Find of Bog-Butter, Canoe, and Bronze Sword in County Leitrim

Last July, in Drumconnor bog, a few miles from Creevelea, County Leitrim, as a farmer was working at turf, he came across about 14 lb. weight of bog-butter. It was discovered at a depth of 5 feet 4 inches from the surface. It was enclosed in an oaken vessel, shaped like a butter “butt,” and curiously carved. Unfortunately the staves were all broken up before anyone who set any value on the find heard of it. About half of the butter and some shreds of the staves are in the possession of Mr. George Gale, Dromahair.

Seven years ago a boat, or canoe, dug out of a single tree, was come across a few feet above the last-mentioned find in the same bog. It was broken up for firewood, nobody thinking it worth preserving! There were found, too, “an instrument like a chisel,” as the discoverer described it, and a “long, rusty, brass knife.” They were brought home with the turf, and lay about the house of the farmer, Mr. Kelly, who had dug them up, for about five years, until both were given to a travelling tinsmith for a new tin-can.

The writer showed Mr. Kelly the drawings in Wakeman’s “Handbook,” at p. 290, and he at once declared it was exactly like the picture on the left (a decorated flat celt). The “long, brass knife” resembled very closely, he stated, No. 5 of the Bronze Swords sketched on p. 281, but was thinner in make. Not very unlikely it was a specimen of one of the short-pointed swords of bronze which were used mainly in thrusting by the races which inhabited Ireland before the Christian era. Mr. Kelly would not credit it that there are men, reputed wise, that would give him as much as a half-sovereign for an old, blunt, brass knife of that kind, if he found another.

The incident shows what is likely happening every year to finds of possibly inestimable antiquarian interest, more particularly in districts where no one is known to care about such “rusted old irons.” Unless the find is seen to have the sheen of silver or gold, it is reckoned worthless, and, as likely as not, pitched again into the nearest bog-hole.