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On page 86 of the 2nd edition (1912) of the late J. R. Allen's Celtic Art is the statement, ‘Of the smaller Hallstatt sword with an iron blade and a bronze handle, having antennae-like projections at the top, one specimen from the Thames is to be seen in the British Museum, and there are about half a dozen others in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.’ Déchelette (Manuel, ii, 2nd part, page 737 and note 3) repeated this on Allen's authority. But no swords of this type have, I believe, been discovered in Ireland. As no examples have been exhibited with the Academy's collection it is difficult to account for the mistake.

A classification of the numerous bronze pins found in Ireland is to be desired. Wilde, who figured over thirty specimens of various kinds, made no separation between Bronze and Early Iron Age pins and those of the Christian period. Coffey devoted some pages to pins, reproducing a number of Wilde's illustrations; he did not, however, attempt any classification, merely stating that, with the exception of the ‘hand-type’ and other pins of that class showing decoration earlier than the interlaced style, the approximate date of the majority might be taken as the tenth to the eleventh century.

In Sir William Wilde's Catalogue of Bronze Antiquities is described and illustrated under the heading of chariot furniture an iron-backed bronze disc, 3¾ in. in diameter, coated with white metal, projecting from which is a bronze stud in the form of a dog's head, 1½ in. long, with a human head engraved on its muzzle. The stud is threaded by a bronze chain made up of two rings and double loops (fig. 1, 1). Wilde considered this object was intended for the attachment of a trace. It was found when making a railway cutting near Navan Station adjoining the River Boyne in July 1848, associated with a quantity of human remains; the skull of a horse; a number of antiquities including a bronze bridle-bit, and harness-plate; iron rings plated with bronze; some small bronze buttons; and seven ornamented gilt-bronze plaques.

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