It would seem that with the coming of the Sons of Milid the destiny of Ireland was rounded and completed; from that time onward, for more than two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth and settled life and ideals; a period whose history and achievements we are only beginning to understand.  At the beginning of that long epoch of settled life the art of working gold was developed and perfected; and we have abundance of beautiful gold-work from remote times, of such fine design and execution that there is nothing in the world to equal it.  The modern work of countries where gold is found in quantities is commonplace, vulgar and inartistic, when compared with the work of the old Irish period.  Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of varying size and shape, were worn as diadems, collars, or even belts; crescent bands of finely embossed sheet-gold were worn above the forehead; brooches and pins of most delicate and imaginative workmanship were used to catch together the folds of richly colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not less various and exquisite forms.

We are at no loss to understand the abundance of our old goldsmiths’ work when we know that even now, after being worked for centuries, the Wicklow gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five hundred ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets in the beds of streams flowing into the two Avons.  One mountain torrent bears the name of Gold Mines River at the present day, showing the unbroken presence of the yellow metal from the time of its first discovery, over three thousand years ago.  It seems probable that a liberal alloy of gold gave the golden bronze its peculiar excellence and beauty; for so rich is the lustre, so fine the color of many of our bronze axes and spears, that they are hardly less splendid than weapons of pure gold.  From the perfect design and workmanship of these things of gold and bronze, more than from any other source, we gain an insight into the high culture and skill in the arts which marked that most distinctively Irish period, lasting, as we have seen, more than two thousand years.

Early in this same epoch we find traditions of the clearing of forests, the sowing of cornfields, the skill of dyers in seven colors, earliest of which were purple, blue and green.  Wells were dug to insure an easily accessible supply of pure water, so that we begin to think of a settled population dwelling among fields of golden grain, pasturing their cattle in rich meadows, and depending less on the deer and wild oxen of the forest, the salmon of lake and river, and the abundant fish along the shores.

Tradition speaks persistently of bards, heralds, poets and poetesses; of music and song; of cordial and generous social life; and to the presence of these bards, like the skalds of the Northmen, we owe pictures, even now full of life and color and movement, of those days of long ago.