represented with a shield in this instance, so that heraldry does not, any more than tradition, serve to indicate the family to which this monument belonged; but, from the character of the armour, it may be assigned to the early part or middle of the thirteenth century. It should be observed that the hood or chaperon of mail conforms to the globular shape of the head.

The wood engraving, which accompanies this paper, gives a faithful representation of another example of this class of monumental sculpture, afforded by the county of Kilkenny. The old church of Kilfane, in the barony of Gowran, appears from its existing sculptured details to have been built at the close of the thirteenth century, or commencement of the fourteenth. On the erection of the present parish church, the older structure became disused as a place of worship, and served as a school-house; and I have been informed by several individuals, who some thirty years since attended as children at this school, that this sculpture lay on the floor, and that the punishment for idle or refractory urchins was a compulsory kiss bestowed on the stony lips of the "Cantwell fadha," the "tall Cantwell," as the effigy was traditionally named in the Irish language. Subsequently, the figure was buried beneath the surface to save it from injury, and so it remained for many years. In September, 1840, I well remember working hard with spade and shovel to disinter the knight for the purpose of obtaining a drawing. When the rubbish was cleared away I saw at once that this was no common monument, and the necessity of doing something for its preservation strongly presented itself; accordingly, a subscription was entered into, and an attempt was made to remove the slab to the aisles of the cathedral of St. Canice at Kilkenny; from several causes, however, the project fortunately was not put in execution. I say fortunately, for, from the mode of transit contemplated, and the immense weight of the slab, it is extremely probable that some injury would have resulted to this valuable monument. From the period alluded to, down to the summer of 1852, matters remained as before, and the knight lay safely beneath the protecting rubbish. Several circumstances, however, combined to force on the committee of the Kilkenny Archæological Society the importance of saving the sculpture from possible destruction. It was accordingly determined to obtain a mould from the effigy itself, as the most effectual way of perpetuating its peculiar features; this has been, by the kind permission of the archdeacon of Ossory, effected; and four casts have been made therefrom, one of which was exhibited at the National Exhibition at Cork, and rests finally in the Museum of the Royal Cork Institution; a second has been transmitted to the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, and has there elicited much interest; a third has been executed for the Court of Irish Art, in the Great Irish Industrial Exhibition of 1853; and the fourth has been reserved for the Museum of the Kilkenny Archæological Society.

These measures have been undertaken by the committee of the Kilkenny Society as calculated not only to multiply copies of a curious, and, in Ireland, almost unique relic, but also as tending to make the Society favourably known to the Irish public, as being alive to the importance of saving the monuments of the past from demolition.'

The Cantwell or de Canteville family was amongst the early Norman settlers in the counties of Kilkenny and Tipperary. Thomas de Kentewall is one of the witnesses to a charter granted by Theobald Walter, first chief butler of Ireland, to his town of Gowran, in the reign of Henry II. The Cantwells early possessed large property in the county of Kilkenny, on which stood the castles of Cantwell's Court near Kilkenny, and of Stroan and Cloghscreg in the immediate neighbourhood of Kilfane. That this monument represents a Cantwell is proved by the evidence of heraldry. The shield is charged with a bearing, which, without the tinctures, may be described as-four annulets, a canton ermine the bearing seen on the seal of John Cantwell, attached to a deed of Walter Fitz Peter de Cantwell, and Peter Fitz Peter de Cantwell, dated 46th Edw. III., and on the seal of another John Cantwell, affixed to a deed dated 15th Henry VII.3 Probably this effigy was sculptured in memory of Thomas de Cantwell, who, by a writ dated at Thomastown, in the county of Kilkenny, in the year 1319, was exempted from attending at assizes, on the plea of being worn out with age (Rot. Pat. 13 Edw. II., No. 33). Tombs, it is well known, were occasionally erected by persons before their decease; perhaps such was the case in this instance. A suit of mail, without any portion of plate, defends the body, and the head and throat are protected by a chaperon of mail which falls over the hauberk; the chaperon is flattened at top, presenting the appearance of a slightly elevated cone. A long triangular shield, very much curved, and charged in relief with the arms before described, is supported on the left side by the shield-strap, passing over the right shoulder, and some acorns with oak leaves are carved in the stone as a support for its point. A surcoat is worn over the hauberk, confined by the sword belt at the waist, and the sword lies under the body, the end appearing between the legs; the right arm (the hand being bare, and the mailed gauntlet hanging by) is extended by the side; and the right leg crossed over the left. The feet are supported by wellcarved clusters of oak leaves with acorns, and the spurs are broadly rowelled. The effigy is well sculptured, apparently in Kilkenny marble; the contour of the head and neck is fine, the legs and feet are well formed, and the folds of the surcoat are disposed with considerable elegance; but the shoulders are narrow, the chest flat, and

A special subscription has been commenced to defray the cost incurred, which the ordinary funds of the Society are inadequate to meet.

These documents are preserved in the

Record Room, Kilkenny Castle, amongst the Ormonde MSS. Burke gives-gules, five annulets, and a canton ermine (another, six annulets or), as the coat of Cantwell, in Ireland.-General Armory, &c.

the right arm badly designed. The entire absence of plate armour prevents us from assigning this effigy to the successor of Thomas de Cantwell, as the latter was not dead in 1319; but as he was an old man at that period, the broad rowelled spur forbids us to assign it to his predecessor, who must have died early in the thirteenth century, and the character of the oak leaf foliage would also point to about 1319, it being carved with the marked vigour and truth to nature, characteristic of the Decorated style of architecture which then came into vogue. It seems also probable, from the style of the building, that this Thomas de Cantwell was the founder, or at least rebuilder, of the ancient church of Kilfane.

In addition to the two remarkable relics of monumental sculpture which have been described, I am desirous to bring under the notice of the Society a fragment of a very singular example of early Irish art, likewise to be seen in the county of Kilkenny. It is a portion of an engraved slab, about two feet square, possibly sepulchral, resembling the incised stone memorials of frequent occurrence in England: it occurs at Jerpoint Abbey, where it at present serves as a head-stone to the grave of some peasant, there interred in recent times. This curious specimen of incised work exhibits, as will be seen by the accompanying representation, the lower por

tions of two figures, of dimensions rather below life size. They are armed in mail, represented by parallel rows of rings, according

to a conventional mode of indicating that kind of armour, as seen on effigies from the thirteenth to the early part of the sixteenth centuries. In this instance the chausses, or hose of mail, are fastened below the knee by straps of a very peculiar kind, formed with a broad piece in front, and narrow double thongs passing round the limb behind. I am not aware that any representation of such an appliance of military costume, resembling a garter, at this period, has been noticed, either in works of monumental art, or illuminated MSS. An able writer on costume, indeed, in his curious remarks on the origin of the garter, and its choice as a knightly symbol by Edward III., affirms that he had doubted whether any garters were worn by men in those days, no indication of such an article occurring upon any monument or in any illumination.' The feet of the figures, on the curious slab at Jerpoint Abbey, are unfortunately deficient, and the upper part of the slab has likewise been broken away. In its mutilated condition it is difficult to ascertain the precise intention of the design, and posture of the figures; but I may mention that some persons, who have examined it with care, have entertained the notion that one of the figures is represented in the cross-legged attitude, and that this slab may be added to the list of examples of that peculiar conventionality in the earlier sepulchral memorials of Ireland.2

And now, perhaps, in conclusion, it may be permitted me to atone for all this dry detail by subjoining some lines-not without beautywhich the discovery of the knightly effigy of de Canteville suggested, in years gone by, to a friend now no more:

SONNET.

A-wandering once in boyhood's blithesome hour,
When every thing that earth contains was fair,
And seeking what was beautiful and rare,
I spied, amidst a grove, an ancient tower,
Furrowed by angry blast and beating shower.
Yea, time, whose hand is little wont to spare,
Was busy with it-I, with heart aware

That things of Old possess a holy power,
Drew near to that grey pile, and lo! I found
'Neath it the tomb of a Crusader bold,

Half hidden in the ruin-cumber'd ground.

Ah me! said I, men's hearts are hard and cold,
Else would they move the rubbish gather'd round,
And cherish this, the Piety of old!

1 Planché, History of British Costume, p. 146. In the later edition of 1847, the author observes that he had found mention of garters (cintolini) in Boccaccio's Decameron, written temp. Edward III.

2 Since this paper was read, the slab in question has been removed from the graveyard, and built into the face of the wall, in the nave of Jerpoint Abbey, for better preservation.

OBSERVATIONS ON AN ANCIENT IRISH BOAT.

BY T. L. COOKE, ESQ.

ALONG with this paper I forwarded a drawing, with measured plans and sections, of an ancient Irish boat, at present in my possession.

I believe that this boat is in a much more perfect state than the generality of such relics are found to be in. Its principal defect consists in a split, which runs from the lower part of the starboard side, quite through the solid stern. The greatest length from stem to stern, is twenty-two feet seven inches. The greatest breadth of beam, thirty-one inches. It is all one piece of timber, formed in the solid out of a single oak tree; and, although it looks, on a superficial view, as if the tree had been hollowed by means of fire, nevertheless, a close inspection proves, by the sharpness of the internal angles and the thinness, as well as smoothness, of the bottom and sides, that some sort of edged tools were used in its formation. The bottom, which is perfectly flat and without a keel, is two inches thick. The sides, which also present plain surfaces, incline outward from the point where they rise from the bottom. This splay of the sides causes the boat to be much wider at what may be called the gunwale than it is at the flooring. The sides are an inch and a-half thick where they meet the bottom, but they gradually become more thin from thence upwards, their topmost edges not being more than half an inch in thickness. The larboard side is several inches lower than the starboard one; but this manifestly is the effect of accident since the boat was made. The sides are prevented from collapsing by two stout ridges of solid timber, one of which was left standing near either end of the vessel, thus serving the office of what ship-builders term beams. These ridges are about thirty-one inches from the extreme ends of the boat; and between them and such ends, cavities have been scooped out of the timber, apparently for the purpose of rendering the craft more buoyant. A horizontal hole, about an inch and ahalf in diameter, is visible in the most forward and highest part of the

It seems to have been for securing a painter or foot-rope to. There is no trace of thwarts or benches: and as the sides had neither row-locks nor thole-pins for the application of oars, the boat must have been propelled by means of paddles or by sculling.

Major Richard Dunne, the gallant and worthy gentleman to whose kindness I am indebted for the possession of this interesting relic, has obligingly informed me that when he was in Greece, he used to fowl in boats cut out of the solid tree and nearly similar to the one I have described. The Greek boat (he says) was then called μevoĝoλov, probably from oxos currus, vehiculum. My worthy friend had this ancient boat sent to me from Brittas, the seat of his brother, lieutenant-colonel Dunne, M.P., situate near Clonaslea, in the Queen's