[13] These relics of a civilization three thousand years old, may still be gazed upon by modern eyes in the splendid and unrivalled antiquarian collection of the Royal Irish Academy. The golden circlets, the fibulas, torques, bracelets, rings, &c., worn by the ancient race, are not only costly in value, but often so singularly beautiful in the working out of minute artistic details, that modern art is not merely unable to equal them, but unable even to comprehend how the ancient workers in metals could accomplish works of such delicate, almost microscopic minuteness of finish.
[14] The expression of Tacitus.
[15] This is the Latinized form of the original word.
[16] The Danes were never more than a colony in Ireland.
[17] Hogan, the great historical sculptor of Ireland, has illustrated this era of Irish history by a fine group, heroic and poetical in idea, as well as beautiful in execution, like every work that proceeded from the gifted mind of this distinguished artist.
[18] The Irish Celt to the Irish Norman, from “Poems,” by Aubrey de Vere.
[19] Grace’s Annals. Rev. R. Butler’s translation.
[20] Extracts from the Address to the Anthropological Section of the British Association. Belfast, 1874. By Sir William Wilde, M.D., M.R.I.A., Chevalier of the Swedish Order of the North Star.