“10thly. Remove the metal core. The trumpet is now ready to be burnished off.
“After writing the above, it occurred to me that I had neglected to inquire how the inner strap was to be held in its place for the insertion of the rivets. Ordinary solder could not have been used, as none appears between the strap and the plates. It might, perhaps, have been effected by a slow removal of the wooden core, and by the insertion, from the smaller end of temporary rivets or fastenings, as the core was being pushed forward; by such means at least half of the length of the strap could be firmly held in its place.”
[149] The MSS. from which it was extracted by O’Curry is the “Leabhar-na-h-Uidhre,” written about A.D. 1106, but the tale, as therein recounted, was extracted from the “Book of Dromsneachta,” a work undoubtedly written before, or about the year 430.
[150] W. F. Wakeman states that at one time this slab was in the possession of Petrie, the well-known antiquary. An engraving of a chess-board of the fourteenth century shows but 42 squares, 7 × 6.
[152] _Ulster Journal of Archæology_, vol. iii., p. 11.
[153] _Book of Leinster_, p. 206, as quoted by O’Curry, Lectures, p. 469.
[154] _Ulster Journal of Archæology_, vol. vii., p. 73.
[155] W. F. Wakeman offers a suggestion in connection with the name Balhu; he states that Joyce in his _Irish Names of Places_ translates the name of the Fermanagh town of Lisbellaw, _Lis-bel-atha, the lis of the ford mouth_. Now, there was no river ever there, consequently there could be no “ford mouth.” There is certainly a _lis_ or ford in the neighbourhood, but the little stream which now drives the woollen mill of Lisbellaw flows through a deep cutting communicating with Loch Eyes, and which was made only in recent times. The _natural_ outlet from the loch ran, and still runs, in a northerly direction, and cannot have influenced the naming of Lisbellaw, as its course commences at a distance of some miles from the village. “The name Lisbellaw seems to invite investigation. Could it be translated ‘the fort or lis of Balhu,’ even as Dunleary is ‘the fort or dun of Laighaire’”?
[156] _Journal Royal Hist. and Arch. Asso. of Ireland_, vol. v. (New Series), p. 229.