A Neglected Viking Burial with Beads from Kilmainham, Dublin, Discovered in 1847

NOTES

• J. Graham-Campbell, ‘The Viking-age silver hoards of Ireland’, 39–74 in B. Almqvist and D. Greene (eds.), Proc. Seventh Viking Congress (Dublin, 1976), map I, 41.
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• G. Coffey and E. C. R. Armstrong, ‘Scandinavian objects found at Islandbridge and Kilmainham’, Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 18(C) (1910), 107–22.
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• H. A. Shetelig (ed.), Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland, vols. I-VI: vols. I-V (Oslo, 1940), VI (Oslo, 1954). Vol. 11 (Scotland), S. Grieg; vol. III (Ireland), J. Bøe; vol. IV (England), A. Bjorn and H. A. Shetelig; vol. VI, ‘Civilisation of the Viking Settlers in relation to their old and new countries’, A. O. Curle, M. Olsen and H. A. Shetelig: henceforth VA I-VI; VA III, 11–65.
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• J. J. A. Worsaae, The Danes and Norsemen in England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1852), 331.
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• As noted by W. R. Wilde, ‘On the Scandinavian Antiquities lately discovered at Islandbridge, near Dublin’, Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 10 (1866), 13–22.
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• Ibid., 13,
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• Reports of the National Museum of Ireland (1932–33), 15; (1933–34), 15; (1934–35), 24; VA III, 58–62.
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• I am indebted to Mr J. Sheehan, sometime of the National Museum of Ireland, for confirming that there is insubstantial documentation to these discoveries. Inquiries at the Archaeological Survey of Ireland have produced no further information.
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• W. R. Wilde, A Catalogue of the Antiquities in the Collection of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1857–63). The relatively recent (?post-War) disappearance of Wilde's MS. catalogue of the iron artefacts presents a serious obstacle to the investigation of early acquisitions of the National Museum's collections.
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• W. F. Wakeman, ‘Catalogue of the specimens in the Collection of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 1’ (Dublin, 1894). Six copies printed, unpublished.
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• Graham-Campbell, op. cit. in note 1, 40.
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• There has been considerable recent discussion of the early Norse site of Dublin. The present writer suggests the Royal Hospital as an original focus of settlement, since it was the site of the earliest and most important monastery (St Maginn's) in the immediate Liffey watershed, and, generally in Ireland, monasteries attracted Viking settlement. Further discussion of the topographical and archaeological factors affecting this suggested site will be presented elsewhere.
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• The drawings are in the First Department and have been studied through the good offices of Dr David Liversage. One of the two Viking groups has recently been illustrated by J. Graham-Campbell in The Viking World (London, 1980), 25.
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• Graham-Campbell, loc. cit. in note 1.
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• E. C. R. Armstrong, ‘Two Irish Finds of Glass Beads of the Viking Period’, Man, 21 (1921), 71–73.
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• In the Second Department. I am indebted to Fru Fritze Lindahl for her kind assistance in my following up Worsaae's travels, and for permission to publish the letter which follows.
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• V. Hermansen, J. J. A. Worsaae, En Oldgranskers Erindringer (Copenhagen, 1934). I gratefully ackowledge Fru Annette Jung for generously translating the relevant passages.
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• The relationship is discussed in some detail in C. S. Briggs, ‘James Henry Underwood: First Dealer in Irish Antiquities’, Dublin Hist. Rec., 33 (1979), 25–36.
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• The registration is of 1852, re-registering all material collected on foreign travels over the preceding six or seven years.
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• C. S. Briggs, ‘Dealing in Antiquities in 19th Century Dublin’, Dublin Hist. Rec., 31 (1978), 146–48 and fig. 15.
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• Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 4 (1847–50), 35, 10 January 1848. I am indebted to Mr Aidan Walsh for most useful discussion of the early acquisitions of the Academy and of their documentation and provenance. Mr Walsh is engaged in compiling a full inventory of the Dublin finds and would be interested to hear of any antiquarian letters or drawings which might shed light upon the early discoveries.
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• These particulars have kindly been provided by Mr M. Ryan, Keeper of Antiquities, National Museum of Ireland.
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• Wakeman, op. cit. in note 10.
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• J. Petersen, De Norske Vikingsverd (Kristiania, 1919).
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• VA III, 32.
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• J. Callmer, ‘Trade Beads and Bead Trade in Scandinavia, c. 800–1000 A.D.’, Acta Archaeol. Lund., 11 (1971), 1–217.
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• H. Arbman, Birka I, Die Gräber (Stockholm, 1940–43).
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• G. Coffey, Guide to the Celtic Antiquities of the Christian Period in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin, 1910), 68–69.
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• Callmer, op. cit. in note 26.
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• H. O'Neill Hencken, ‘Lagore Crannog: An Irish Royal Residence of the 7th to 9th centuries A.D.’, Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 53(C) (1950), 1–197
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• Plunkett drawings noted above in note 13.
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• J. Anderson and D. Christison, ‘Report on the Society's excavations of forts on the Poltalloch Estate, Argyll’, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, 39 (1904–05), 259–322, figs. 42–44, p. 315.
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• S. P. O'Riordain, ‘Excavations at Carraig Aille, Lough Gur, Co. Limerick’, Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 52(C) (1951), 62–63.
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• H. O'Neill Hencken, ‘Ballinderry Crannog No. 2’, ibid., 47(C) (1942), 1–76.
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• National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland.
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• Information kindly communicated by Professor Bernard Wailes.
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• As note 36. Note a yellow bead of the type with pale green herringbone, in a Dark-Age house: D. M. Waterman, ‘The excavation of a house and souterrain at White Fort, Drumaroad, Co. Down’, Ulster J. Archaeol., 19 (1956), 73–86; 84 fig. 10.1.
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• Exhibition by R. Munro: articles from a crannog at Lochspouts, nr. Maybole, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scotland, 15 (1880–81), 107–10.
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• G. R. Buick, ‘The Crannog of Moylarg’, J. Royal Soc. Antiq. Ireland, 23 (1893), 37–43; ibid. 24 (1894), 315–31.
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• Kindly drawn to my attention by Connie Hagen and Birgit Heyerdahl-Larsen of Oslo University; J. Petersen, Vikingetidens Smykker (Stavanger, 1928), fig. 195.
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• Petersen refers to S. Müller's Ordning af Danmarks Oldsager (Copenhagen, 1888–95), 653, and O. Montelius, Svenska Fornsaker, ordnande och beskrifna af O. Montelius, technade pa trd af C.-F. Lindberg (Stockholm, 1872–74), vol. 2 (1874), fig. 621.
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• L. Hassé, ‘Objects from the Sandhills at Portstewart and Grangemore and their antiquity. J. Royal Soc. Antiq. Ireland, 21 (1890–91), 130–38, pl. III, no. 7. The beads from this site were analogous to those from Moylarg (see note 39), of the 9th/10th centuries.
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• VA III, 45, N.M.I. Reg. 2419.
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• J. Graham-Campbell, ‘Bossed penannular brooches: a review of recent research’, Medieval Archaeol., 19 (1975), 33–47, at 43.
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• C. Thomas, Britain and Ireland in Early Christian Times A.D. 400–800 (London, 1971), 135.
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• M. Guido, The Glass Beads of the Prehistoric and Roman Periods in Britain and Ireland (Rep. Soc. Antiq. London no. 35, 1978.
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• D. P. S. Peacock, ‘E Ware and Aquitaine’, Scottish Archaeol. Forum, 13 (1984), 38–39 and R. Hodges, ‘The date and source of E ware’, ibid., 39–41, responding to E. Campbell, ‘E Ware and Aquitaine—a reconsideration of the petrological evidence’, ibid., 35–38; C. Thomas, A Provisional List of Imported Pottery in Post-Roman Western Britain and Ireland (Truro, 1981); D. B. Harden, ‘Glass vessels in Britain and Ireland, A.D. 400–1000’, 132–67 in D. B. Harden (ed.) Dark-Age Britain (Oxford, 1956), 154.
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• Thomas, loc. cit. in note 45.
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• P. F. Wallace, ‘The origins of Dublin’, 129–43 in B. G. Scott (ed.), Studies in Early Ireland: Essays in Honour of M. V. Duignan (Belfast, n.d.).
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• E. Bakka, ‘Trade Relations with the continent and the British Isles in Pre-Viking times’, Early Medieval Stud., 3 (Antikvariset Arkiv., XL, 1971), 40.
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• G. Jones, A History of the Vikings (Oxford, 1968), 206, n. 1.
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• J. W. Mallet, ‘Report on the chemical examination of Antiquities from the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy’, Trans. Royal Irish Acad., 22 (1853), 313–42, at 338–39.
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• In prefacing their article ‘Dating Irish Glass Beads by Chemical analysis’, 52–56 in D. Ó Corråin (ed.), Irish Antiquity (Cork, 1981), in which beads are grouped by multivariate analysis using the results of X-ray spectrometry, I. Meighan and R. B. Warner have expressed a belief (pp. 52–53) that the results will provide ‘information for geographical as well as chronological grouping of the artifacts'. Their study does not, however, mention any potential geological disposition of sources of the raw materials involved, or of any intention to subject minerals of local occurrence such as may have been employed in the manufacture of the beads, to the same techniques of analysis. Without a search of suitable mineral deposits in the localities of the major glass workshops or groupings, definitive conclusions will be difficult to arrive at.
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• G. A. J. Cole, Memoir and Map of Localities of Economic Importance and Metalliferous Mines in Ireland (Dublin, 1922 and 1956); copper, 30–36. Cobalt commonly occurs as a trace element in metamorphic and igneous rocks, and is noted locally by J. P. O'Reilly, ‘On the occurrence of Serpentine at Bray Head’, Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 1, ser. 3 (1891), 503–11, at 508.
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• S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London, 1837), unpaginated; S. V. Kilmainham.
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• Cole, loc. cit. in note 54.
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• R. A. Hall, The Viking Dig (London, 1984), col. pl. 81.
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• I am indebted to C.J. Lynn for informing me of this evidence in advance of his definitive publication.
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• D. James, ‘Two Medieval Arabic Accounts of Ireland’, J. Royal Soc. Antiq. Ireland, 108 (1978), 5–9.
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• C. S. Briggs, ‘Amber in Ireland; some geological notes’, appendix 1 in E. A. Kelly, ‘A prehistoric amber find from Ballylin, Co. Offaly’, Eile, 2 (1983–84), 81–85, Roscrea, Ireland.
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• B. Raftery, ‘Iron Age burials in Ireland’, 173–204 in Ø Corráin (ed.), op. cit. in note 53.
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• G. Eogan, ‘Report on the excavations of some passage graves, unprotected inhumation burials and a settlement site at Knowth, C. Meath’, Proc. Royal Irish Acad., 74(C) (1974), 11–112 at 81–82.
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• Viking and Medieval Dublin: Catalogue of Exhibition (National Museum Excavations 1962–73) (Dublin, 1973 and 1976), 11 and 28 items 36–39.
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• V. I. Evison, ‘A Viking Grave at Sonning, Berks.’, Antiq. J., 49 (1969), 330–45, at 336, 341 and 343–44: for the date, see J. Graham-Campbell, Viking Artefacts (London, 1980), no. 164.
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• B.J. N. Edwards, ‘The Claughton Hall Viking burial’, Trans. Hist. Soc. Lancashire Cheshire, 121 (1969), 109–16. The bead colours are taken from an unpublished MS. drawing by W. Latham, of 1824, in the Manchester Central Reference Library.
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• VA II, 13–104 passim.
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• W.J. Gibson, Lignite and Mineral Oils in Scotland, Geol. Survey Mem. (H.M.S.O., 1922), 37–43.
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• VA VI, 98–99.
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• VA II, 45.
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• For Eigg, see VA II, 68, 70.
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• Ibid., 88.
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• Ibid., 103–05.
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• Ibid., 181; VA VI, 69.
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• VA II, 38; J. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times: The Iron Age (Edinburgh, 1883), 28, fig. 24.
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• For discussion see D. M. Wilson, ‘The Vikings' relationship with Christianity in Northern England’, J. Brit. Archaeol. Assoc., 30 (1967), 37–47.
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• Cf. discussion by R. A. Hall, ‘A Viking-age grave at Donnybrook, Co. Dublin’, Medieval Archaeol., 22 (1978), 64–83.
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