At the sale of the Carruthers collecton of antiquities in 1856, two silver armlets were sold. One derived from the Magheralagan hoard (Briggs and Graham-Campbell 1976; Briggs 1978), the other was described as a 'portion of a silver armlet, ornamented but flattened', and was stated to have been' found at Cave Hill, Co Antrim' (Sotheby, Wilkinson and Co., 20th December 1856, p.8, no. 128). It was purchased by Eastwood, a dealer, for three shillings.
This piece is almost indubitably the same fragment as that illustrated in John Windele's MS Antiquarian Miscellany (R.I.A. MS 12.C.1., fol.133) stated simply to have been 'found near Belfast, 1845', and recently listed as a provenanced though unassociated Hiberno-Viking find by Graham-Campbell (1976,71). This weighed sixteen pennyweight (Fig.1). The only other reference to Carruthers's ownership of this half armring appears in the Belfast Exhibition Catalogue of 1852 (Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Antiquities, Belfast, 1852, p.18, no.2) where, most informatively, it is described as having been 'found together with an ingot of silver, in McAirt's Fort, Cavehill, Co. Antrim'. No further details were forthcoming from the same source; certainly no other exhibitor admitted to owning a find provenanced to the Fort, and no other contemporary source helps pinpoint the whereabouts of the accompanying ingot. Indeed, it is possible that this, together with other hacksilver from the discovery was melted down by a local jeweller.
One piece which did not find its way into the melting pot was a full Hiberno-Viking armring acquired by Alexander Colville Welsh of Dromore, Co. Down. Acquired by the National Museum in 1876 (24,115) the ring is stated to have been 'found at the Corn Hill, Belfast' (Boe 1940, 127; Graham-Campbell 1976, 71). It is described as 'a little enlarged towards the middle. the opening is now wide, the ends a little damaged. Ornamented with a cross and transverse grooves containing in regular alternation raised crosses and dots' (Boe 1940, 127). Its decoration (Pl.1) is of a similar punched pattern to that upon the Windele illustration (Fig.1).
There is no such place as 'Corn Hill' in the Belfast area and it seems reasonable to conjecture that this is a mistranscription of 'Cave Hill'. Carruthers and Welsh were contemporaries who moved in the same antiquarian circle, and must have shared certain of their sources of supply. It is thus hardly surprising to find artefacts from the same cache turning up in the collections of both men. It is perhaps more surprising that other provenanced pieces, including the ingot, were not also incorporated into these or other local collections, and exhibited alongside the armring fragment at Belfast in 1852. One reason why the objects did not appear together could be that Welsh did not then own the armring, and that someone other than Carruthers was in possession of the lion's share of the treasure at the time. Welsh may thus only have acquired his one piece later. It is otherwise odd that he did not exhibit it in Belfast at the 1852 exhibition, since virtually everything he owned seems to have been on view to the public at that time. Antiquarian sources therefore indicate the certain association of one armring fragment with a silver ingot, and the liklihood of an associated full armring. These comprised either the whole or, more likely, a portion of a Hiberno-Viking silver hoard, only the second with hacksilver from Co. Antrim. In NE. Ireland Viking hoards predominate, there being five, plus one of ornaments and coin (Magheralagan), over two exclusively of hacksilver (Graham-Campbell 1976, 43-5).
C.S. Briggs
Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The writer thanks Mrs B. Dolan and Miss E. O'Tuomey of the Library, the Royal Irish Academy, for their constant help in his manuscript researches; also the Royal Irish Academy for permission to publish the Windele drawing. Mr J. Sheehan of the national Museum of Ireland kindly provided details of Welsh's specimen, and the national Museum gave permission to publish the photograph.
REFERENCES
Boe, J. (1940). Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland, Shetelig, H. (ed.), part III, Norse Antiquities in Ireland (Oslo, 1940).
Briggs, C.S. (1978). 'The Magheralagan Hoard; an additional note', Ulster j. Archaeol., 41 (1978), 102.---------and Graham-Campbell, J.A. (1976). 'A lost hoard of Viking-age silver from Magheralagan, County Down', Ulster J. Archeol., 39 (1976), 20-4
Graham-Campbell, J.A. (1976). 'The Viking Age silver hoards of Ireland' in Almqvist, B. and Greene, D. (eds), Proc. Seventh Viking Cong. (Dublin, 1976) 39-74
A interesting article on armrings said to be found in Scotland exhibit remarkable similarity to those described above http://mycoinpage.com/SCA/ArmRings/Scottish_ArmRings.pdf
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