J·.)URNAL OF THE COUNTY DONEGAL HISTORICAL SOCiliT~ to use it as a soldering iron! He told me that it was found :when an ancient sto'le monument was being levelled to facilitate farming operations-a fate which befell many of our antiquities in this county. Unfortunately I was never able to trace any of the others or to get exact circumstances of their finding and so t·his item gave me both a thrill and a disapvointment. Another Bronze Age axe of the socketed type was dug up whilst a drain was being made O'l the line of march taken by the army of .Tames 11 from his camp at Ballindrait to the Seige of Derry. I was solemnly assured by the previous owner that it i\Vas an ornamental f.inal to one of the flagipoles of the Jacobite troops! This axe has some d"Oco~ ation consisting of cir.cles, dots and radiating lines not very often found on Trish specimens. It is, at preserit, in the National Museum ·of Ireland. For quite a long time these few axes were the only representatives of the Bronze Age in my collection, and I was constan.tiy hoping that one day I would have the good fortune eit:her to find or acquire a bronze sword which I always regarded ::is the most graceful and most beaut.iful weapon of antiquity. One day a local farmer stopped mP in Raphoe Fair to inquire if I had seen the illustration of a bronze sword in such and such a .paper, a few days previously The sword had just been found in County Tyrone. I replied that I had and that I was very interested in it as it a'TJipeared to be a very fine one. "WeU," said he, "I have one-the very same," and he proceeded to tell me how his father and a labourer were making a drain thr011gh a meadow sixty or seventy years before and had dug it up. It had been ea refully preserved though its finders knew little of its age or archaeological interest. There it was-all those years in a house within sight of my home .and I knew nothing of its existence. 260. That, you may be sure, rwas a thrilling story for me to hear in the prosaic and matter of fact atmoS1phere of an Irish fair day. The climax of this story and its thrill came several years later as I walked home one night with the sword under Jny .arm, feeling on the very "top of the world." Its owner, all along, had refused to part with it although I had offered a substantial sum for it, but, at last, growing old and infirm and having no direct successor he sent for me and generously presented me with itknowing, as he said that it rwould be appreciated and preserved in the interest of Irish Archaeology. Tho' I am a man of peace, any old sword has always had a strange fascination for me and I have collected many-'here and there-some with historic and National associations but, to me, thi5 bronze sword was in a class by itself. Not only did it hold the ,£"rim romance of a wea'pon, and the fascination of antiquity, but .it was, in itself a thing of grace and beauty-so enduring it promises to outlast countless generat~ ons of men. I have never been able to come across very much to illustrate the period known as the Iron Age as most of the objects of this period have disappeared through rust and general corrosion. I had, however, the great pleasure of own.i.ng for a number of years one object of outstanding importance. Many years ago fishemen in Ballys:hannon Bay dragged up an object which looked like a mass of shells and sand cemented together and attached to it was a human-like object of bronze. It passed into the collection of the late Hugh Allinghama noted Donegal antiquary of his day, but it was not. repor~ed or described in any of the antiquari :m publications of his day. After Mr. Allingham's death it passe?- to a dealer who assumed that it was a relic from one of the Spanish Armada ships wrecked off the Donegal coast. I happened to see it and although I did not
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