from the "Book of Leinster," " died the monarch Lughaidh Laighné, of the line of Eber, after a reign of seven years. He was the first that made bronze and bronze spears in Erinn."
"The stone man," says Prof. W. K. Sullivan, Ph.D., Secretary of the Royal Irish Academy, "appeared before the bronze man, and the latter before the iron man. Wherever a bronze spear, or other implement of the same nature, was found, a Celt had passed there; an iron weapon was a sure mark of the footsteps of an Anglo-Saxon, or some other branch of the great Teutonic stem."
Without entering on the rich question of the analyses of bronzes, it is enough to state that ancient weapons of true bronze, and of bronzes more or less mixed with tin and lead, have been found in Ireland in great abundance. The spears of the Tuatha Dé Danann (1200 B. C.), however, are described as "sharp, thin, and hard," which, probably, means that they were of iron.
From the earliest records, relating to the battles between the Firbolgs (Ireland's primitive people) and the Tuatha Dé Danann (the battle of Magh Tuireadh, between the Firbolgs and the Tuatha Dé Danann, was fought B. C. 1272), we learn that the accoutrements of a Firbolg warrior going to the field were "a hooked shield"; two craisechs or thick-handled spears, for thrusting;
