On the state of metallurgy in Ireland in his time, Dr. Boate gives us some very curious information. He denies any knowledge of the subject on the part of the native Irish, and asserts that all the mines in Ireland were discovered by the "New English." "The Old English in Ireland," he says, "that is, those who are come in from the time of the first conquest until the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, have been so plagued with wars from time to time--one while intestine among themselves, and another while with the Irish--that they could scarce ever find the opportunity of seeking for mines. . . . . . And the Irish themselves, as being one of the most barbarous nations of the whole earth, have at all times been so far from seeking out any, that even in these last years, and since the English have begun to discover some, none of them all, great or small, at any time hath applied himself to that business, or in the least manner furthered it; so that all the mines which to this day are found out in Ireland, have been discovered (at least, as far to make any use of them) by the New English, that is, such as are come in during and since the reign of Queen Elizabeth." (Thom's Collection of Tracts and Treatises, vol. i. 102.)
He adds, that several iron mines had been discovered in various parts of the kingdom, and also some of lead and silver, during the forty years' peace, from the death of Elizabeth to the outbreak of the great rebellion--the longest peace, he remarks, that Ireland ever enjoyed, either before or after the coming of the English. The great extent to which smelting was carried on during a portion of that time may be concluded from the almost incredible destruction of the Irish woods, to make charcoal for the purpose. This Dr. Boate describes in a preceding chapter; "As long as the land was in the full possession of the Irish themselves," he says, and we know the fact from many other sources, "all Ireland was very full of woods on every side;" but the English cleared away a great deal of these, both to destroy the lurking places of their foes, and to convert the land into tillage and pasture. Besides the woods cleared for these purposes, a vast amount of timber was felled, as Boate tells us, for merchandise, and to make charcoal for the iron works. The timber comprised under the former head does not appear to have been for building, but simply for pipe staves and the like, of which, he says, great quantities were exported even in former times; "and," he adds, "during the last peace a mighty trade was driven in them, and whole shiploads sent into foreign countries yearly;" while, "as for the charcoal," he [{551}] continues, "it is incredible what quantity thereof is consumed by one iron work in a year . . . so that it was necessary from time to time to fell an infinite number of trees, all the loppings and windfalls being not sufficient for it in the least manner." The result of all this was, that even in Boate's time, that is, over 200 years ago, the greater part of Ireland was left totally bare of woods; the inhabitants could obtain no wood for building, or even for firing; and in some parts one might travel whole days without seeing any trees, except a few about gentlemen's houses. For a distance of over three score miles from north to south, in the counties of Louth and Dublin, "one doth not come near any woods worth speaking of; and in some parts thereof you shall not see so much as one tree in many miles. For the great woods which the maps do represent unto us upon the mountains, between Dundalk and Nurie, are quite vanished, there being nothing left of them these many years since but one only tree, standing close by the highway, at the very top of one of the mountains, so far as it may be seen a great way off, and therefore serveth travellers for a mark."
At that period iron mines were worked extensively near Tallow, on the borders of Cork and Waterford, by the famous Earl of Cork; in the county of Clare, some six miles from Limerick; at a place called Desert, in the King's County, by Sergeant-Major Pigott; at Mountrath and Mountmellick, in the Queen's County; on the shores of Lough Allen, both on the Roscommon and Leitrim sides--the mountains of Slieve-an-ieran, or the Iron Mountain, in the latter county, having obtained its name, in the remotest ages, from the presence of that metal; on the shores of Lough Erne, in Fermanagh; in Cavan; at Lissan, on the borders of Tyrone and Londonderry, where the works were carried on by Sir Thomas Staples, the owner of the soil; at the foot of Slieve Gallen, in the county of Derry; and in several other places. Iron smelting works and foundries were erected, not only in the vicinity of the mines, but in other places on the coast, and elsewhere, where the convenience of water carriage and the supplies of charcoal afforded inducements. To some of these works on the sea-coast, the ore was brought even from England; but the principal iron works appear to have been those belonging to the Earl of Cork, in Munster; to Sir Charles Coote, at Mountrath, and in Roscommon and Leitrim; to the Earl of Londonderry, in his own county; to Lord Chancellor Loftus, ancestor of the Marquis of Ely, at Mountmellick; to Sir John Dunbar, in Fermanagh; Sir Leonard Blennerhassett, on Lough Erne; and a company of London merchants in Clare. We are not told whether these last were the representatives of the London Mining Company, to which Queen Elizabeth granted the royalties of the precious metals that might be discovered within the English Pale. Mr. Christopher Wandsworth, who had been Master of the Rolls for Ireland, and acted as Lord Deputy under the Earl of Strafford, erected a foundry in the county of Carlow, where ordnance were cast, and also a kind of small round furnaces, pots, and other articles made.
It was estimated that the owners of the iron works--we do not here refer to the mines--made a profit of forty per cent in the year; and Boate was assured, by persons who were particularly well informed on the subject, that the Earl of Cork cleared £100,000 by his iron works. Sir Charles Coote--"that zealous and famous warriour in this present warre against the Irish rebells," in the first year of which war he fell--appears to have been quite as famous as an iron-master as he was as a warrior, and his iron-works at Mountrath were a model at that time. A ton of the ore called rock mine cost him, at the furnace head, 5s. 6d.; and a ton of white mine, or ore dug from a mountain, 7s. The two ores were mixed in the [{552}] proportion of one of rock mine to two of white mine, and three tons of the mixed ore yielded one ton of good bar iron, which was conveyed in rude, small boats called cots, on the River Nore to Waterford, and thence shipped to London, where it was sold for £16, and sometimes for £17, or even £17 10s.; the whole cost of the iron to Sir Charles Coote, including that of digging it out of the mine and every expense until it reached the London market, Custom House duty included, being between £10 and £11 per ton. In most places the cost of the ore at the furnace varied from 5s. to 6s. per ton; and when the ore was particularly rich, 2-1/2 tons produced one ton of good iron; but Boate tells us that few of the iron smelters carried on their work as profitably as Sir Charles Coote.
In Boate's time, only three lead and silver mines appear to have been known in Ireland. One of these was in the county of Antrim, and was very rich, yielding 1 lb. of silver to 30 lbs. of lead; another was situated in Cony Island, at Sligo; and the third, the only one which was worked, was the famous silver mines of the barony of Upper Ormond, in Tipperary, about twelve miles from Limerick. This mine had been discovered about forty years before, and was at first supposed to be merely a lead mine; some of the first lead it produced being used by the Earl of Thomond to roof his house at Bunratty. It was worked in the shape of open pits, several fathoms deep, but still sloping so gradually, that the ore was carried to the surface in wheelbarrows. Each ton of ore at this mine yielded 3 lbs. of pure silver; but our authority does not inform us how much lead. The silver was sold in Dublin for 5s. 2d. per oz., and the lead for £11 per ton, though it is stated to have brought £12 in Limerick; and the royalty, or king's share, was a sixth part of the silver, and a tenth of the lead. The rest was the property of those who farmed the mine, and who cleared an estimated profit of £2000 per annum. The works at this mine, and in general all the smelting works which we have mentioned throughout the country, were of course destroyed in the civil war.
So much for the practical metallurgy of Ireland, as it existed two hundred years ago. Of the knowledge of the original inhabitants on the subject, Sir William Wilde ("Catalogue of Antiquities," etc., vol. i. p. 351) says--and his opinion is the result of all the investigation that is practicable in the matter--"When, and how, the Irish people discovered metals and their uses, together with the art of smelting and casting, has not been determined by archaeologists;" but a few remarkable and suggestive facts on the subject may be mentioned. Manuscripts, themselves five or six hundred years old, and purporting to give information handed down from the most remote antiquity, make frequent mention of the knowledge and use of metals among the ancient Irish. Thus the old annalists say, that "gold was first smelted in Ireland in Fotharta-Airthir-Liffe," a woody district in Wicklow, east of the River Liffey, supposed to coincide with the present well-known auriferous tract in that county. Indeed, it is most probable that gold was the first metal known to the Irish, as well as to all people in early stages of civilization, as, besides its glittering quality, it is almost the only metal found in a native state upon the surface, and consequently obtainable without the art of smelting. Dr. Boate writes: "I believe many will think it very unlikely that there should be any gold mines in Ireland; but a credible person hath given me to understand, that one of his acquaintances had several times assured him that out of a certain rivulet, in the county of Nether-Tirone, called Miola, he had gathered about one dram of pure gold." We also know from the celts, and other articles in these metals which have been preserved, that the ancient Irish possessed [{553}] copper, which they were able to convert into brass and bronze; and also that they had silver, tin, lead, and iron. The Irish version of Nennius mentions, as the first wonder of Ireland, that Lough Lein--the Lake of Killarney--is surrounded by four circles, viz., "a circle of tin, and a circle of lead, and a circle of iron, and a circle of copper"--an indication not only that these metals were known to the people, but that some rude idea had been formed of the mineralogy of the district.
THEIR AGRICULTURE.
Grain, in one shape or other, formed a main ingredient in the food of the Irish from the earliest historic period; and we may, consequently, include Agriculture among the earliest of their industrial arts. We are not aware of any time at which they were exclusively a flesh-eating people; and we find it clearly stated, with reference to periods not altogether very remote, that the native Irish subsisted to a great extent on the milk and butter of their large herds of cattle, seldom killing the animals for their flesh. On the other hand, we know that vast numbers of cattle were slain and consumed in the constant petty wars of the country; and that the lawless dwellers in the cranogues, or lake habitations--whatever period they belong to--were decidedly carnivorous, as the immense accumulations of the bones and horns of cattle found in their insulated haunts testify. But the fact we contend for is, that the ancient Irish were a granivorous quite as much as a carnivorous race, if not more so; and some ethnologists have concluded, from an examination of very ancient Irish crania, that the teeth were chiefly employed in masticating grain in a hard state.
It is a curious and well-known fact that in many parts of Ireland traces of tillage are visible on the now barren sides or summits of hills, in places which have been long since abandoned to savage nature, and in a soil which would appear never to have been susceptible of cultivation. Some such elevated spots, now covered with grass, are known to have been cultivated some years since, when the rural population was much denser than at present; but we are referring to other places where we find well-marked ridges and furrows on hillsides, four or five hundred feet above the sea level, or even more; and which are now covered with heath, and so denuded, by ages of atmospheric action on the steep slopes, as to retain only the least quantity of vegetable surface, wholly inadequate at present to nourish any kind of grain.
When, and by whom, were these wild spots cultivated? The country people have lost all tradition on the subject, and substitute their own conjectures.