The discovery, in the course of the 1955 excavations at Tara, of a necklace which included segmented faience beads around the neck of an inhumed burial is the first recorded instance in Ireland of the occurrence of beads of this type with such a burial. It is, in fact, only the second case in which faience beads of any kind are known to have been found in a grave in this country. Since the discovery is so unusual and because of its implications for prehistoric trade and cultural connexions, it seems fitting that a brief account in advance of the full excavation report, should be offered for inclusion in this volume in honour of Professor Childe, one of whose most significant contributions to the study of prehistory has been to indicate such ancient contacts between different areas and to emphasize their significance.

Excavations at Tara began in 1952. In that year and in 1953 work was carried out on the site known as the Rath of the Synods. In 1955 work was resumed at Tara—this time on the burial mound called the Mound of the Hostages. This site is ascribed to Cormac Mac Airt, King at Tara in the 3rd century of the Christian era. To Cormac also are attributed the building of others of the Tara monuments, including the most important of them—the Fort of the Kings and the Banquet Hall—and in general Cormac looms large in the scribal accounts of Tara. The 1955 excavation showed that the Mound of the Hostages was certainly not built in the 3rd century A.D.

This paper, written at the kind invitation of the Honorary Editor of our Proceedings, has as its original aim the review of activity in Irish prehistory during war-time, thus to provide a résumé such as has already been furnished by other writers for other countries in Europe. It has, however, been agreed that a slight extension of the range of the period has in this case certain advantages, since an admirable summary of the position of Irish prehistory was provided in 1937 by Dr Mahr's Presidential Address to the Prehistoric Society (Mahr, 1937). The present paper cannot aim to give as full a treatment as did Mahr's, which has in many aspects served as a summary text-book of Irish prehistory, nor can it devote lengthy space to any theory—new or otherwise—as Mahr did for his Riverford Culture, yet it must be its aim to summarise the work which has been done since the publication of his ‘New Aspects,’ and to indicate as far as possible, the advances and modifications of outlook which have resulted during the intervening years.

The halberd is of sufficiently frequent occurrence and of a sufficiently distinctive character to be a most useful ‘type fossil’ by which may be traced connexions and the trend of cultural developments in prehistoric Europe. That another paper on the subject is not a superfluity in archaeological literature is evident from the lack of any paper dealing at once with the Irish and Continental material. That this paper should be written in Ireland is fitting because the amount of the Irish material is so large. When Coffey wrote his valuable paper on ‘Irish Copper Halberds’ (frequently referred to in the following pages), he had before him the material in the National Museum of Ireland, which comprised at that time 49 halberds. This number has in the meantime increased to 71, while the total number of Irish halberds of which I have been able to get particulars is 143, 67 having known localities. This body of material, which is considerably greater than that from any other country, makes it clear that the part played by Ireland in the story of the European halberd must have been an important one. When we come to study the typology, evolution, and distribution of the weapon, we shall get further proof of this importance.