The Bronze Age in Ireland

In this book on the Bronze Age in Ireland I have collected and collated all my work on the period. Much of it I have already published in the "Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy" and elsewhere. I have long felt the need of a book on the Bronze Age in Ireland, as hitherto none has appeared dealing adequately with the archaeology of that period in this country.

Within the last few years it has been recognized that the Bronze-Age civilization in Europe did not consist of a series of isolated communities, each developing its own type of objects and decorations, but that there was a community of ideas and forms extending from Mycenae all over the European continent.

I have described the various forms of Bronze-Age implements of peace and of war found in Ireland, and have shown how they are connected with similar types on the continent of Europe. M. J. Dechelette, of the Roanne Museum, one of the first authorities on the Bronze Age, agrees with me in ascribing a Mycenaean origin to certain forms of Bronze-Age implements.

How this Mycenaean influence penetrated to Ireland is a matter on which there is some difference of opinion, and possibly new discoveries may throw additional light on the problem. As I have shown both in this and in former works, the most probable route seems to be that of the Danube and the Elbe, and thence by way of Scandinavia to Ireland. It is to be hoped that now--with a concentrating of Irish interests on Irish affairs a new impetus will be given to the study of the history of our country, and that many workers may be found in the fields of archaeology and of all subjects connected with our past.

In my "Guide to the Celtic Antiquities of the Christian Period" I have given the history of Irish art in the Christian period; in "New Grange (Brugh na Boine) and other Incised Tumuli in Ireland, the influence of Crete and the AEgean in the extreme west of Europe in early times," I have given as much as is known of the pre-Christian period up to the Bronze Age; and in this, my latest work, which has been much interrupted by illness, I have endeavoured to complete the history of ancient art in Ireland.

I have to thank the Councils of the Royal Irish Academy and of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland for the loan of a number of blocks. In other cases drawings have been made direct from objects in the National Museum by Miss E. Barnes.

The plates are from photographs taken by the photographer of the National Museum.

In offering this book to the public I must express my gratitude to Mr. E. C. R. Armstrong, to whom I am indebted for his unvarying kindness and sympathy, and for much valuable assistance both in the matter and form of the work.

GEORGE COFFEY.