct their dwellings on the lake.”[26]

[Pg 21]

The dwellings of the Dyaks are described by the Bishop of Labuan as “built along the river side on an elevated platform 20 or 30 feet high, in a long row, or rather it is a whole village in one row of some hundreds of feet long. The platforms are first framed with beams, and then crossed with laths about two inches wide and two inches apart.”[27] Munro draws attention to the lake dwellings at Singapore, erected on a series of tall piles, the flooring considerably above the surface of the water: in the intervening space light boats were suspended. It would also appear that pile dwellings of circular shape are to be observed in parts of Japan. Captain Cook notices the summer and winter habitations of a tribe called Tschutski in Kamtschatka. The winter lodge is sunk below the surface; the summer, raised above the ground and constructed on a platform supported on poles.

Whilst staying at Maracaibo, in Venezuela, a traveller took great interest in a singular tribe of Indians called Guajiros, who lived near the town in “pile dwellings.” He was conveyed to his destination in a rude canoe, formed simply of the hollowed-out trunk of a tree. On reaching the village, the huts, with their low sloping roofs, were seen to be perched on high piles over the shallow waters, and to be connected with each other by narrow plank bridges formed of the split stems of palm trees. To enter the huts, the visitor had to climb an upright pole by means of notches cut in the side.[Pg 22] “Each house or cock-loft consisted of two parts, the pent-roof shelter being partitioned off in the middle; the front apartment served the double purpose of entrance hall and kitchen; the rear apartment as a reception and dwelling chamber, and it was not a little surprising to observe how clean it was kept. The floor was formed of split stems of trees, set close together, and covered with mats. Weapons and utensils were placed in order in the corners.… The positions chosen for their erection are near the mouths of rivers and in shallow waters; the piles on which they rest are driven deep into the oozy bottom, and so firmly do they hold that there is no shakiness of the loftily-perched dwelling perceptible, even when crowded with people.… They are the invention, not exactly of savages, but of tribes of men in a very primitive stage of culture: such probably were the people who lived in the prehistoric lake dwellings of Switzerland.”[28] Similar habitations are to be found

and on the banks of the Amazon they are also to be seen perched on piles driven into the muddy bottom. The delta of the Parana, which is scarcely above high-water mark, is called the Venetia of South America. Here the houses are built on piles in order to keep the flooring free from the sudden rising of floods. Near Rosario, in Buenos-Ayres, gauchos, who have given up horses and horse stealing and taken to canoes and petty larceny, have constructed rude abodes in the swamps along the banks of one of the tributaries of the La Plata.[29] Captain Burton mentions an African tribe who had erected their dwellings in the same way at a great distance from the shore.[30] Lake Moyhrga or Realmah, in Central Africa, presents at the present day the characteristic features pertaining to the descriptions of an ancient Irish lacustrine site. Cameron[31] describes this lake as lying in a small basin embosomed in low-wooded hills, interspersed with patches of cultivated ground. The lake is small—only two miles in length by one in width—the margin girt with floating vegetation corresponding to the reeds, flags, and aqueous growth of more temperate climes. Three villages, besides detached huts, were scattered irregularly over its surface: the huts were built on platforms raised about six feet above the surface of the water, supported on stout piles driven into the bed of the lake; underneath the platform canoes were moored and nets hung to dry. Some huts were oblong in shape, others round, with occasionally, a projecting roof over the door, and they were constructed in a manner precisely similar to those on terra firma. The inmates live in these[Pg 23] dwellings with their fowl and goats, only going ashore in their “dug-outs” to cultivate their small patches of tillage, and to allow their goats to graze. These lake-dwellers were very unapproachable when on land, always running to their canoes and paddling away on the appearance of a stranger. The paddles are described as resembling large circular shallow spoons with long straight handles, the canoes about 25 feet in length. In Eastern Africa also pile dwellings are to be found, as at Mayunga, in Madagascar. At Mirambaus, in Eastern Africa, the score or so of houses composing the village are constructed on posts raised some 8 feet above the ground,[32] whilst in the neighbouring village of Mujurumbe huts formed of bamboo and cocoa-nut leaf are erected on piles. Thus we see that a habitat on the water has been, or is still, used by races of men not having the slightest affinity to each other, as the boat-living population of China, the lake-dwellers of Central Africa, Europe, New Guinea, Great Britain, Ireland, &c.

Although in 1810 a lake-dwelling in Ireland had been discovered by Mr. William Trench near Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, its original use was not known, no interest was excited, nor was the importance of the event appreciated; and it was not till 1839[33] that the archæological value of the investigation of lacustrine sites was perceived. The following year Mr., afterwards Sir William, Wilde published an account of the discovery at Lagore, Co. Meath, of the first great lacustrine retreat noticed in Ireland in modern times. It had been anciently the residence of the chief of a small territory in Meath. The formation or eruption of the lake is chronicled in the Irish Annals as having occurred A.M. 3581. Under dates A.D. 848, 933, 967 mention is made of the destruction of the Lagore crannog, and from its being situated near the village of Dunshaughlin, either name is indiscriminately applied to it in the present day. W. F. Wakeman, the only archæologist probably now living who can speak from personal knowledge of the circumstances connected with the original discovery, relates that, when he was with Petrie in the office of the Topographical Department of the Ordnance Survey of Ireland, he recollects how a dealer in[Pg 24] Irish antiquities, named Underwood, made his appearance day after day, bringing for sale objects of more or less archæological interest, which he stated had been found near Dunshaughlin. Struck by the frequency of the dealer’s calls, Petrie decided to unravel the mystery by visiting the place; accordingly, accompanied by Wilde, he reached Lagore House, and there, carelessly thrown on the floor of a barn, he saw a large and miscellaneous collection of antiquities, consisting chiefly of weapons composed of iron—swords, daggers, spear and axe-heads, saws, chains, shears, small culinary vessels, &c. &c; pins and brooches of bronze, articles of bone, and even of wood, all of which had been found by labourers engaged in making a drain through the ancient lake bed. Petrie endeavoured to procure some of these for his collection, but the steward, or caretaker, in the absence of his employer, would not part with any; and when the dealer returned after a short lapse of time the collection was already greatly scattered: many objects had been presented to curiosity-seekers in the neighbourhood, and many, it was supposed, went to England. A few, however, found their way to the Royal Irish Academy, to Dean Dawson, Lord Talbot de Malahide, and Petrie.

For some years after the drainage operations, the soil of Lagore remained unturned by the spade; but in 1846, 1847 and 1848, the site of the crannog was reopened by men engaged in the process of turf-cutting, and, as on the previous occasion, quantities of bones were exhumed, and with them a surprising number of antiquities, together with remains of the ancient stockading, and the ruins of several structures evidently used as huts; one of them is thus described by W. F. Wakeman: “Let the reader imagine a foundation formed of four roughly-squared planks of oak, each about twelve feet in length (so arranged as to enclose a quadrangle), the ends of which were carefully fitted together. From the angles of this square rose four posts, also of oak, to the height of about nine feet. In these grooves were cut, into which roughly-split planks of oak had been slipped so as to form the sides of the house; the irregularities between the boards were tightly caulked with moss; a low and narrow opening in one of the sides had evidently served as an entrance. There were no traces of window or chimney.”[34]

[Pg 25]

Lagore crannog differed from others brought to light at a later date, in not being either submerged or surrounded by water at the time of its discovery. Wilde describes it as consisting of a circular mound of about 520 feet in circumference, slightly raised above the surrounding bog or marshy ground, which forms a basin of about a mile and a-half in circuit, and is bounded by elevated lands. “The circumference of the circle was formed by upright posts of black oak, measuring from six to eight feet in height; these were mortised into beams of similar material laid flat upon the marl and sand beneath the bog, and nearly sixteen feet below the present surface. The upright posts were held together by connecting cross-beams, and (said to be) fastened by large iron (?) nails: parts of a second upper tier of posts were likewise found resting on the lower ones. The space thus enclosed was divided into separate compartments by septa or divisions that intersected one another in different directions; these were also formed of oaken beams in a state of great preservation, joined together with greater accuracy than the former, in some cases having their sides grooved and rabbeted to admit large panels driven down between them.”

It may be inferred that fire was the final agent of destruction, as almost everywhere amongst the timbers lay half-consumed logs and numerous pieces of charcoal. Unfortunately, investigations on the site do not seem to have produced results such as might have been expected, owing principally, as was supposed, to want of friendly co-operation on the part of those engaged in searches. The “find” is now widely dispersed, and can never be re-collected; but the Petrie Museum deposited in the Royal Irish Academy, as well as some private cabinets, would still furnish material for scores of illustrations.

At about the same date as the Lagore crannog, that of Lough Gur, Co. Limerick, became visible when the waters of the lake were lowered. The existence of this artificial island in ancient times was traditionally known to the neighbouring peasantry: the stones by which it was overlaid were in places distinctly visible to a person passing over them in a boat when the lake level was low and the water calm. A large tripod composed of iron was at times plainly to be seen, and had attracted Mr. Wakeman’s attention; but, from superstitious feelings on the part of the boatmen by whom he was accompanied, no attempt at its recovery was then made; it is said to be now in the collection of the Royal[Pg 26] Irish Academy. A number of antiquities have been from time to time obtained from the site, and there was a vast collection of bones; but, according to the evidence of a clergyman then living in the neighbourhood of Bruff, there does not appear to have been any vestige of staking on or around this crannog. Other remains of the same class were brought to light in rapid succession, so that in 1857 no less than forty-seven of them had been recorded: since that time the number has increased to about 200, and every succeeding year adds to the total.

In 1853-4, owing principally to the writings of Keller, the entire attention of archæologists was attracted to the lacustrine remains of Switzerland, and it was the more easily diverted from the Irish sites by the pronouncement of Sir William Wilde, that no stone, and but few bronze weapons, had been found in them: he also suggested, that from the ninth to the seventeenth century might be considered the probable date of the lacustrine period in Ireland. These theories have since been abundantly confuted; but they served at the time to check investigation, because detracting from the impression of antiquity.

Crannog, derivation of the word.—In the Irish Annals, lake-dwellings are called crannogs, derived from the term crann, which signifies a tree. That word, always spelled with a double n, is in Irish generally applied to a tree with foliage and branches, as crann na coille, trees of the wood, but in its primary meaning it refers to some massive object of timber standing erect—as stems of the forest, or a ship’s mast, which is also called crann. The last syllable in crannog, i.e. og, is the terminal form of numerous Irish words; “sometimes it carries the force of a diminutive, but more frequently not. Crannog is no doubt formed in the same manner as cuaróg, the name usually applied to a wild bee’s nest, and derived from the noun cuar, any conical hollow with the diminutive ending og attached thereto. In some country places, the old kind of pulpit or form was called crannóg, and in others crannghail or crannghaoil, a word of somewhat similar meaning. This latter word, too, was the Irish term for a hurdle, and was commonly used for those wicker-chimneys so common formerly in country cottages.”[35]

[Pg 27]

It is doubtful whether the term crannog was originally applied to the timber framework of which the island was constructed, or to the wooden huts erected on it; though now-a-days it is generally understood to include the whole structure, both island and dwelling. In its topographical sense, the word is applied to wooden lake dwellings, but in another sense the Anglo-Irish employed it to designate a basket, hamper, or measure of a certain size for measuring or gauging grain or corn.[36] G. H. Kinahan states[37] that, although “crannog” is now the generally-accepted appellation for the ancient lake dwellings of Ireland, it is, nevertheless, “a modern term introduced to supply the place of the ancient one, which is unknown or unrecognized.”

Lake dwellings bore in Scotland the same designation. In a document dated 14th April, 1608, directed to State officials, concerning the surrender of some rebellious clans, it is ordered, that “the haill houssis of defence, strongholdis and cranokis in the yllis perteining to thame and their foirsaidis sal be delyveret to his Maiestie,” &c. Although the term crannog is to be found in the Irish Annals, yet in the earliest entries these dwellings are designated simply as Inish, i. e. island: for instance, in an old Irish MS., “The wars of the Gaedhiel with the Gaill,” it is recorded that, in the year 1013, Brian Boru repaired inir locha Gair, i. e. the island of Lough Gur, county Limerick, which is one of the most important as also apparently one of the most ancient Irish lacustrine sites; for, as before stated, remains of the reindeer, the Megaceros Hibernicus, and bear, were found in the lake bed.

Crannog, a common Townland Name.—There are numerous localities throughout Ireland in which the term “crannog” is embodied in the name, and where, consequently, must have been formerly a lake or swamp, with its accompanying artificial island, although in some cases the lake has now disappeared, and the swamp has been drained. In most of the districts in which these islands were found several small lakes are clustered together. In Connaught, near the demesne of Longford, county Sligo, the residence of Sir Malby Crofton, Bart., in a small pond, almost dry in summer, there is an islet, still called by the country people “crannog:” it has bequeathed its name to the townland in which[Pg 28] it is situated, i.e. “Lochanacrannog,” signifying the little lake of the crannog.[38] In the parish of Cloonclare, county Leitrim, is a locality called Crannog Island. In Connemara, county Galway, there is an island in Ballinahinch lake which has given name to a parish and to a barony, the word Ballinahinch signifying village of the island. In Ulster there is a townland in county Tyrone called Crannog. In county Donegal, Crannog-boy, or the yellow lake dwelling, was the head quarters of The O’Boyle, a steady supporter of the O’Donnels. In county Antrim, Lough Crannagh, situated over Fair Head, probably derives its name from a small artificial island which lies in the centre of the lake.[39] In Loughmacnean, county Fermanagh, are several artificial islets, one of which is called “Crannog Island.” In Leinster there is a townland in county Kilkenny called Cronoge. In Munster there is a place in the parish of Ardagh, county Limerick, called Coolcranoge, the angle of the lake dwelling. “Crannog Island,” “sunken island,” “drowned island,” “Inish,” or “the island,” are common designations for diminutive artificial islets, showing themselves above water only during summer drought in many lakes throughout the kingdom. There is hardly a large sheet of water to which is not attached a tradition of a frightful outbreak of flood, covering what was formerly “a town;” or which does not possess its legend of an enchanted well, which, consequent upon some affront offered to its guardian spirit, covered the valley, its inhabitants, and houses. May not these traditions be traceable to lingering remembrance of former lacustrine habitations, for Giraldus Cambrensis, writing in the twelfth century, described the tradition that then prevailed in the north of Ireland, of waters having overwhelmed the plains now occupied by Lough Neagh, a locality the most thickly studded with these remains; and the legend has been immortalized by Moore, who thus alludes to it:—

[Pg 29]

Similar legends of submerged towns are prevalent in the south of Scotland, on the littoral facing the Irish coast. In the neighbourhood of Carlingwark Loch, Kircudbrightshire, in which are sites of crannogs, there has been from time immemorial a tradition that “there had been a town in the loch which sunk or was drowned;”[40] whilst a Scotch writer states that, “amongst other points of coincidence between Scotch and Irish crannogs may be noticed a tradition connected with some of them, common to both countries, which seems to have arisen from the submersion of the island homes by the rising of the waters in the loughs.”[41] The same idea is held by the natives of Central India: “from this hill is heard the sound of fairy drums; in that lake are seen reflected the ruins of a buried city.”[42]

The tradition of towns buried beneath the waters is not confined merely to the lakes of Ireland: there is the beautiful fable of the City of Gold, hid beneath the angry ocean, sometimes seen, but ever in different localities:

Submarine Crannogs.—After a very high tide at Ardmore, near Youghal, the waters retired more than customary, disclosing the fact that this particular portion of the sea-shore had been the site of a forest, as remains of trees were found in various parts of the submarine deposit. This submerged tract extends to between the four and five fathom line, but it has not been ascertained to what further distance it may stretch seaward. A bank of shingle having shifted by a change of current, laid bare the substructure of an undoubted crannog: at high water it was covered by the tide to a considerable depth. Either this dwelling had been erected when Ireland was joined to Great Britain, or it was existent when Ireland was at a greater elevation above the sea, and therefore of greater extent than at present. The theory is enunciated by eminent geologists that many of our present harbours had been[Pg 30] inland lakes in prehistoric times, and thus the Bay of Ardmore may have formerly presented a similar appearance to the Gulf or Lake of Maricaibo in Venezuela at the present day.

In the Irish Records, lake dwellings are likewise designated “Stockaded Islands,” and in the Ulster Inquisitions of 1605, the term applied to them is insula fortificata. Although antiquarians have differed in opinion respecting the age of these remains, yet after patient analysis of the characteristic features of the numerous excavations made in recent years, the weight of evidence seems to indicate that these constructions were of all ages, some being very ancient; it is quite apparent that they have been built and rebuilt, and in them have been found implements of stone, bronze, and iron in their respective strata. It would seem, indeed, that the “age of bronze” had in many instances largely overlapped that of iron. The chronology of this period is a subject that has not as yet been determined, and the time when it commenced and when it ended is still unsettled.

Favourite Sites for Crannogs.—Marshes, small loughs surrounded by woods, and large sheets of water, were alike suitable for the home of the Irish lake-dweller, his great and primary need being protection; he was bound by no conventional engineering rule, he did not exclusively employ wood, but appears to have been guided by surrounding circumstances. On peaty or muddy sites a wooden substructure was essential; on hard bottoms, stone, gravel, or earth were, if convenient, employed. As providing good fishing grounds, the entrance or exit of stream from lake was a favourite site, and natural shoals thus placed were eagerly selected.

Mode of Construction of.—Having decided on the position, the crannog builder set to work by driving stakes into the bottom of the lake in a circle of from sixty to eighty feet in diameter, a considerable length of the stake sometimes projecting above the water; these were in many instances joined together by horizontal beams, the interior filled up by branches of trees, stones, gravel, earth, and bracken. Often an inner row (or more than one) of piling is found about five feet distant from the outer, and piles are driven in various parts of the interior, either to consolidate the mass or to act as stays for the walls of the dwelling. Next were placed one or two layers of round logs, cut into lengths of about six feet, generally mortised into the upright piles, kept in position by layers of stone, clay, and gravel. In some cases, where the foundation was[Pg 31] soft, the superincumbent layers of timber were of great depth; in other cases, where the bottom of the lake was firm, the platform of timber was confined to a portion of the island. The side most affected by the action of the water was frequently strengthened by rows of piles, sometimes five or six deep, as well as by a breakwater of stones.[43] On the foundation, when raised sufficiently above the water, the dwelling was erected; the hearth was in the centre of the island, for in almost every case a collection of flag-stones has been discovered in the interior of the enclosure, bearing on them marks of fire. At times several hearths occur. In some instances there are indications of these structures having had additions made to their height at various times, either to keep pace with the chronic rising of the level of the lough; or, taking into consideration the compressible nature of the component parts of the foundation, the island may have required increased elevation, owing to the effect of natural subsidence. The enormous amount of wood employed in the formation of a crannog, despite the mass of stones and other material with which it was laden, must have had at first a buoyant tendency, but according as the wood became completely saturated with water, consolidation of a more or less pronounced character would, in the course of time, become observable. The stones deposited over the lower strata of fern, bracken, and branches, were indubitably used to compress and solidify the substructure, as likewise were the stones on the upper strata used for a similar purpose. Considerable ingenuity was displayed in the formation of these island homes, which were frequently constructed in a depth of twelve to fourteen feet of water; and, apart from having served in their day as secure retreats for large numbers of persons, they have proved their durability by resisting successfully the ravages of time, which may be reckoned by centuries.

The Scottish lake dwellings were formed in almost identically the same manner; in fact, the structural details are so completely analogous as almost to necessitate the belief of their having been erected by the same race. Up to the present time, out of the fifty-three lake dwellings constructed of timber, discovered in Scotland,[Pg 32] thirty-three have been found in Wightown,[44] Kirkcudbright,[45] Dumfries,[46] Ayr,[47] and Bute,[48] in south-western Scotland, whilst the greater number of those found in Ireland are situate on the opposite coast, i.e. in Ulster.

G. H. Kinahan, who explored crannogs in four localities,[49] states that in all of them floors of wicker- or basket-work were found. The first discovered by him was in the large crannog of Loughrea. In one of the excavations there became apparent a perpendicular single wicker-work wall or partition that went down to the level of the basket flooring; from it, for eleven feet towards the north there was a rough pavement, on which was a thin layer of gravel. The surface of the pavement was on a level with the basket flooring. The rods of which it was composed were soft and rotten—in fact reduced to mould, gave no resistance to the spade, and might easily escape ordinary observation. The heads of the piles forming the partition walls may, according to this authority, be seen in an unexcavated crannog near Strokestown, county Roscommon. There seems,[Pg 33] therefore, reason to suppose that all piles situated in the interior of crannogs point out the direction of the partition wall or walls of the habitations, as, whatever may otherwise have been the mode of construction—whether of wicker-work or rods—they were supported at intervals by piles. May not the so-called basket flooring have been a portion of the wattle walls which had fallen down? Other experts on the subject have been unable in their explorations to detect the presence of wicker-work floors; but in the year 1858, in a small island about 200 yards from the shore, in the lake formed by the Shannon at Castleforbes, county Longford, the Earl of Granard discovered traces of stockading and piling, together with a coarse sort of wicker-work.[50] This, however, was in the encircling palisades, and W. F. Wakeman has recently noticed similar remains around the crannog of Lisnacroghera.

Stone Lake Dwellings.—On some of these artificial islands the last structures seemed to have been formed of stone: for example, in Loughtamand, county Antrim, a stone house or castle, the stronghold of the MacQuillans, replaced a circular structure composed of wood; a similar change seems to have been made in one of the crannogs of Loughrea. The transition from buildings of wood to those of stone has also been observed in Scotland. Mention may be made of a few stone-built island fortresses; and although, strictly speaking, the term “crannog” is scarcely applicable, yet many of them that present a modern appearance are structures erected on ancient foundations. In parts of Galway and Mayo, where timber was either scarce or of stunted growth, buildings of stone seem to be most numerous, whilst in Ulster they occur in the rocky districts of Antrim and Donegal.

Goromna Island, in Lough Hilbert, county Galway, is a peculiar structure, which, though not formed of wood, is somewhat allied to a crannog, being wholly or in part an artificial island. A large and good specimen, Caislen-na-Caillighe, or the Hag’s Castle, stands in Lough Mask. It is one of the oldest fortresses mentioned in the Irish Annals, being noticed at the date A.D. 1195. In 1233 the Anglo-Norman castle erected on its site was demolished by Felim O’Conor, chief of Connaught, and so late as 1586 it was with difficulty captured by Sir Richard Bingham. This great circular[Pg 34] enclosure, ninety feet in diameter and thirty feet in height, occupies almost the entire island. The walls, which are still eight feet in depth at top, exhibit the characteristic inward slope peculiar to the cashel; its situation near the mouth of a river (the Robe) is characteristic of crannogs. In Lough Bola there is a curious cashel, or stone lake dwelling; the accompanying sketch gives an idea of its present appearance. A primitive habitation lies in Lough Cam, north of Roundstone, and two miles west of Toombeola. All these islands have a crannog-like aspect. To the south of Ballinahinch lake lies that of Ballinafad, and in its northern portion there becomes visible, when the water is low, a circle of stones and a small island, evidently the remains of some artificial structure. O’Flahertie, in his History of Iar-Connaught, mentions that the ancient castle of the O’Flaherties of Bunowen, in the lake of Ballinahinch, was built on an artificial island: this had been constructed by one of the original septs long prior to the occupation of the country by the O’Flaherties, who in their turn were driven out by the Martins.[51]

[Pg 35]

Theory of Crannogs being only Temporary Refuges.—The opinion has been frequently advanced that crannogs were merely refuges used in case of hostile incursion—not a general or habitual residence; and if a rath chance to be in the immediate vicinity, it is pointed out as the abode of the chief on shore. The great mass of bones, however, and remains of household gear, found upon and around some of the sites, point conclusively to their having been places of residence for long and various periods, and many of them bear signs which denote their having been often demolished, burnt, and rebuilt, the Celt clinging to his watery home with as much pertinacity as in latter days he clings to his cottage on terra firma. Keller was of opinion that the great distinction between the continental pile dwellings (pfahlbauten), and the crannogs of Ireland and kindred lake dwellings of Scotland, is that the latter served merely as places of refuge for chieftains, their families, and property, i. e. strongholds belonging to individuals, whilst the Swiss lacustrine dwellings were inhabited century after century by groups of families; here they fabricated their pottery, their utensils, their wearing apparel, their fishing implements, their weapons of warfare; and hence in Swiss waters rows of huts are found, each furnished with its hearth and its weaving loom. Although Irish and Scottish lacustrine dwellings may have been the abode of chiefs, yet the clan clustered around them, for in many Irish lakes a large crannog is observable, whilst in close proximity—sometimes connected with it—are others of smaller size and meaner construction; might we not fairly surmise that the larger one was the abode of the chief, the others those of his followers? The theory that these dwellings were places of merely temporary refuge can be refuted on many grounds. The evidences of repeated renovations and re-erection of crannogs after having been burnt,[52] also the traces of cattle, which appear to have been kept in them, the enormous quantity of bones contained in the kitchen middens, the hearths, the remains of fire, of cooking utensils, of spindle whorls, of household gear, the domestic arrangements made in each hut for the accommodation of a family, the[Pg 36] various articles for personal adornment and for amusement, all tend to denote continuous occupancy; finally, we must bear in mind the enormous expenditure of time and labour that would be required for erection of what was, on such a theory, to serve only as a place of temporary shelter.

Palisades and Dwellings.—Palisaded fortifications are unquestionably very primitive. Around the cyclopean wall of Dun Ængus and other prehistoric forts in the Isles of Arran, county Galway, are found palisades, or chevaux-de-frise, of sharp-pointed stones, and such defences have in all ages proved effective under skilful management. Even in the present advanced state of military science, the various wars in New Zealand have demonstrated the formidable nature of the Maori pah or fort. The outer range of piles around crannogs rose considerably above the water, and thus formed a stockade or breastwork for repelling an attack from enemies. The Lord Deputy Sidney, describing to Elizabeth a repulse of her troops from one of these retreats, says that at a distance it did not appear formidable, as it was simply encircled with a stout palisade bristling with rows of sharpened stakes; but when assaulted, the soldiers found it impossible either to scale or undermine it. This style of defensive work was of ancient origin in Ireland, for the Annals state that, in the year 990, the island as well as “the dreach and rampart of Lough Cimbe” (now Lough Hackett, county Galway) were swept away by a violent storm.

Within the area enclosed stood the hut or huts in which the families lived; the stockade served equally for shelter and defence, fulfilling the same purpose as did the circumvallation of the rath or doon on terra firma. Edifices constructed of logs, of wattling, and hurdles daubed over with clay, and thatched with reeds, were in early times considered characteristic of the Irish; even public buildings were constructed of these materials. Bede states that an Irish monk, who had been elected Bishop of Lindisfarn, built a church for his see “altogether of sawn oak, and covered it with reeds, after the manner of the Scots” (i. e. the Irish). We need not, however, refer to history, or depend upon conjecture, in order to reconstruct these island dwellings; for the foundations, and even some of the log walls, have been exposed to view. Good examples are presented by the flooring of an oblong house at Drumaleague, county Leitrim, and at Cargaghoge, county Monaghan; remains[Pg 37] of a wooden hut at Kilnock, county Antrim; and the following in county Fermanagh—mortised beams at Loughavilly, a house at Gortalough, angle posts at “The Miracles,” and lower framework of a house at Ballydoolough. At Kilnamaddo, in the same county, log huts were found buried under seventeen feet of peat; these were practically almost perfect, wanting nothing save the roof; they were very low, the side walls scarcely four feet in height, and they might be looked upon rather as lairs for sleeping in, than dwellings in the modern sense of the word; indeed, the primitive races of Ireland, whether building in stone or wood, made use of low roofs and consequently low doors. The openings left for egress and ingress were probably closed by hurdles of wicker-work, as demonstrated by the old Irish proverb, Fuair se air suibhal eadar cliath a’s ursainn (he got off ’twixt hurdle and door-post), equivalent to the saying, “he escaped by the skin of his teeth.”

A considerable portion of the townland of Kilnamaddo (the wood of the dog) had apparently, in olden times, formed the basin of a sheet of water, and upon one of its shoals some primitive tribe had erected a habitation. The piling can still be traced, but the chief antiquarian interest attached to the discovery consisted in the remains of the huts already referred to, and which were constructed of oak beams. They were two in number, stood about fifty feet apart, and somewhat resembled the hut exposed to view by Captain Mudge in Donegal, but differed from it in not being divided into an upper and lower story. The Kilnamaddo huts were quadrangular, and the larger and more perfect specimen measured on the outside eleven feet six inches by ten feet. To make the structure, four massive posts of oak, averaging seven feet in length and seven feet in circumference, were set in the ground. These timbers, near their upper ends, have mortised holes averaging eleven inches in height by eight and a-half in breadth, through which passed the ends of beams to which slabs of oak were attached, and the floor was also composed of oaken planks. The roof, as well as a great portion of the sides, did not remain in situ at the time of the discovery, but a number of timbers found immediately adjoining each of the structures were admirably suited for the purpose of forming side walls and roofing. The lower frame of the work appears to have been very similar to that upon which the roof had rested. In the lower portions of the four upright posts were very curious mortise holes, evidently intended[Pg 38] for the reception of beam ends. The sides of this edifice were retained in position and pressed to the frame below by a row of small, well-sharpened piles; no sign of pinning or grooving in the upper portion of the frame could be discovered, therefore the conclusion may be drawn that the huts were originally built within an excavation, the peat was then heaped against the sides, probably even over the roof, and a small passage left as an entrance. In short, it was a structure of wood, but otherwise analogous to the stone-lined chambers and passages so generally found in raths. Almost in the immediate neighbourhood, may still be observed a subterraneous work of uncemented stones, styled “St. Lasser’s Cell.” In it are three very small, low-roofed chambers, connected by passages equally low; but there is no reason to suppose they had communication with any other structure, and, although named after a “saint,” they rather convey the impression of pre-Christian origin. Unlike the remains of most crannogs, that of Kilnamaddo presented no indication of having been destroyed by fire; had such been the case, the posts would have shown undoubted signs of charring. Evident traces of a kitchen midden were discovered in the bog close to the hut, but at a level slightly above it. The height of the interior of the most perfect of the huts, without making any allowance for a sloping roof, being only four feet, they would thus correspond to the souterrains of a rath. It has been suggested that they were used by the crannog occupants only for the preservation of perishable commodities; and in seeming corroboration of this theory, large lumps of the substance called “bog-butter” were discovered in them carefully rolled up in cowhide.

It is difficult to arrive at even an approximate estimate of the age of these curious structures: the mortise-holes, pierced clean through timbers more than seven feet in circumference, could hardly have been formed by the aid of stone hatchets or chisels: several of the piles and other portions of the work show traces of long, clean cuts, such as are given by sharp metallic tools; yet the only implements found here were of stone, and by the aid of such it is possible that some of the timbers were more or less worked. The roots and part of the trunk of a yew were found in situ in the bog, on a higher level than the roof of the more perfect hut. It has been computed, from the girth of this yew, that it would take at least one thousand years to attain the bulk it showed when first laid bare, and the[Pg 39] eleven feet of bog by which it was covered would take at least another thousand years to grow.[53]

Plate I., fig. 4, represents the most perfect of the Kilnamaddo huts restored. When the drawing was taken, all the timbers in the illustration were on the spot, and some of these retained their original position. Fig. 3 is a slab of oak measuring six feet by two feet nine; it is not so thick as fig. 2, which represents a slab of oak five feet ten inches in length by one foot six inches in breadth, the depressions at its broader end being five inches by six, and it is one foot two inches in thickness; this and fig. 3 were found lying by the side of the hut, and it is conjectured that they formed a portion of the roof. Fig. 1 represents an angle-post five feet six inches in length, and four feet ten inches in circumference. This style of construction appears, as far as is yet known, to have been confined to the north-west portion of Ireland, the two somewhat similar huts being those discovered by Captain Mudge in Donegal, and by Mr. Morant in Monaghan.

A representation is given (plate II.) of the wooden hut discovered in 1833, by Captain W. Mudge, R.N., in the bog of Drumkelin, parish of Inver, county Donegal, it being the most perfectly preserved primitive dwelling of that material yet brought to light in Ireland. It was surrounded with a staked enclosure; portions of the gates also were discovered. The flooring of the house (plate III., fig. 3) rested on hazel branches covered with a layer of fine sand; a paved causeway (plate III., fig. 4), over a foundation of hazel branches and logs, led from the door of the house to a fireplace, on and around which lay ashes, charred wood, and half-consumed turf. This unique structure was nearly square, twelve feet wide, and nine feet high, formed of rough logs and planks of oak, apparently split by wedges, the interstices filled with a compound of grease and fine sea sand. One side of the hut, supposed to be the front, was left entirely open. The framework[54] consisted of upright posts and[Pg 40] horizontal sleepers, mortised at the angles, the end of each post being inserted into the lower sleeper of the frame, and fastened with a large block of wood. The discoverer states that the mortises were very rough, as if made with a kind of blunt instrument, the wood being bruised rather than cut, and it may be inferred that a stone celt found lying upon the floor of the house was the identical tool with which the mortises had been formed (plate III. figs. 6 and 7). By comparing the chisel with the marks of the tool used in making the mortises and grooves, it was found to correspond exactly with them, even to the slight curved surface of the chisel; but the logs had evidently been hewn with a larger instrument in the shape of an axe, undoubtedly of stone, as the marks, though larger than those the chisel would have made, are of the same character, being somewhat hollow and small cuts, not presenting the smooth surface produced by a common iron axe. A second but larger stone was also found on the floor, which, being ground at one end to an edge, was probably used as a wedge for splitting timber (plate III. fig. 5). There was also a flat freestone slab, measuring three feet by one, and two inches thick, having a hollow in the middle about three-fourths of an inch deep; large quantities of whole and broken nuts were found near it, together with several round shingle stones. The hollow in the flag is supposed to have been a receptacle for the nuts, the small stones being used as hammers to break them.

The interior of the structure was divided into two stories, each about four feet in height (plate III. figs. 1 and 2); its flat roof was sixteen feet beneath the original surface; therefore, nearly twenty-five feet of bog must have grown around it since its first erection; a piece of a leather sandal,[55] a flint arrow-head and wooden sword were found; the latter relic was quite perfect when dug up, it was subsequently broken into two pieces, one of which—the pointed end—may[Pg 41] be seen in the Museum, R.I.A., and is here represented (fig. 4); the portion remaining measures twenty-seven and a-half inches in length, its greatest breadth being three inches.

The depth at which the hut was buried, and the flint and stone implements found in it, seem to prove unquestionably its extreme antiquity; added to which, upon the level of the floor, and extending all around, were the corkers of a forest of hard wood trees that had co-existed with the occupation of this structure. Wood, in large masses, when either thoroughly immersed in water or buried under ground, lasts longer in a semi-decomposed state than is generally supposed, for calcined ends of timber antæ and rafters were dug out from the pseudo site of Troy.[56]

At the time of Captain Mudge’s discovery, so little was known on the subject of lake dwellings, that many were the conjectures floated in connexion with this Donegal “find.” Now, however, this famous log house is pronounced to be simply a very well preserved example of the ordinary crannog hut of an extremely early period, i.e. of a time when axe-heads of stone were still in use, and when metal, if known at all, was so precious that ordinary weapons were occasionally at least formed out of hard wood. That the structure in question occupied a crannog will be sufficiently obvious to any inquirer who examines the model of it preserved in the Royal Irish Academy. The stakes represented in situ, to the left of the illustration (plate II.), are plainly remains of the stockade, one timber of which appears in the foreground; and, in the sides of the drain made to carry off the water from the excavation, Captain Mudge observed a number of ends of large oak logs placed in regular order, portion evidently of the usual crannog foundation.[57]

[Pg 42]

In 1867, the remains of a dwelling brought to light in the townland of Cargaghoge, near Carrickmacross, county Monaghan, is thus described:—[58] A man engaged in cutting turf, having uncovered the ends of three planks of oak, the circumstance, when reported to Mr. G. Morant, induced him to have the superincumbent bog carefully dug away, and after some hours’ work the floor of a house became exposed to view; as the explorers approached its level, they were particularly careful to examine the layers next to it, in the hope of discovering some relics of its inhabitants; but, beyond ashes, nutshells (both in considerable quantities), some pieces of very rude pottery, and a few small worked flints, nothing was found. The floor, as may be seen by the accompanying engraving, is approached by a narrow causeway of black oak planks, similar to those of the floor itself, very rudely formed, of unequal size, and laid loosely, without any apparent fastening, except by occasional posts, as marked on the sketch. At the end of the causeway nearest to the floor are the remains of posts, which probably formed the entrance to the house, and at one side is a large tree stump of some soft wood resembling sallow. The timbers of both causeway and floor have evidently been fitted to the boll of the tree, proving that it must have existed before either the causeway or floor was laid. The latter sloped at a considerable angle to the south-west, owing to the withdrawal[Pg 43] of the water from a small lake not far from the site of this ancient floor; the bog in former days was at least fourteen feet deep over it. In the memory of persons still living, this portion of Cargaghoge was entirely covered with water. About the centre of the floor was a collection of stone slabs, closely fitted together, with a substratum of blue clay, but all laid on planks of timber forming part of the floor. On this fireplace there was a quantity of ashes, and on the edge of the hearth a small corn-crusher of stone. Underneath the planks, as far as could be observed without disturbing them, a thick deposit of hazel and birch branches formed a foundation for the support of the flooring.

From the descriptions given in Irish MSS., it would appear as if the very earliest wooden dwellings were either rectangular or of oblong form, but there is absolute proof of the co-existence of circular houses, made chiefly or wholly of wicker-work. Similar dwellings of the Gauls are figured on Roman bas-reliefs; the plan of this kind of house resembled a tent; the poles were driven into the ground in a circle, the spaces between filled in with wicker-work, and the interstices made weather-tight by daubing them with clay. In the centre of the interior, a stout post, commensurate with the required height of the conical roof point, was firmly erected, and to this the rafters were attached, descending at a steep incline to the upright wall poles. According as they radiated from the central post their distance from each other correspondingly increased; in these spaces cross-beams were inserted, and across the radial rafters narrow slips of wood were fastened, forming a complete covering from the conical point of the roof to the eaves; a sheeting of rods was laid over this at right angles, and the framework of the roof was then thatched with straw, rushes, or sedge bound down with scollops.[59]

Gangways.—Some crannogs were connected with the shore by a wooden gangway supported on piles driven into the bed of the lake. The artificial island in the lake of Effernan, county Clare, affords a good example of this kind of passage. It has been often stated that the characteristic feature of Irish lake dwellings was their insularity, their complete disconnection with the land; yet it would be tedious to enumerate the many instances in which remains of both pile gangways and stone causeways have been discovered;[Pg 44] although with regard to the latter it is quite possible that in some cases the so-called causeways may have been merely the stones that had been deposited around the base of the piles, to give solidity to the uprights supporting the footpath.[60] It has been suggested that these gangways, being under the water level, were meant to provide on sudden emergencies a means of secret access to the crannog, and that their oblique, sometimes even tortuous, course was for the purpose of preventing any but those accustomed to the submerged path from making use of it. Is it not more probable that the people who made it merely availed themselves either of a shoal or of the best foundation into which uprights might be driven? Wooden roads and causeways across the deep, treacherous morasses and soft miry banks with which lake dwellings were environed have been frequently discovered. A roadway, evidently made for convenience of the crannog in Loughnahinch, county Tipperary, was covered with a great accumulation of peat.[61] Another submerged roadway, constructed somewhat like an American corduroy road, was discovered in a bog between Castleconnell and the Esker of Goig, in county Limerick.[62] In the north portion of the Wexford estuary was a causeway that in ancient times connected Begerin to other islands; there were two rows of oak piles on which, apparently, had formerly been transverse beams.[63] In Duncan’s flow bog, Ballyalbanagh, county Antrim, was a wooden roadway laid on the surface of the black turf, level with stumps of deal corkers; this road was seven feet wide, formed of longitudinal oak beams sheeted with transverse planking of the same material. In the centre of the bog, where the foundation was soft (fig. 6), there were eight longitudinal beams, whilst in the firmer ground (fig. 7), near the edge of the bog, there were but three, one at each side and one in the centre. The roadway, with the exception of one log, was formed entirely of oak; holes worn in the oak planking had been mended (fig. 8)[Pg 45] with pieces of deal fixed in position across the aperture. “On the roadway there are now five feet of uncut turf, while ten feet of ‘good turf’ are said to have been cut away. Over the good turf there must have been ‘white turf’ and clearing, which would add at least about five feet more to the thickness of peat over the cash,” or roadway.[64] A paved causeway, covered to the depth of eight or nine feet with bog, leads down to what used to be the edge of the water, at Kilnock crannog, county Antrim.[65] On an ancient wooden causeway or road in Ballykillen Bog, barony of Coolistown, King’s County, a remarkable axe, formed of bone (fig. 9), was found seven feet below the then surface of the bog; the axe is eight inches long, and the sharp cutting edge at the small extremity had been formed by an oblique cut of the bone. With it was a flint arrow-head (fig. 10) in a briar-root shaft, the thong which tied it still adhering.[66] Remains of cut reeds, ferns, heather, and sand or clay, are very frequently found strewn on the roads thus leading into crannogs.

Kitchen Middens and Refuse Heaps.—The most usual site of the kitchen midden, or collection of refuse thrown out of the dwelling, is at the entrance to the crannog, where was formerly the landing-stage or gangway leading to the shore; and what more natural than that prehistoric housekeepers should take the easiest method of[Pg 46] getting rid of refuse by merely throwing it out of the door, a practice followed, on terra firma, by many of their descendants in Ireland at the present day. The accumulated mass of bones (invariably found in a broken state for extraction of the marrow) is in some instances immense; it is estimated that at Dunshaughlin, in Meath, about two hundred tons were sold for manure, three hundred tons were exhumed from the kitchen midden of one of the lake dwellings in Loughrea, county Galway, and fifty tons from that of Ardakillen, county Roscommon; the bones in the heaps have, evidently, in some instances, been gnawed by dogs after their owners had extracted the marrow, for which dainty the Irish appear to have had a peculiar relish, judging from their proverb, Ma bhris tu an cnamh char dhuighail tu an smior, i. e., though you have broken the bone, you have not sucked out the marrow: equivalent to saying, “you have done the most difficult part of the work, though you have not completed it.” Refuse heaps may be said to form also a perfect mine of antiquities, for every “cast” article of household gear was thrown into them; hence, the objects though numerous are generally fractured. After bones the next most frequent “find” consists of fragments of fictile ware. It has been remarked that if the former site of a crannog becomes again exposed to the light of day, by the gradual cutting away of the peat under which it lay buried, perhaps during centuries, then many objects calculated to excite the interest of archæologists might be turned up from time to time without attracting particular notice, and thus no means would be left to form even an approximate estimate of the date of the crannog; but if careful examination be made of a kitchen midden, exposed to view by the simple drainage of water from the site, then the antiquities discovered afford tolerably correct and safe data from which to calculate the age of the structure.

Canoes.—Some crannogs appear to have been veritable islands, the only means of communication with the land being by canoes; of these, in Irish and Scottish waters alike, remains have been frequently found near the dwelling, in some instances alongside the landing-stage, as if sunk at their moorings.[67] A canoe formed by[Pg 47] hollowing out the trunk of a tree seems to have been almost universally the first attempt at boat-building, and to effect this, a people even in the rudest state of existence would possess sufficient ingenuity. Canoes are so universally found associated with crannogs, that their discovery in lakes and bogs in Ireland has been considered an indication of the existence of lacustrine dwellings in the immediate vicinity; but it may be safely concluded that, unless implements or articles of stone or bronze are found with “dug-outs,” they do not of themselves carry us back to prehistoric times, nor do they necessarily indicate the great antiquity commonly attributed to them. Canoes have been found of the oldest type known, and yet containing articles of iron of very modern form; therefore, it may be surmised that a people of primitive habits like the lake dwellers clung tenaciously to old customs, and their models remained unchanged during many ages. Irish single-piece canoes may be roughly divided into three classes or varieties—(1) the first, generally either sharp or rounded at both extremities, averages twenty feet in length, and about two in breadth, some however have been discovered square at both ends. Again, some are flat-bottomed and others round: the inside depth varies according to their state of preservation; (2) the second kind is generally of much greater length; one found, measuring forty feet, was round in the bow, but square in the stern, which was formed of a separate piece, let into a groove within a few inches of the extremity: this make is altogether more heavy and clumsy than the preceding; (3) the third variety is trough-shaped, and has been appropriately designated “the portable canoe”; the length is from eight to twelve feet; it is square at both ends, round in the bottom, and having projecting handles at either extremity, apparently for the convenience of carrying it from lake to lake. All alike seem to have been hollowed out of a single tree, probably in the fashion described by Captain Speke, in his Travels in Central Africa, wherein he says the negroes fell a large tree, lop off the branches, shape the timber, then cover its upper surface with wet mud, as it lies on the ground, and set fire to it, burning out the core, and finishing off with roughly-constructed hatchets the part unconsumed by fire.[68] In Lough Owel, county Westmeath, in the[Pg 48] immediate neighbourhood of a crannog, a very large canoe was found in company with two of smaller size. The prow was in shape like a curved beak; it might be expected that the principle of the curve would have been carried out in its after end, but, whilst the entry is spoon-shaped, the stern is square, and a hollow but shallow groove cut at the very end was formerly filled by the stern board. This canoe was round in the bottom; twenty-four holes were drilled through the sides, and the same number through the floor. A canoe twenty feet nine inches long, four feet seven inches broad, and one foot eight inches deep, was found at Derryhollagh, county Antrim; another in the lake of Moynalty was twenty-four feet in length.[69] One unearthed at Ardakillen measured forty feet in length, by four feet across the bow,[70] whilst another in Drumaleague Lough, county Leitrim, was only eighteen feet long by twenty-two inches broad—not formed for speed, certainly—being square at stem and stern. A canoe at Cahore, in Wexford, was twenty-two feet in length, two-and-a-half feet across amidships, and eleven inches in depth (plate IV. fig. 1). At a place called Cornagall, about six miles from Cavan, was found one more than half consumed by the conflagration which had destroyed the crannog itself; in the bottom of this boat lay a complete set of tools, belonging to an ancient craftsman who had lived at a period subsequent to the adoption of iron tools.

In consequence of the low level of the Boyne in the summer of 1837, workmen engaged in taking gravel from the river, near the obelisk erected to commemorate the period

discovered a well-preserved “single tree” canoe, which was for many years after exhibited as a curiosity in Liverpool, but finally presented to the Royal Irish Academy. The length of this canoe is eighteen feet nine inches, it averages two feet ten inches in width, is twenty inches high in the side, and has three circular and artificial apertures in the bottom, as shown in the illustration[71] (plate IV. fig. 2.) Three canoes were found at Toome Bar; the one[Pg 49] figured (plate IV. fig. 3), is hollowed out of a single piece of oak, the length, fifteen feet, with projecting beaks at prow and stern; it is twenty inches wide, fourteen inches deep, and is flat-bottomed; it lay “from six to eight feet below the surface, in a bed of sand and Lough Neagh clay.”

The discovery of an ancient canoe beneath the waters of Lough Erne was made in a somewhat romantic manner. A steamer plying upon that lake attempted, in consequence of the unusual height of the water, to make a short cut, but grounded on a bank, and in so doing pushed upwards her ancient sister into the light of day. The “dug-out” thus found is of oak, eight feet in length, by one foot five and a-half inches in breadth, its internal depth is seven and a-half inches, the sides averaging about an inch and a-half in thickness. In shape it differs from any other canoe in the Museum, Royal Irish Academy, and, taken as a whole, conveys the idea of the elongated bowl of a table spoon; it also presents a peculiar characteristic, in that a number of holes at almost regular intervals, in sets of three, have been pierced through its floor; there are three sets of these holes, each about an inch in diameter; they cross the boat in threes, at right angles with a line drawn through the middle from end to end.

During the operation of changing a line of road about a mile and a-half from Enniskillen, the antique figured (plate IV. fig. 4), was exposed to view. Its position was almost equidistant from Lough Erne and Lough Rossole. Owing to the smallness of its proportions as regards beam, objections have been raised to its claim to be classed as a canoe, and it has been suggested that it was perhaps a brewing vat for manufacture of some kind of drink. Impossible to say what the original length of this square and hollowed block of oak may have been, but the remaining portion measures about fifteen feet: the sides and bottom are thin, the depth is one foot, the breadth at its remaining end only one foot three inches; that end, however, is seven inches thick, and from it, on the exterior, two handles cut out of the solid block project, as shown in the drawing.[72] The great difference between the thickness of the sides and end[Pg 50] may be accounted for by the presence of the handles, as they would need to be attached to solid timber if required for use as lifting agents; the diameter of these handles is about three inches, the length six inches, and at the end, between the handles, there is a hole by which this antique could be drained. If it be really a canoe, the handles would prove most serviceable for the purpose of transportation from one lake to another, and for the chase of wild fowl on lake or river, would meet the requirements of the primitive sportsman. A groove cut upon the interior of what may be termed the remaining portion of the gunwale, seems as if intended for reception of a covering in the style of an Esquimaux canoe, and, owing to the extreme narrowness of the supposed craft, this arrangement would be absolutely necessary for the safety of the occupant.[73] A portable single-piece oaken canoe or trough of similar description, twelve feet in length, by three in breadth, and furnished with handles, was found in the bog of Ardagh, parish of Maghe-Ross, and is figured in Shirley’s Dominion of Farney.

The foregoing furnish specimens of the three classes into which canoes may be divided; in all, about fifty have been found in Ireland.[74] Owing to the preservative properties of peaty matter, the wood of some of these canoes was in a fairly sound state when dug up: one of the largest and most perfect found in connexion with the Strokestown crannogs, was cut up by a “grim utilitarian” for roofing material, and the best canoe belonging to the Ballinderry crannog was split into firewood.

Paddles.—For the purpose of propelling a canoe paddles were essential, and of these numbers have been discovered: there are several in the Museum of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association at Kilkenny, as also in the Museum of the Royal Irish[Pg 51] Academy, Dublin. The paddle, two feet seven inches long, by five and a-half inches across the blade, as represented (in plate IV. fig. 5), was found in the immediate neighbourhood of a crannog site at Toome Bar, on the Lower Bann. It is the largest of two from the same locality; both are imperfect, the handle of each being fractured in the same spot, so that the original length cannot be ascertained; but as they were not more than half an inch thick, they could only have been employed in propelling a very light craft, perhaps a portable canoe.[75]

Anchors.—For the purpose of holding a canoe stationary an anchor is requisite, but of these not more than three have as yet been discovered. The one figured (plate IV. fig. 6) is of stone. The shank must have been of wood, lashed to the stone. There was with the canoe discovered in the Boyne what bore the appearance of a kind of wooden anchor. At Toome Bar was found an anchor or grappling instrument twenty-one inches long, but being formed of iron it should be viewed as comparatively modern (plate IV. fig. 7).

Curach.—There is yet another kind of boat, the curach, that must have been employed by these lake dwellers; of it, however, on account of the perishable materials of which it was composed, no remains have as yet been exhumed. We may all recollect, when reading English history in our childhood, the description given of the primitive Celtic boat, constructed of basket-work and covered with skins, in which the Picts and Scots are said to have invaded Britain in crowds, and of which the Britons themselves made use: this is frequently referred to by old classical writers. Herodotus mentions boats of this kind as existent in his time on the Tigris and Euphrates; similar skiffs are used on those rivers at the present day; boats of analogous construction are employed in some parts of India; they are propelled by paddles where the water is deep, and poled over the shallows. Nothing can be more simple than the construction of these skiffs; only two materials are requisite, and they the most accessible in the country, i.e. bamboo and hides. When Cæsar had constructed boats in Spain, after the manner learnt by him in Britain, it is said that[Pg 52] “the keels and ribs were made of light timber, the rest of the hull being woven together with basket-work, and covered with hides.”[76]

Pliny says:—“Even now, in the British channel, they (the boats) are made of osiers, covered with hides sewn together.” Solinus, describing the rough sea between Britain and Ireland, says that the natives “sail in ships made of osiers, which they surround with a covering of hides.” Adamnan, in his life of St. Columba, refers to a voyage made in a curach by St. Cormac. The curach is said to be still in use on the Severn,[77] and on some parts of the coast of Ireland, in shape and build similar to those of thousands of years ago; at the same time it may be affirmed that few persons of the present generation could declare they have seen the true curach, that term having been now transferred to boats covered with coarse tarred canvas, and which differ widely both in form and method of construction from their ancient prototype. The curach seen by W. F. Wakeman in use on the river Boyne so late as the year 1848 is thus described by him:—A regular frame of willow ribs, generally laid in pairs, and extending along the sides and floor, formed the skeleton of the future boat, which was in the form of the bowl of a spoon, a little broader towards one end than the other; about eight feet in length, but very nearly circular. The extremities of the ribs for a depth of about eighteen inches from what would now be called the gunwale, were set in a very thick, strong, and closely-woven band of wicker-work, above which the ends of the rods slightly projected. Midships was a thwart of ash or oak pierced with four holes, two near either end, through which were rove thongs, composed of twisted osiers connecting the seat, or thwart, with various portions of the above mentioned band, so as to bind the work together. The frame was then covered over on the outside with skin, untanned, of the horse or cow; and the result was the[Pg 53] completion of a boat well adapted for the requirements of fishermen.[78] The raw hide of a newly slain animal, properly extended presented a ready means of constructing a boat, and became to the early inhabitants of the British Islands what the birch-tree bark is to the American Indian. In the sculptures from Nineveh a similar use of the hide is observed, as a means of crossing rivers, but the application is less ingenious, being merely a skin inflated with air like what is called on some parts of the Irish coast a “stookey,” and with which, not unfrequently, fishermen, so late as the year 1860, floated their nets and lines; the skin of a dog or any other animal served the purpose.[79]

Ingenuity of Lake Dwellers, Clothing, &c.—It has been remarked that the brains of most savages and the skulls of most primitive races are larger than, in theory, they ought to be; often rather larger than the brains and skulls of the average masses of the great cities of the present day; but this need not cause surprise, if the life of intelligent interest passed by the savage child be taken into consideration. From the tenderest age he was observant of all the devices practised by his parents for procuring clothing, food, means of defence, in short, all the essentials of existence; the natural result of his wild life was health and strength; indeed, on the principle of the survival of the fittest, it could only be the robust who lived through the hardships and climatic exposure incidental to a savage life. The lake dweller was no exception to this rule, for his ingenuity would be most fully exercised in endeavouring to procure the means of sustenance for his family. It is easy to imagine the various daily occupations needful in his struggles for existence. Timber from the forest supplied him with materials both for his dwelling and for fuel; the skins of wild animals furnished him with clothing, he shaped them with a sharp flint flake, and sewed them with thongs, using as needle the pierced bone of some bird or small mammal. In early Irish history mention occurs of skin or leather garments: when Muircheartach MacNeill made his celebrated circuit of Ireland, A.D. 942, it is stated that his soldiers were clad in long leather cloaks.[Pg 54] We are not left to mere conjecture regarding the manner in which the men of these primitive times protected themselves from the inclemency of the weather. In the year 1821 the body of a man, about six feet in height, with dark, reddish-coloured hair, short beard, and teeth in a good state of preservation, was found ten feet below the surface of a bog, on the lands of Gallagh, near Castle Blakeney, county Galway. The head, legs, and feet were bare, but the body was covered with a deer-skin tunic reaching to the knees and half-way down the arms; in front it was laced and fastened by thongs of the same material. The mantle was, unfortunately, much injured in the disinterment, but a few fragments of it still hung together; portions of the seams sewed with fine gut of three strands still remained; “the regularity and closeness of the stitches are most remarkable, as shown by the accompanying cut, in which a portion of one of the joinings is represented double the natural size. This closure was effected by what is termed the looped stitch, similar to that used in working a button-hole, so that by having each stitch knotted the chance of ripping was lessened.”[80] The age of the Irish mummy (if we may apply that term to the body here described) is considered by some to date back at least 2000 years.

A bed of growing peat is endowed with marvellous powers. It seems to act like the ancient Egyptian process of embalming on the bodies of men or animals that have become accidentally entombed in it, preserving them for centuries after their contemporaries have, by the ordinary laws of nature, totally disappeared, and organic substances, such as butter, seem also to feel its influence. Peat may bear comparison with ice, the well-known preservative properties of which were strikingly illustrated by the discovery on the shores of Lake Oncoul, in Siberia, of a carcass of the Elephas primigenius, or mammoth (supposed to have become extinct in the Pleistocene period) in a perfect state, and so well refrigerated that, when thawed, the dogs of the neighbourhood devoured its flesh. Again, in 1846, the summer in Siberia had been unusually hot; the frozen[Pg 55] marshes which extend along each side of the river Indigirka were thawed, and a perfectly preserved carcass of a mammoth floated down the stream. This monster had most probably met his death centuries before by sinking into the deep snow of the morasses, was frozen over, and thus remained until the exceptional summer heat melted his icy prison.

Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages.—We know that the learned have divided the period man has inhabited the globe into what may roughly be called three Ages—the Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron. Ancient mythology presented us with another, ycleped the Golden, when our planet was supposed to be a paradise, and man lived in a state of perpetual happiness; it is to be feared that the idea of a golden age, either past or to come, is purely mythical. Future archæologists may, perhaps, be tempted to apply the designation “Steel” to the present or now commencing epoch, in order to distinguish it from the mere “Iron Age.” Improved methods of manufacture are now-a-days causing steel in some degree to supersede its parent metal, iron, even as iron superseded bronze. Excavations on the site of crannogs have demonstrated clearly the fact that some of them have had a continuous existence throughout the three ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron. Classification of the earth’s history into those three ages does not, however, imply a defined and distinctive period when stone, bronze, or iron alone was in exclusive use, though there may possibly have been a time in which only stone and bone were available. When the empires of the Tigris and Nile were in their prime, the northern littoral of Europe was inhabited by a race using implements of bone and stone, but these regions were in the Bronze Age[81] at the period when the Phœnicians had attained the zenith of their power. According to some writers, the inhabitants of the Baltic littoral had not till early in the Christian era discarded bronze and stone for iron. Although weapons of bone or flint were certainly of an earlier age than bronze and iron, yet it is more than probable that flint, bronze, and iron may have been in use at one and the same period, and even in the same locality, down to a period long subsequent to the Christian era. To this day the Esquimaux use bone implements, but they also employ iron, so that in remote countries a stone age might be said still to exist, the few iron implements in possession of the wild tribes[Pg 56] being acquired by recent contact with western civilization. In Ireland there is no fixed line of demarcation between the stone, the bronze, and the iron age; there was an overlapping and co-mingling as the better and more useful metal gradually superseded its predecessor. Thus a stone instrument, by itself, would be a most deceptive guide in determining the state of civilization of the inhabitants of the site on which it was discovered, because stone implements are also found associated with articles both of bronze and iron. “Like the three principal colours of the rainbow,” writes Mr. Evans, “these three stages of civilization overlap, intermingle, and shade off, the one into the other; and yet their succession, as far as Western Europe is concerned, appears to be equally well defined with that of the prismatic colours, though the proportions of the spectrum may vary in different countries.” Petrie, the well-known Irish antiquary, was the first to claim for a large class of iron remains the position of an interesting connecting link, which they are now allowed to hold, between the bronze manufacture of a remote age and the industrial achievements of comparatively modern days. At the period of the first discovery of the remains of Irish lake dwellings, archæologists looked upon objects of iron found in lakes, or in their immediate vicinity, with very little interest, for it was considered that they could not have held out against the corroding influence of water for a lengthened period; therefore iron was supposed to stamp lacustrine habitations with a mediæval or even modern impress. The belief was then very general that the inhabitants of Erin of the prehistoric period, having existed generation after generation as manufacturers of flint and stone weapons, had gradually, through some unknown channel, become acquainted with gold, silver, and bronze, and that this latter metal, down even to the advent of St. Patrick, was used almost exclusively in the manufacture of weapons of war, small ornaments for personal adornment, and objects of domestic use. Articles of stone, bone, wood, bronze, and iron have been discovered in strange medley: swords, spear and javelin heads, axes, daggers, knives, hones, querns, shears, tweezers, chains, combs, pins, brooches, beads, horse trappings, cauldrons of hammered bronze, lumps of iron slag, &c.—in short, every conceivable object, from the rudest flint implement to highly-finished silver ornaments.

The accidental discovery of the great historical crannog of Lagore, in the county Meath, already referred to, presents the first,[Pg 57] and probably the most important, treasure-trove of earliest iron implements. In A.D. 848 an Irish chief, with his Danish allies, plundered this island fortress and burnt it; whilst in 933, nearly a century later, the place again suffered a similar fate at the hands of another marauder. Nothing more was heard of it till the date of its disinterment, about the year 1840. The latest period, therefore, to which the majority of the antiquities so plentifully found within and around this stronghold may be referred, is somewhere between the eleventh and earliest half of the tenth century. This approximate date is about the historic limit in which the so-called “Iron Age” may be allowed to have reached back in Ireland. How long it had previously existed there must be matter of conjecture; but it is almost incredible that its natives should have been far behind their neighbours in the art of metallurgy; and we know that Cæsar[82] found the Britons acquainted with the use of iron. It can only be surmised that, at some very remote period, bronze as the prevailing material gave way to iron, but the period of transition may probably be counted by centuries.[83]

Weapons and Tools.—In nearly all Irish crannogs, more especially in the larger sites, weapons of war and of the chase have been discovered in abundance, consisting chiefly of arrow- and spear-heads, swords, daggers or skeans, knives, and axe-heads. The numerous fragments of artificially fashioned bone found in and around crannogs plainly demonstrate how much that material was utilized by their inhabitants; many tips of the antlers of deer contained in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy and in that of the Royal Historical and Archæological Association, have evidently been sawn from the original branches, and employed in forming handles for swords, knives and daggers; some are ornamented, whilst others are pierced with a hole at one extremity, having evidently been fabricated for a distinct purpose, for spear- or javelin-heads, &c.; these were attached to handles or shafts, by means of the sinews of animals, or thongs of skin. Amongst primitive races the transition from tool to weapon is slight; the same article must, in many cases, have served the double purpose.[Pg 58] Arrow- or spear-heads have been found of bone, horn, flint, bronze, and iron; they are usually of small size. Figs. 12 and 13, from Lough Ravel, county Antrim, represent (half-size) flakes fashioned into arrow- or spear-heads. Fig. 14 is a flake of basalt (full-size) from Toombridge, in the same county. Fig. 15 is a flint implement from the recently discovered crannog of Lisnacroghera.[84]

Plate VI., No. 1 is a flint implement, probably a knife. No. 2—A well-worked flint, most likely used for the same purpose. No. 3—A flint “scraper,” that appears to be somewhat injured at one end. No. 4 represents what antiquaries style a “core” of flint. It is in fact the remains of a block, from which flakes have been struck for the purpose of forming them into arrow-heads, knives, &c., &c. No. 5 is a specimen of the hammer-stone so frequently discovered in the refuse heaps of Irish crannogs. They are usually abraded at the extremities, as if from long use, and similar articles occur in the shell mounds[Pg 59] of our coasts, having probably been used for breaking crustaceæ. No. 6 is an ordinary stone hatchet. No. 7 represents a wooden object which has all the appearance of having been used as the handle of a stone-hatchet. It is here given ⅛ of the real size. The aperture, supposed to have been made for the reception of a stone celt, measures in length, 3⅜ in., but the shrinking of the wood in drying renders it impossible to say what its original breadth may have been. The dotted line is introduced to show how the cutting instrument was most probably placed. No. 8 may have been either a dagger or a spear-head; it is of bone; a rivet-hole indicates that a handle was at one time attached. No. 9—A knife of bone, the handle and blade in one piece. It measures 8 in. in length, and the haft portion, as shown in the illustration, is ornamented with a series of squares enclosing a rude pattern composed of dots. No. 10 is a very curious little article formed of bone, and not untastefully decorated in the same style as the socket portion of the iron spear-head, as shown in plate IX., fig. 6. It was evidently a scoop, and would be serviceable in the extraction of marrow from bones of deer, or other animals used as food by the lake dwellers. Nos. 11 and 12 are rude unornamented knives, in a single piece each. It is not easy to guess what articles of this kind could have been employed to cut, but so early as the times of stone chambers, knives of bone were in requisition.[85]

Fig. 16, from Lough Eyes, represents the horn of a red-deer converted into a weapon; its weight is considerable, and there can be little doubt that it had served as a rude battle-axe; its broader end had been fined to a cutting edge, and a notch shows where a leathern thong or sinew was lashed for attachment of the axe-head to the handle into which it had been set in the manner of a stone or flint celt. This antler, together with the bone axe-head from[Pg 60] Ballykillen, are the only specimens of that special class of weapon; but both spear-heads and daggers formed of bone have been found at Ardakillen, Ballinderry, and other crannogs. In the Swiss “Pfahlbauten” it was only the handle of the axe that was composed of horn, the cutting portion being flint or stone, inserted into the shaft at its thicker end.[86]

Swords, whether of bronze or iron, are almost invariably of small size, and double edged. There is usually a central rib to the blade, but in some instances fluting occurs. The ordinary crannog sword may be described generally as of two kinds, the one increasing in breadth from the handle to the end, which terminates in the form of a triangle; the other is shorter, with a broad straight-edged blade obtusely pointed. Their handles were composed of bone or horn, and sometimes wood was used. There was no hilt or guard, properly speaking, though the handle usually somewhat overlaps the edges of the blade, while it recedes in a curve tending in a direction opposite to that of the pommel.

In April, 1864, a sword-blade of bronze, with the haft still attached, was found adjoining a lake containing a small artificial island, in the townland of Galbally, county Tyrone. The extreme length of blade, 25 in.; breadth at tang, 1¾ in.; weight, 13¾ ounces. The handle (both sides of which are represented in the accompanying plate) is of bone, probably cetacean; its length, 3½ inches; weight 1 ounce; thickness, ⅝ of an inch. The smallness of the handle is very remarkable, taking into consideration the popular idea of the great stature and strength of Erin’s ancient inhabitants.[87] A well-preserved iron sword, with bronze mountings to the handle, was found in the crannog of Lisnacroghera. The blade tapers gradually to a point from about midway down its length, with a central ridge. The bronze mountings of the sword-handle are four in number. “Of these, one is at the pommel, another hoods as it were the butt of the blade, two others are intermediate, and very probably do not now occupy their original position, one of them certainly being movable. It is, therefore, impossible to judge of the space which had been left for reception of the swordsman’s hand. It may be observed that the edges of all these fittings had been serrated or milled, but no[Pg 61] other attempt at decoration appears upon them. The blade measures in length 14¾ in., the handle 5 in.”[88]

Plate VIII. presents good examples of iron swords, two of them double-edged: (1) the one measures 22¼ in., including the strig or tang that passed through the hilt; the blade is 18½ in. long and 1⅜ in. wide, with a broad shallow groove or channel along its entire length; the other double-edged sword (2) measures 15¼ in., and the blade is formed with a central ridge. No. 3 somewhat resembles an oriental weapon, the blade being curved towards the point; the length is 13¼ in., width 1 in., and the curved portion alone has a cutting edge. No. 4 is a peculiar, single-edged weapon of diminutive size; the blade measures 8 in., and the entire length is only 13 in., including the cross ornamented socket into which the haft was fixed.

With these articles an iron ring was found (5) having a portion of chain still attached; it is seemingly part of a manacle. In ancient Irish writings mention is made of “golden” fetters, and no doubt the “golden” swords,[89] also noticed in old poems as having been used by the Dalcassians, were so described on account of the[Pg 62] yellow colour of the bronze of which they were composed; a fine example of neck fetters may be seen in the Royal Irish Academy, with a chain of considerable length and strength attached.[90]

No. 1, plate IX., is an iron sword, with bronze mounting at handle, measuring 25¾ in. in length; the breadth of blade is 1½ in.; and the handle 3½ in. long. This was considered by Petrie to be the finest specimen of its class then found. No. 2 may be also considered a very characteristic specimen of the ordinary crannog sword; its length is 23 in. including the handle, which measures 4 in. No. 3 exhibits a beautifully executed bronze fitting which separated the handle from the blade; the ornamentation of the bronze is a fine specimen of the “trumpet pattern.” The total length is 21½ in. No. 4 is characteristic of the shorter crannog sword or dagger; total length 14¼ in.

Few darts or spear-heads have been found of bronze, but the iron examples are very numerous, often of beautiful form and highly ornamented; they vary in length from about 6 to 18 inches. No. 5 represents a spear-head of iron in a wonderful state of preservation, and retaining two rivets, by which it was attached to the handle. The socket is ornamented with an elegant pattern in lines obliquely crossing each other, but the work is too fine to admit of being properly shown on the scale here given; length 13⅛ in. No. 6. A spear-head, its socket strengthened by two bronze ferrules, is very curiously ornamented with a number of small crosses, separated from each other by fillets; there are apertures for four rivets which do not now remain; possibly they were of wood; length 14½ in. No. 7. A spear-head, interesting on account of the ornamentation on its socket, as also from its general contour, which resembles that of some of the finest known bronze examples; length 13⅛ in. No. 8. An extremely slender spear-head from Ballinderry, where it was found with a good many others; length 16 in. No. 9. A spear- or javelin-head; the form is very slender: entire length 9 in. No. 10 is a well-preserved and interesting axe-head of iron, its cutting edge well steeled. It measures 4½ in. at the edge, and 3¾ in. from edge to back. Axe-heads of this peculiar form are to be seen in Scotland, sculptured on early monumental stones, probably of the Pictish age. No. 11 is an axe-head of the form most[Pg 63] commonly found in Irish crannogs; it measures 7 in. in length. No. 12 was found with the last described; it measures 7½ in. This form of axe-head, although of rather rare occurrence in Ireland, is common on the Continent. No. 13 is an iron dagger, no doubt in use contemporaneously with the swords just noticed. The handle is of bone or horn, and it is valuable as an illustration of the style of hafting early iron weapons of the sword and dagger class. No. 14 is a point formed of iron, and containing a socket. It was most likely an arrow-head. No. 15 is a very beautifully formed arrow-head from Lough Gur; length 3¼ in. From the size of the socket the shaft must have been extremely slender.[91] Arrow-heads of this kind are rare in Irish crannogs.

The two spear-heads from Lagore, (fig. 18), are in fine preservation and very sharp; their length 10 in. In the crannog of Lisnacroghera, a magnificent spear-head of iron was discovered, of which a front and side view (half-size) is given, plate X. Spear-heads of this class have been commonly met with in the larger lacustrine sites, but this specimen is invested with a peculiar interest, from its being found in company with a number of bronze objects, whose use up to the present was unknown to antiquarians. It is now certain they were the butt-ends of spear-shafts—indeed two were discovered with the ends of their shafts still remaining in them. The mode in which one—and probably others also—had been attached to the handle is thus described by Canon Greenwell:—“The end of the shaft is split, and into the split is inserted a wedge of iron, so that when driven home, the wedge expanded the end of the shaft, and kept it firm in the butt.” In Anderson’s Scotland in Pre-historic Times one is described as having been found in Orkney. Like its Lisnacroghera fellows, it differs from the generality of Irish remains of its class, in the possession[Pg 64] of a rich moulding bisecting the neck, but in all other particulars the style is identical. All the specimens of this class here figured were obtained by Canon Grainger from the crannog of Lisnacroghera. To one bronze butt was attached the whole of the shaft, 8 feet in length, furnished at top with a beautifully designed loop of bronze (see plate XI), and upon it was displayed a perfect Greek fret, with provision for the reception of enamel. From the same locality was procured also the highly interesting fragment which forms the central object of plate XI. It is portion of a spear-shaft retaining its bronze ferrule, and the rivet, also of bronze, by which the head was secured; this band or ferrule, being exceptionally beautiful, has been drawn as if rolled out. Adjoining the edges are slightly projecting fillets, enclosing a space through which runs a graceful wavy pattern in relief. The hollows were doubtless enamelled, as in the case of similar ornamentation on some bronze remains in the same “find.” The space between the fillets or bands is occupied by a singular design, and this design, all but the circular bosses, four in number, may be described as in low relief. The intervening spaces, like those of the fillets above and below, at one time contained coloured[Pg 65] enamel. Altogether the style of this object represents as it were a combination of classic and Celtic ornamentation. The smaller and even more classic-looking ferrule to the left of plate XI. has already been noticed (ante, p. 64); the figure to the right (plate XI.) represents a bronze rivet of curious form, with well-sunk depressions on one of its sides, like those seen on a cog-wheel.[92]

The distinguishing characteristic of the bronze dagger or skean from Lagore (fig. 24) consists in its openwork handle forming one piece with the blade. The weapon is 9¾ inches in length; the handle, 3⅛. The blade, 1⅜ inches in width, is flat, with broad bevelled edges. Fig. 25, found at Loughran Island, in the Lower Bann, is 4⅞ inches in length by 1¾ in width. It is a thin, flat, angular-shaped dagger blade, decorated on the surface of the mid-rib with a series of dotted lines, and pierced at the broad end by four small rivet-holes.[93] Daggers or skeans of bone, as well as of bronze and iron, have been frequently found in Irish lake dwellings, and knives formed of flint are not uncommon. The iron knives found in the crannog of Ballinderry, and now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, resembled those figured in Munro’s Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings.[94]

At the time the Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy was compiled by the late Sir W. Wilde, although some objects of bronze, supposed to have been ornaments on leather or wooden dagger sheaths, are mentioned by him, yet he was unable to point to any example composed altogether of bronze. Since that period, however, three sword-sheaths of that metal have been discovered in the crannog of Lisnacroghera, county Antrim. Their workmanship is exquisite. They bear traces of enamel, and one of them contained a sword of iron so firmly attached to it by corrugation that any attempt to withdraw it must have involved the[Pg 66] mutilation or utter destruction of the bronze in which it was encased.

The decoration of the sheath, plate XII, No. 2, is very remarkable; the distinctive peculiarity being its spiral character, a perfect specimen of those combinations of involved circles and curvilinear lines, supposed to be characteristic of early Celtic art. Some portions of the sheath, near its end, still retain settings in enamel, the colour of which, though now faded, must have been rich vermillion. Enamel of the same hue and material once occupied the little saucer-like depressions which occur on the terminating snake-suggesting head. One of the circles (that had been, doubtless, intended to represent eyes) shows that it had been so filled, as were, probably, the little raised bosses, two in number, that may be observed at the opposite extremity. The interior of what might be styled the crescent-shaped patterns, nine in number, which occupy the chief plane of the sheath, as also the minor spirals of their adjacent spaces in the general figure, exhibit a design suggestive of basket-work. It is now impossible to determine whether the sheaths had been formed by casting, or were beaten into shape from a plain sheet of copper. It is evident that for the production of the ornamentation a graver had been used. The lines are sharply and deeply incised, and appear to have been intended for the reception of enamel of a black shade, some traces of which appear here and there. The enamel on the sheath “was, in all probability, niello, a composition of silver, copper, sulphur, and lead, the nigellum of ancient writers. It was not so hard or lasting as the ordinary enamel of glass or vitrified paste, some examples of which may be seen on several early ecclesiastical remains. The art of enamelling in niello is of the very highest antiquity; it was practised by the Egyptians. Specimens of it, of various ages, even of modern times, are numerous, and it appears to have been known to the Anglo-Saxons, as a ring of Bishop Ethelwulf (ninth century) is ornamented with it.”

Although the decoration of the third sheath is similar in style, yet some of its features are peculiar, especially the dot and circle pattern along one of the edges, and which appears to have extended from handle to extremity.

Fig. 26 represents an object supposed to have been an ornamental termination of the pommel of a sword; it is of bronze, richly decorated with bands of white and red enamelled designs in[Pg 67] a chevron or wavy pattern. The form is oval, and upon the upper rim are representations of two birds. Early Irish decorative art is characterised by bird-like forms, and figures of this kind are to be seen on early MSS. and on articles of the toilet or of personal adornment.[95]

In a small lake called Cornagall (the Hillock of the Dane or Stranger), about six miles from Cavan, there is an almost circular artificial island, thirty yards in diameter, its crannog nature, attested by rows of oaken stakes fencing its margin, showing above the summer level of the lake. In August, 1869, the water being then particularly low, a log of timber that bore evident traces of manual labour was ascertained to be the end of a “dug-out” embedded in soft, boggy matter. It proved, however, to be only a fragment, the other portion having been destroyed by fire, as evinced by the charred appearance of the remains: the large quantity of charcoal, half consumed sticks and chips visible on the margin of the crannog indicated its destruction also by that element. A set of iron tools lay on the floor of the canoe thus discovered, all here represented one-third their real size. The following is a brief description of them:—

Plate XIII., No. 1, is an adze in a perfect state: the metallic portion consists of soft iron, well steeled to a considerable distance from its cutting edge. No. 2 is an adze, scraper, or implement of the same class, but differing from the former in that it shows no perforation; its narrow-pointed end had evidently been intended for insertion in a wooden handle: the edge being broken, it is impossible to determine whether it had been steeled. No. 3 is a hammer of iron, the handle of oak, split at its upper extremity for the insertion of a wedge, which still remains. No. 4 is a celt or chisel—a somewhat similar object (from Lagore), but considerably broader, is preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. Nos. 5 and 6 represent a thin, knife-like piece of iron and a wooden handle, originally, perhaps, portions of one implement; the wood, hollowed[Pg 68] for reception of the blade, is perforated for the insertion of a rivet, which no longer remains. With the iron tools in the canoe was found a remarkable object, composed of oak, use unknown; it is curiously notched upon one of its sides, near the edge. Figs. 8 and 9 represent two views of it.[96]

Fig. 27, an iron axe-head, from Lagore, is seven inches in length, massive, and of considerable weight; the cutting edge singularly narrow. A great number, made of stone, have come to light; and all that are composed of iron are well steeled round the cutting edge. Axe-heads are of great diversity of form.

A front and side view (fig. 31) is given of an iron adze, six inches and a-quarter long, from the crannog of Lisnacroghera, as were also the three objects of iron here represented (figs. 28, 29, 30), the uppermost, probably a knife, and having a hole through what appears to have been the haft end. The other two articles are said to be the remains of a saw, and the long fragment, perforated in four places, is supposed to be the strengthening bar attached to the piece of wood into which the back of the saw had been inserted.

[Pg 69]

Hones.—Hones and sharpening stones are very commonly met with in crannogs; they plainly denote that at some period during their habitable existence the occupiers possessed metallic weapons or tools. The Cornagall “find” presents two specimens of whetstones; one is given (plate XIII. fig. 7); the material dark-grey in colour, almost black, extremely hard, and close-grained; they are symmetrical in form, and partake greatly of the character of the so-called touchstones. Fig. 32 is a perforated example.

Armour.—Amongst crannog “finds” no well-authenticated remains of defensive armour have been recorded, with the exception of a fragment of chain armour from Inisrush, and the ancient “golden bronze” shield from Lough Gur. The armour found on the site of the crannog in Lough Annagh is not here taken into consideration, it being evidently seventeenth century work.

In the townland of Monea, about five miles from Enniskillen,[Pg 70] county Fermanagh, in a small but deep lake,[97] there is a very fine circular crannog, about seventy-five feet in diameter, composed almost entirely of timber, and surrounded with remains of staking; a complete examination of the site was not possible, owing to the thick mass of roots and fibres thrown out by the trees with which it was studded. Upon digging into that portion of the shore offering the greatest facility, there were discovered several fragments of bones of the Bos longifrons and other animals, quantities of charcoal, some iron slag, and the remains of the curious iron helmet here figured, which must, however, be viewed as of comparatively modern date. The helmet is entirely devoid of ornamentation, is acutely conical in shape, and no traces of nasal or cheek pieces remain. A casque, very similar to this, was found in the river Nore, near Borris-in-Ossory, Queen’s County, and is preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy.

[Pg 71]

The shield, of which the accompanying plate gives a correct representation, was found in the bog close to the banks of Lough Gur, County Limerick; and near it were the head and antlers of a Megaceros Hibernicus. This shield is a disc of bronze, slightly convex, and strengthened by a series of six concentric circles formed of hollow bosses, about two hundred in number, surrounding the central umbo. It appears to have been carried slung on the shoulder, the slinging loops being fixed so as to form bosses on the obverse equal in size to those contained in the circle: it was furnished with a very small handle, interiorly traversing the umbo. The rim is an inch three-quarters in width; the diameter, two feet three and three-quarter inches. The holes with which the shield is pierced are not proofs of warfare; it was the discoverer—a boy with a fishing gaff—who inflicted the injuries in bringing his novel spoil to land.[98] The Rev. James Graves considered the looseness of the rivets at the inside loops for the strap by which the shield was carried, to be proof that some material, most probably the hide of an animal, had originally formed an inner lining, as the thin bronze being in itself incapable of withstanding the impact of a fishing-gaff, could afford little real protection against even ordinary weapons of warfare. The coating of sheet bronze may be viewed rather as ornamentation than as rendering the shield more impenetrable; or it may have been but a variety of the arrangement of studs or circles of bronze affixed to bucklers of wood or leather—

In the Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh may be seen a bronze shield of like character.

In the Crannog of Lisnacroghera was discovered, with many warlike weapons, a disc of thin bronze, its centre from one-third its circumference descending into a hollow, at the base of which is an aperture: the ornamented side, as here portrayed, must have been intended to be the front, as the other side is quite plain.[Pg 72] “Can it be the centre of a shield, other portions of which were composed of less durable materials? Certain it is, that thin circular plates of bronze, displaying similar depressions, have been found both in England and in Ireland, and are supposed to be connected with the mounting of shields.”

The first figure to the left, plate XV., represents an object of the same class, but slightly smaller, and not so much ornamented. To the right are two views of another article, which presents all the appearance of an umbo. On the same plate (XV.) are four bronze rings: one of them is formed of two very thin plates, secured together by rivets of the same material; the three remaining rings are solid, and of a class which some antiquaries suppose formed a kind of defensive armour. It is imagined that they were attached pretty closely together to portions of the ancient warrior’s garment; and it is worthy of remark that in the collection of the Academy a number of such rings, or objects very like them, may be seen looped together by bronze fastenings.[99]

Stone moulds, evidently employed in casting celts, weapons, tools, and other articles of bronze, have been brought to light. Fig. 35, discovered in the Crannog of Lough Scur, county Leitrim, is a triangular block of coarse white sandstone 7½ inches long, 5¼ wide, and 3½ thick, having both sides indented for castings. On the side here presented are moulds for a plain celt three inches long, and another celt four inches long, with cross strop and ring for attachment to the shaft.[Pg 73] Castings taken from this mould “delivered” implements closely resembling several in the Museum, R. I.A.[100] At Lough Ramor, county Cavan, a very curious block of sandstone was found, having a mould on three of its faces: the one here represented is for a broad arrow-head, with side rings. Upon the obverse is one for a small spear and leaf-shaped arrow; on the right side is another arrow-mould.[101]

Vegetable Remains.—The ancient Irish set great value upon the hazel plant, a fact demonstrated by the frequent mention made of it in their best and oldest MSS.; the numerous round stones met with in crannogs are supposed to have been used for breaking the nuts; their shells form the most considerable portion of vegetable remains in the kitchen middens, where beech nuts also are present; and it is known that within historic times the Irish kept large herds of swine that fed on masts in the woods, for then

Grain (species not stated), and various kinds of wild fruit, have been discovered; walnuts at Lough Nahinch, cherrystones at Ballinlough.[102]

Hammer-stones.—It cannot be doubted that in a few instances the round stones, sometimes designated “sling-stones,” have been artificially worked, but the great majority must be looked upon simply as water-worn pebbles that had been utilized as hammer-stones. Many of the egg-shaped specimens are more or less frayed or chipped at their extremities; and similar stones, used, as is supposed, for breaking crustacea, are common in the “shell mounds” on the coast, as also amongst the “kitchen middens” of ancient settlements that abound within the sand dunes of the north-western littoral of Ireland. A large flat stone implement, with circular termination, rough sides, and polished edges, was found in the crannog of “The Miracles,” county Fermanagh. It measured[Pg 74] about eleven inches by three, and was one inch thick. Its flat end shows marks of wear, as if used for a pounding instrument. A stone exactly similar was found in a “kitchen midden” at Ardnahue, county Carlow, which had all the appearance of having been grasped in the hand for use, hence the edges polished from constant friction.[103]

Mammalia.—Amongst animal remains, those of the Sus scrofa are very numerous. This species of wild swine lived in the woods and marshes, was long-faced, and had great length of tusks.

The accompanying illustration represents a lower jaw of this ancient Irish pig, procured from the crannog of Lough Gur, county Limerick; it is of a yellowish-brown colour, a hue that pervades all the animal remains from that locality.

[Pg 75]

Bones of the red deer (Cervus elephas) are extremely plentiful in lacustrine sites. It is the wild animal most frequently mentioned in early Irish history, and of which there were many until a comparatively modern epoch: so late as 1752 they abounded in the barony of Erris, county Mayo, and some few exist still in Killarney. The head and antlers here shown came from the crannog of Ballinderry, county Westmeath. The horns in this specimen are still attached to the cranium, and there were originally seven tines on the right, and eight on the left side. Bones of the Magaceros Hibernicus, or Irish big-horn, of the wolf and fox, of a small breed of horse, and of the ass, have been also met with. The remains of sheep belong to the horned class. There are several specimens of the four-horned variety of the goat (fig. 42), but those of the ordinary kind are more numerous: figs. 40 and 41 are from Dunshaughlin. Amongst the vast collection of animal remains on the site of this crannog were heads of canine animals: of the largest of these the accompanying cut gives a faithful representation. “It is nearly eleven inches in length, measured from the end of the occipital ridge to the alveolar process at the roots of the upper incisors, and is principally characterized by the magnitude of the crest.”[104] The profile view of the outline, and the prolonged muzzle, rather lead to the belief of its having belonged to the true Irish wolf-dog of former times, a large long-coated hound, of an iron-grey colour.

According to the best authorities, there were in Europe in[Pg 76] early times four great types of oxen: first, the Bos priscus, or Urus, the great Auroch, that even in classic times roamed through the forests of Germany; and its bones have been found in Swiss lacustrine sites: it was of great size, had long upright horns, a narrow forehead, high frontal crest, projecting orbits, and a warm shaggy coat, reddish-brown in colour. The second type, the Bos primigenus, was found by the Romans amongst the wilds of Europe; it had long, slightly-curved horns, set on at right angles to the head, but turning forward at the extremities, and spreading to a breadth of nearly five feet from tip to tip. The third variety, the Bos trochocerus had a very narrow head, and long cylindrical horn-cores rising high above the level of the back of the occiput, then curving forwards and inwards. The fourth type, which is almost peculiar to Ireland, has been denominated Bos longifrons, the long-fronted or small fossil ox—somewhat of a misnomer it must be confessed, because, properly speaking, it should be denominated Bos latifrons, from the exceeding breadth of forehead and face, in which particular it differs in an especial manner from the three former.

[Pg 77]

Specimens of the crania of four distinct breeds of cattle from crannogs are here given as described by Wilde, who named them very appositely: 1, the straight-horn, or Drom-adharach; 2, the crumpled-horn, or Crom-adharach; 3, the short-horn, or Gearr-adharach; 4, the Hornless, or Maol. Of the first type (Fig. 44), which was found at Dunshaughlin, Wilde states that there are none now existing in Ireland of this race, evidently domesticated descendants of the ancient wild Bos longifrons. The cranium is “broad in the face, flat on the forehead, nearly level between the horns, with but slight projecting orbits, short thick slugs or horn-cores rising but little above the occipital crest, and turning slightly inwards, like some of the best short-horned bulls of the present day. It is eighteen inches long in the face, and nineteen from tip to tip of horn-core.”

Fig. 45 represents a cranium of the Crom-adharach or Crumpled-horn, which, judging by its remains, appears to have been the most numerous variety. This magnificent head of a bull of the race is “in point of size as fine a specimen as has yet been found: it is twenty-three and a-half inches long, and eight inches[Pg 78] across the forehead, which has been broken in by some blunt instrument, probably in slaughtering. The horn-cores are not so large at the base, but more than twice as long as those of the “straight-horned” race; they are curved considerably inwards, so that the tips of the horns, when perfect, must have approached much nearer than their bases. Each horn-core was, when perfect, about eleven inches long.” This head, together with many similar crania, came from the crannog of Lough Gur, county Limerick.

The third class, or “short-horn”, had long narrow faces, with exceedingly small horn-cores curving abruptly inwards. The cranium of one specimen (female) measured seventeen inches in length of face, six inches across the forehead, and eleven inches from tip to tip of horn-core. Fig. 46 gives a good illustration of this breed, which was abundant. The fourth class, the Maol, or Myleen (the hornless or bald), differs in nothing from those of the present day, save that it appears to have been of smaller size than its modern representative. The average length of face is about seventeen inches, by about eight inches across the orbits. Almost all the heads of this variety presented by Wilde to the R. I. A. came from the crannog of Dunshaughlin: they exhibit a remarkable protuberance or frontal crest.

[Pg 79]

In Switzerland, at Robenhausen, a settlement of the Stone Age which had been buried under a bed of peat, it is stated by Keller that horizontal layers were discovered of a foreign substance, from two to ten inches thick, ascertained on analysis to be composed of the fæces of cattle. May not some of the dark strata on crannogs be composed of like matter? for there is documentary evidence that the Irish chiefs kept cattle on their islands in time of war. The Lord Treasurer Winchester, writing to announce the decease of Shane O’Neill to the Lord Deputy, says, that “he ought to inspect Shane’s lodging in the fen, where he built his abode, and kept his cattle and all his men,” &c., &c. This “abode” is known to have been a crannog.

Butter.—The custom of burying or hiding butter in bogs is probably of very ancient origin, but, like many old customs, was carried down in Ireland to a very late period. Thomas Dineley, in a diary of his visit to Ireland in the reign of Charles II., states that the Irish used “Butter layd up in wicker basketts, mixed with store of … a sort of garlick, and buried for some time in a bog.” Sir William Petty mentions “butter made rancid by keeping in bogs.” The custom is thus described in the Irish Hudibras:—

The Faröe islanders had a similar practice with regard to tallow. Bog butter, or mineral tallow, is usually met with in single-piece wooden vessels, like long firkins.

Yokes.—For beasts of burden, the yoke was in use from the earliest ages, but any that have been hitherto discovered, whether double or single, appear too small for cattle of species still existent; however, the old race of domesticated kine in Ireland may have been smaller in size than those of the present day. Probably the first yoke that attracted notice was the one described and illustrated by Wilde in his Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, for it was not until a comparatively late period that the attention of antiquaries was directed towards this class of remains, usually found covered by a considerable depth of bog. A good idea of their general appearance is conveyed by the accompanying illustrations (plate XVI.) representing two yokes of wood that were discovered under eighteen feet of peat in Donagh,[Pg 80] county Monaghan, in the year 1867. Fig. 2 is drawn on a somewhat larger scale than fig. 1. Figs. 3 and 4 represent yokes found by turf-cutters about the year 1874, deeply buried in a bog abutting on Lough Erne. One of them was composed of oak. Figs. 5 and 6 are specimens curiously contorted, twisted, and split, the result of over-hasty drying.[105]

Piscatory Implements.—In the crannog of Drumgay, county Fermanagh, there were implements for forming the meshes of nets. They consisted of nine pieces of deer’s horn, varying in size from six to little more than three inches in length. Four of them are curiously fashioned. Similar objects, composed of the tips of deer’s horn, have frequently occurred in crannog “finds,” and, during excavations made about the year 1851, in Christchurch-place and Fishamble-street, Dublin, many like specimens were discovered. There can be little doubt that they were used for making fishing lines or nets: indeed one of the discoverers having procured some thread, at once proceeded to illustrate his theory by the manufacture of a fishing line. The suggestion has also been[Pg 81] offered that they may have been arrow or javelin heads. From vegetable fibre the crannog dweller made nets with which he obtained an ample supply of fish from the waters around him, and sink-stones, used for either fishing lines or nets, are by no means a rare “find.” Quoit-like discs of sandstone, pierced with a hole to attach them to the bottom rope of a net, are not uncommonly employed, even in the present day, in remote localities. A bronze fishing-hook picked up from the bottom of a lake is here figured, and in plate XXIX., vol. ii., of Keller’s work, there is a representation of one closely resembling it. In 1845 there was found in Lough-na-Glack, county Monaghan, a bolt or missive of bronze, 16½ inches in length, evidently used for spearing fish, and of which two illustrations are given in Shirley’s History of the County Monaghan. The thong or string attached to this weapon, and by which it was hauled back after projection, was called in Irish fuainemain. The name is in the present day applied by the herring fishermen of the south of Ireland to the bolt-rope of their fishing-nets.

Household Economy.—In crannogs vessels of iron have been brought to light, also many cooking utensils of bronze; some, as may be noticed, of remarkable shape. Cauldrons both of large and small dimensions, hammered out of single sheets of copper, are numerous.[106] Plate XVII., No. 1 is a cup composed of “soapstone,” discovered with other remains, now scattered and lost, in the crannog of Drumsloe, near Ballinamallard, county Fermanagh. Articles hollowed out of stone are somewhat rare in Ireland, but more than one fine specimen occurs in the collection of the Royal Irish Academy. A very perfect example similar to that found at Drumsloe, and represented at page 114, fig. 87, in the Catalogue, was brought to light in the river Shannon, and a portion of another may[Pg 82] be seen in Canon Grainger’s interesting Museum at Broughshane, county Antrim. These curious vessels, though formed of stone, are usually found with objects belonging to a supposed late iron period. Cups strongly resembling them have been exhumed in connexion with the so-called “Picts’ Houses” in Scotland, and in some of the Lake Dwellings of that country.[107] No. 2 is a cauldron-like vessel of thin, hammered bronze, measuring 22½ inches in diameter by six inches in depth: it was found with many other objects of interest in the crannog of Cloonfinlough. On its upper side it presents a rim or lip measuring one inch in breadth, strengthened by four small plates, fastened to the vessel by bronze rivets, and placed at about equal distances from each other. No. 3 represents the upper portion of what had been a very large cauldron, with rivet-holes indicating the points where staples had been fixed for reception of rings, or the ends of a handle. The bronze, beaten to extreme thinness, of which this specimen is composed, seems to be of very early character. No. 4, a shallow bowl of oak, about twelve inches in diameter, exhumed, with other remains, from the crannog of Breagho, county Fermanagh, was quite perfect when first laid bare, but on exposure to the atmosphere it split into several pieces. No. 5, found in the crannog of Cloonfree, county Roscommon, is a beautiful little vessel hollowed out of a single piece of wood, and tastefully mounted with bronze fittings, but the scale on which it is drawn is too small to admit of the delicacy of its ornamentation being properly displayed. No. 6 represents an artistically formed ladle of extremely thin bronze, measuring in all 11½ inches, the internal diameter of its bowl being five inches. This ladle was discovered by turf-cutters in the bog of Bohermeen, county Meath, in close proximity to a large number of pointed stakes and other remains of timber, doubtless portion of the framework of a crannog; but in 1848—the date of its discovery—very little was known about lake dwellings, and few particulars of the “find” can now be chronicled. This vessel was bought at the time by W. F. Wakeman, and by him (together with a beautiful bronze pin found with it) presented to the late well-known antiquary Petrie, amongst whose collection, deposited in the R. I. A., it may now be seen. In the same Museum are several similar vessels, turned up during drainage[Pg 83] operations in various parts of the country. They are supposed by some writers, but apparently without sufficient reason, to be of Roman origin: in Ireland, however, they are usually discovered in connexion with remains of purely Celtic type, and it is not known that in any instance classic decoration occurs upon an Irish example, although in Munro’s Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings, a bronze vessel (fig. 13. p. 45) of similar style is ornamented in undoubtedly late Roman art. No. 7 is a “coffee-pot”-shaped utensil of bronze, discovered in the crannog of Rooskey, parish of Killevan, county Monaghan, in June, 1876. It is seven inches in height, by four in breadth at the centre. The sketch is from a photograph of the original, kindly supplied for this work by Dr. Gillespie, of Clones. The spout branches into two, each terminating in the form of a monster’s head; the legs are finished like claws, and the animal ornamentation on the concentric rings or bands encircling the body of the vessel furnishes distinct evidence of very late Celtic art. The handle no longer remains. This is the only example recorded as having been as yet met with in an Irish crannog, although bronze articles of the same class are not uncommon—at least six others may be seen in the Museum, R. I. A., all from different localities, found either in bogs or in the beds of rivers. A similar example, save that it does not possess a dual spout, is figured at p. 24, Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings, and thus is established another point of resemblance between the crannog remains of the two countries, although Stuart in his Notices of Scottish Crannogs remarks, that hardly any mention is made of the bronze dishes, pots, or “coffee-pot” vessels, amongst the relics of Irish crannogs which are so frequently found in those of Scotland. Characteristic examples from Lagore of iron remains of a domestic character are No. 8, evidently a flesh-fork, which measures, at present, 13¼ inches from end to end; and No. 10, a knife, measuring eighteen inches.

It will be seen that the majority of crannog culinary articles are more or less rounded at their base; thus when placed over a fire they would require to be suspended or have a support to steady them. No. 9, from the great crannog of Lough Gur, county Limerick, is composed of very fine iron, which had evidently been smelted with wood charcoal; it is admirably adapted for the purpose of sustaining a pot or other vessel over a fire of peat or wood, but it is a comparatively modern article.

[Pg 84]

Bones of deer and other animals found in connexion with Irish crannogs frequently bear marks of a saw, and No. 11, from Lagore, represents an instrument of this class, measuring six inches in length. It was, no doubt, secured by rivets to a back or handle of wood, but the rivets no longer remain. Saws of this kind, some larger, some smaller, have constantly accompanied crannog implements of iron. No. 12, also from Lagore, is, seemingly, a ladle or miniature frying-pan, scarcely eight inches in length.

In the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy there is a beautiful thin saucer-shaped vessel, hammered out of a single piece of bronze that has been cleaned to show the rich red golden colour of the metal.

It is 7¾ inches in diameter, the rim pierced with two small holes as if for suspending it, and decorated externally with a number of indentations.[108] The crannog of Lisnacroghera furnished a vessel of fairly graceful form, composed of extremely thin bronze; but it is unprovided with either handles or holes for suspension.

[Pg 85]

A bowl or vessel of bronze measuring 5¼ inches in diameter and three inches in height, together with an iron ladle, were amongst the numerous objects procured at Lagore,[109] also another vessel 9⅞ inches in diameter, formed of thin iron.

Querns, or hand-mills, both of ancient and modern type, either in a perfect state or else more or less broken, have been found in most crannogs.[Pg 86] “Grain-rubbers, for triturating corn, are, perhaps, the most primitive implements used in the manufacture of cereal food. Each consisted of a flag or flat stone slightly hollowed upon the upper surface, so as to hold the parched grain, and a convex rubber, or mullet, which was passed backwards and forwards with the hand, and thus bruised the corn into meal. Querns are evidently the next step in food-making machinery.… Although there are several varieties, the most simple and natural division of them is twofold. The first is that in which the upper and lower stone are simply circular discs from twelve to twenty inches across, the upper rotating upon the lower by means of a wooden handle, or sometimes two, inserted into the top, and fed or supplied with corn by an aperture in the centre, analogous to the hopper, and which may be termed the ‘grain-hole’ or eye. In this quern the meal passed out between the margins of the stones. The upper stones are usually concave and the lower convex, so as to prevent their sliding off, and also to give a fall to the meal.” The second variety is usually styled a pot-quern, and has a lip or margin in the lower stone, which encircles or overlaps the upper, the meal passing down through a hole in the side of the former. Most of this variety are of smaller size than the foregoing, which is evidently the more ancient and simple form, as well as that which presents us with the greatest diversity. The upper stone in the pot-quern was turned, as in the first-named kind, either by one or sometimes by two wooden handles. This kind of quern was denominated “bró.” The word, used in the signification “to grind,” occurs in Proverbs, chap. xxvii., v. 22: “Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him.”

A gentleman in Ireland, who at the commencement of the present century saw a quern at work, describes it as having the upper stone (fig. 60, A) about twenty-two inches in diameter, its under surface considerably concaved; the lower stone (B) was convexed, so that an easy descent was afforded for the meal (E) when ground. In the centre of the upper stone was a circular hole nearly three inches in diameter, and through it the quern was “fed,” as it is called, i. e. supplied with fresh corn (EEE) as fast as the bran and flour fell from the sides of the machine. Within about two inches of the edge was set an upright wooden handle (D) for moving the upper stone, which rested in equilibrio on a strong peg or pivot (C) in the centre of the lower stone. There were generally two women employed in the operation. They sat on the ground facing each other, the quern between. One of them with her right hand pushed the handle to the woman opposite, who again sent it to her companion, and in this manner a rapid rotatory motion was communicated to the upper stone, whilst the left hand of the operator was engaged in the “feeding” process. The corn, previously dried over a slow fire, when arrived at a certain degree of crispness, was taken up to be ground. This[Pg 87] preparation prevented the raw taste perceptible in meal from modern mills. Little cookery was required. The ordinary way of using it was to mix the meal in its raw state with milk, to the consistency of thick porridge, and it was then eaten without any other accompaniment, the simple mixture being called “a crowdie.” A quern is evidently the primitive kind of mill referred to in the Scriptures, where it is said “two women shall be grinding at the mill:” and Shakspeare makes Puck to “sometimes labour in the quern.”

In the centre of the crannog of Drumgay, county Fermanagh, there was a large block of stone punctured with a cross, and another resembling it was discovered many feet deep, in the centre of the pagan carn of “The Miracles,” in the same district. Similar figures are inscribed or punched upon rocks and upon the sides of natural, or partly artificial caves, as at Loch na Cloyduff, The Lake of the Dark Trench or Diggings, and the “Lettered Cave,” in the cliffs of Knockmore, “Great Knoll,” county Fermanagh. Within the precincts of well-authenticated pagan tumuli, as at Dowth, cross patterns have been found, accompanied in several instances by “scorings,” at present unintelligible. On the base of a sepulchral urn, preserved in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, the cross is displayed, and the figure of a cross within a circle occurs on an urn discovered at Broughderg, county Tyrone. Mr. Albert Wray has described some spoon-shaped objects of antique bronze, all decorated with the figure of a cross similar in design to the symbol as observable upon the earliest Irish quern-stones. The bronze articles in question exhibit a style of workmanship which has invariably been associated with pre-Christian times in both Britain and Ireland; whilst in the latter country discs and thin plates of gold belonging to the same period have been found presenting a cross-like ornamentation. At Drumgay, at Lough Eyes, at Roughan, and at Drumsloe, the Ridge of the Host, were cross-inscribed querns. Drumsloe lake, now almost drained, is situated within a short distance of Ballinamallard[Pg 88] county Fermanagh. Interesting objects, now dispersed or lost, have been there from time to time turned up on the site of a crannog, the traces of which are now nearly obliterated, and the curious quern or bró, of which the accompanying cut is a facsimile, is one of the few remaining relics authentically connected with the locality. The quernstone measures one foot six inches in diameter.[110]

About the year 1839, upon lowering the level of the water for drainage purposes in Roughan lake, near Dungannon, county Tyrone, an island artificially formed was exposed to view. On it were numerous fragments of pottery and bones, a bronze pin, a few bronze spear-heads, together with a quern. The illustration (fig. 62) represents the top stone, which is eighteen inches in diameter, and two and a-half inches thick; it is formed of sandstone, the ornamentation being in high relief. The hole or socket for reception of the handle is in one of the arms of the cross, and goes quite through the stone.[111] Portions of a highly decorated quernstone, restored in the accompanying illustration (fig. 63), were found in one of the crannogs in Lough Eyes.[Pg 89] On “Bone Island,” in the lake of Drumgay, several fragments of quern-stones were collected. Two of those obtained were inscribed with a cross-like ornamentation, one of them presenting a most unusual style of crannog geometrical decoration.

On pottery at Ballydoolough, a cross pattern was observable, as also on a comparatively modern iron article at Cloonfinlough, and there was in a crannog in Argyleshire a Greek cross, with crosslets as a pattern, or ornamentation, burnt into a piece of oak.[112] The “Croix gammée,” or Swastika, occurs on sculptured stones in Scotland, and appears on a mosaic pavement in the recently discovered Roman villa in the Isle of Wight. In Keller’s Lake Dwellings of Switzerland,[113] a cross within a circle is represented: it was found at Auvernier, and had seemingly been an article of personal adornment. Layard, in his work entitled Nineveh and Babylon, states that he found what is now called the Maltese and Irish cross in such connexion as led him to identify it with the sun. In these ancient sculptures the cross was often inserted within a circle, which, having neither beginning nor end, was considered to be the emblem of eternity, and may be so observed in Assyrian sculptures. Dr. Schliemann, in his Troja (p. 167), gives a representation of a curious copper or bronze ring, about the size of an ordinary napkin ring, but very heavy. It has five compartments, each ornamented with a cross marked by openings cut in the metal. Amongst the whorls found[Pg 90] by Dr. Schliemann, numbers are ornamented with and . The same sign is found in Pompeii, and amongst the ancient heathen population of Yucatan and Paraguay. “Later still, it was even adopted by the Christians as a suitable variety of their own cross, and became variously modified geometrically.” In No. 1 crannog, in the lake of Drumgay, there was a very peculiar cross-sculptured stone, two feet in length by three inches in thickness. It is seemingly of no great antiquity, and was most probably intended for a tombstone to be placed in the neighbouring cemetery of Devenish.