- Chapter Thirty-Three -
fragments found as filling material under the roadway may well be the remains of
such a vehicle.
Lavish personal ornament was a predilection of Celtic peoples in Europe and
there are indications that for certain elements of society in Ireland this was also the
case. The gold torque of early third-century Be date from Knock is unquestionably
an outstanding item of personal adornment. It is not, however, a native piece. A sec-
ond torque of gold is known from the country, found in association with other gold
artefacts, the majority imported, at Broighter, Co. Derry. This specimen (Warner
I982), dating to the last century Be, is of Irish workmanship. Its ornament of raised,
vegetal curves and prominent relief, snail-shell spirals, set against a background web
of overlapping, compass-drawn arcs, is a magnificent example of indigenous La Tene
artistic expression.
The Broighter collar (and perhaps also that from Knock) may, however, never
have been intended to have been worn by mortal men. From the beginning they
could have been meant for votive purposes and their final deposition in watery
places is in keeping with this idea. More obviously secular ornaments (Raftery I984:
I44ff.) are the safety-pin fibulae and the ring-headed pins which were used as dress
fasteners. Glass beads and bracelets of glass, bone, bronze and jet have also been
found. Apart from a few minute textile fragments, however, archaeology tells us little
of the clothing worn in Ireland in later prehistory.
Though the period in question is conventionally referred to as the Iron Age it is,
as already noted, the work of the bronzesmith rather than of the blacksmith which
dominates the surviving picture. Through the bronzes we can trace the development
of Irish La Tene craftsmanship from its inception in the third century Be into the
first Christian millennium. Outstanding skills in lost-wax casting, in repousse and in
engraved ornament are readily apparent and from the finished products we can infer
a wide range of specialist tools, not one of which survives.
The objects of metal, allied to related material in bone and stone, illustrate the
progress of native La Tene ornamentation. Initially this is represented by the free-
flowing, vegetal designs of the Irish Scabbard Style whose ultimate roots lie in the
continental Waldalgesheim Style. On the Broighter collar the vegetal elements are
still recognizable but now the patterns are more formally geometric and entirely
insular in concept and execution. Now the compass becomes increasingly dominant,
as is particularly well illustrated on a series of bone flakes from Lough Crew,
Co. Meath (Raftery I984: 250-63) and this, along with the trumpet-and-Ientoid
curve, becomes the dominant characteristic of native La Tene art of the early historic
centuries. Though overwhelmingly abstract, a recurring element in the art of the later
La Tene phase in Ireland is the water-bird, which is most vividly seen in plastic form
on the bronze cup handles from Keshcarrigan, Co. Leitrim, and Somerset, Co.
Galway (Raftery I984: 214ff.).
Native Irish craftsmen in the centuries spanning the birth of Christ created
bronzes of the highest technical and. artistic excellence (see Raftery I984). The
elegantly swirling, repousse ornament on several of the so-called Monasterevin-type
discs is of outstanding quality (Figure 33.6) as is the hand-cut openwork pattern on
a cylindrical mount from Cornalaragh, Co. Monaghan. Even more exceptional is
the delicacy and refinement of the fine, raised ornament on the object known as the