Fig. 185.—Cheek-pieces of Bits from Lough Faughan and Ardakillen. Two-thirds real size.
Fig. 186.—Iron Bit from Lagore. One-fourth real size.
[Fig. 185] represents cheek-pieces from the crannog of Lough Faughan, and from Ardakillen. The bit proper, by which cheek-pieces of this class were connected, appears to have been almost invariably composed of iron. A perfect specimen with bronze mountings is represented in Shirley’s History of County Monaghan. An example of the iron bit which is supposed to have succeeded that composed of bronze and iron is here given. It came from Lagore, as did also several flat pieces of iron, which there is reason to believe had been attached as ornaments to some article of horse trapping. They measure 3 inches or so in length, by about ¾ of an inch in breadth, and are most curiously decorated in enamel of various colours, the patterns being geometrical interlacing figures in the style known as Opus Hibernicum; at the time of their discovery, they presented the only examples of enamel on iron which had then been noticed, and some of them may now be seen in the Petrie Collection of the Museum, R. I. A. It is not known when enamel was first used in Ireland. Some writers refer its invention to the Gauls, on the authority of a passage from Philostratus (who lived about the commencement of the third century), to the effect that the barbarians bordering on the ocean knew how to spread colours upon hot metal so as to become on the cooling of the material as hard as the substance over which they were laid. [Fig. 187] represents a small plate of iron, covered with a rich pattern in enamel—vermilion, yellow, and black; and fig. 188 is an ornament of mixed metal supposed, like the preceding, to belong to a piece of horse furniture: it is inlaid with red, brown, and yellow enamel, and “exhibits also specimens of a remarkable glass-mosaic in chequered work of blue and white, encrusted in cavities chiselled out on the face of the metal. This kind of ornament is found occasionally on ancient Irish works in metal, it bears much resemblance to some antique ornaments discovered with Roman remains, and it occurs on the curious bronze basin found in the bed of the river Witham near Lincoln.”
Fig. 187.—Enamelled Plate of Iron from Lagore. One-half size.