placed either at the end of this time or the
beginning of the next period. In this period must also be placed the
building of the great tumuli of the New Grange group.

The fifth division--also a long one--would go from 900 to about 350
B.C., at which time iron weapons were probably coming into general use
in Ireland. In this period would fall the socketed celts, including
the latest type, which takes a form not uncommon among iron or steel
axes, the later bronze swords with notches below the blades, bronze
sword-chapes, the socketed sickles, probably some of the more highly
ornamented bronze spears with apertures in the blades, the bronze
trumpets, the gold fibulae, and gold gorgets. It must be remembered
that the Continental Hallstatt period is not at present well
represented in Great Britain and Ireland, and though, under Hallstatt
influence, certain Continental Iron-Age types such as bronze caldrons,
trumpets, round shields, &c., found their way into Ireland, we cannot
as yet definitely separate this period from the end of the Bronze
Age.

CHAPTER II

TRANSITIONAL COPPER PERIOD

In Ireland the metal first used was copper. Native copper is plentiful
in Ireland, and has been chiefly obtained from the Counties of
Wicklow, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Tipperary, and Galway. In Waterford
stone implements have been found in copper mines in ancient workings,
showing copper was mined for at an early period.[7] The time during
which copper was in use was probably relatively only a short one, much
shorter than the Neolithic Period or than the true Bronze Age. The
evidence for this period is the large number of flat copper celts
which have been found in the north and south, and east and west, of
the country. The earliest copper celts resemble in form the stone
celts from which they are derived, and were cast in open moulds on one
side only, and then hammered flat on the other. Moulds for casting
celts in this way have been found in Ireland. It is also extremely
interesting to notice that some stone celts betray the influence of
metal types by their form. It may be well here to meet an objection
that has been raised against a special use of copper in Ireland. It
has been urged that the large number of flat copper celts may have
been due to a scarcity of tin, and that as copper cannot be cast in
closed moulds, casters who could cast advanced forms of bronze celts
were obliged to return to the primitive form necessary for