¹Armstrong, E.C.R. "The Great Clare Find of 1854." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth 7.1 (1917): 33-34.

²Dromoland Castle is but now owned by an American. Its name has been translated to mean “Hill of Litigation," which may be considered ironic due to the ownership disputes in the 16th century.

³Breen, Martin. The History of Mooghaun Castle, Co. Clare. Academia.edu. Web. 15 June 2015. https://www.academia.edu/2652759/The_History_of_Mooghaun_Castle_Co._Clare
Mooghaun Castle was built around 1470 by Donal MacNamara.

⁴Westropp, T.J. "Prehistoric Stone Forts of Central Clare. Moghane and Langough, near Dromoland." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Fifth 3.3 (1893): 284-85.
"Not only is Moghane, even in its overthrow, a most interesting example of our prehistoric forts, but it is probably one of the largest (whether of earth or stone) in Ireland. It could contain Dun Aonghus and Dun Conor, Emania, or the two largest forts of Tara; while, to give a definite notion of its great size, it is three times the length and four time the greatest width of St. Paul’s Cathedral, or three times the size of the Acropolis of Athens."

⁵Westropp, T.J. "Types of the Ring-Forts and Similar Structures Remaining in Eastern Clare (The Newmarket Group)." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 27 (1908-1909): 220.
The quoted phrase “barbaric silversmiths” is from John Windele, c. 1856. The date of the discovery may be deduced from: Armstrong, E.C.R. "The Great Clare Find of 1854." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth 7.1 (1917): 21.

⁶Armstrong 21.
£30 in 1854 would be the equivalent of £2,323 in 2015 (€3,219). £400 in 1854 would be the equivalent of £31,004 in 2015 (€42,920).

⁷Armstrong 22-23.
“The first of the ornaments exposed was a small circlet of gold, and then two or three more, and the labourer who unearthed them not knowing their worth, and not aware that more were about them, took them up carelessly, looked at them cursorily and flung them into the lake. But delving again a perfect layer of splendid gold gorgets turned up, and within them concave and circular and bugle-shaped at the ends as they are, a hundred or two of minor size were deposited, and so placed as to give rise to the idea that one piece—a cup, was discovered.”

⁸Grogan, Eoin. The North Munster Project. Vol. 1. Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wordwell, 2005. 70-73.
According to Grogan, "[The Mooghaun Hoard was] the largest collection of prehistoric gold in western Europe and demonstrates the enormous power and authority of the occupants of the hillfort." (Grogan, Eoin. The Late Bronze Age Hillfort at Mooghaun South. Ireland: Discovery Programme, 1999. 9-13.)

⁹According to Eoin Grogan, "The great gold hoard from Mooghaun North...seems to represent an event special to the whole population of the chiefdom, one that would have enhanced the status of the ruling elite but would also have reflected glory on the entire society." (Grogan, Eoin. The Late Bronze Age Hillfort at Mooghaun South. Ireland: Discovery Programme, 1999. 22-24.
According to archaeologist Charles Mount, "The parabolic increase in hoard deposition indicates that during the Dowris phase [Late Bronze Age] the economy had boomed to the extent that many people were wealthy enough to participate in an unprecedented process of wealth destruction through the offering of valuable objects to the gods at ceremonies mostly centred on sacred bog/wetland sites." (Mount, Charles. "Hoards in the Irish Copper and Bronze Ages." Dr. Charles Mount: Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Web. 17 June 2015. <http://charles-mount.ie/wp/index.php/tag/dowris-phase/>.

¹⁰According to Cahill and O'Carroll, "A bracelet and neckring have been deliberately chopped, and the way the objects were arranged in the pit dug to accommodate them suggests a store of objects for re-use rather than any form of ritual offering. "(Cahill, Mary and Finola O'Carroll. "Hoards of the Later Prehistoric Period." Archaeology Ireland 8.2 (1994): 11-13.)
According to Tom Condit, who has proposed that the Mooghaun Hoard was deposited in a fulacht fiadh (cook site) the SW shore of Mooghaun Lough, "It seems likely that whoever deposited the Mooghaun hoard would have been familiar enough with the lake to realise that, if deposited indiscriminately in the lake, it would have been exposed when the lake level dropped. If deposited in the top of a fulacht perhaps protruding above the surface of the lake, the hoard’s location would have been known and its recovery possible." (Condit, Tom. "Gold and Fulachta Fiadh: The Mooghaun Find, 1854." Archaeology Ireland 10.4 (1996): 23.)

¹¹T.J. Westropp speculated, in a 1916 letter, that (absent a stone compartment), "... a plundering army, surprised by the natives as they left the ravaged ‘town,’ had barely time to bury the spoil in loose stones, and got no opportunity to return and remove their spoils. The number and uniform age of the find shows that many were engaged in the collection, and that they got the ornaments from one source, probably a crowd of captives." (Armstrong, E.C.R. "The Great Clare Find of 1854." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth 7.1 (1917): 25-26.)

¹²Westropp "Prehistoric Stone Forts..." 281. In this article Westropp tells of a tradition that Mooghaun Hillfort's "last chief sold it to Sir Donat O’Brien for threescrore cows and twenty bullocks." (p. 281)
A decade and a half later, Westropp wrote that a map from around 1590 called the "walled town" of Mooghaun Hillfort by the name "Cahermoghna." (Westropp, T.J. "Types of the Ring-Forts and Similar Structures Remaining in Eastern Clare (The Newmarket Group)." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies, History, Linguistics, Literature 27 (1908-1909): 219.)

¹³Grogan, Eoin. The Late Bronze Age Hillfort at Mooghaun South. Ireland: Discovery Programme, 1999.14-17.

¹⁴Grogan The North Munster Project. xvi.
The North Munster Project was established in 1992 under the Directorship of Dr. Eoin Grogan, as part of the initial research strategy of the Discovery Programme. "Its purpose was to examine and interpret the late Bronze Age and Iron Age archaeology of the area of the lower River Shannon using an integrated regional strategy, including excavation, field survey, palaeobotanical research and artefact studies." The guiding principle of the Project was that "...archaeological evidence represents human behaviour and, as such, is part of a real historical narrative. A principal line of enquiry, therefore, sought to decipher the evidence in order to reconstruct a model of that narrative." (p. 6)

¹⁵Westropp "Types of the Ring-Forts..." 219.
A radiocarbon date was derived from directly under the base of the rampart. This provided a calibrated date range of between 1255 BCE-917 BCE, thus confirming the hillfort's construction in the Late Bronze Age. (Grogan, Eoin, and Tom Condit. "New Hillfort Date Gives Clue to Late Bronze Age." Archaeology Ireland 8.2 (1994): 7.)

¹⁶Westropp "Prehistoric Stone Forts..." 281.

¹⁷Grogan The North Munster Project. 95.
It is possible that the small group of families who lived in the hillfort were those changed with its maintenance. (245)
Mooghaun, as other Irish hillforts, was not primarily a place of residence. Rather it was intended for community gatherings, on special occasions or at times of danger. Ceremonies, drawing in people from the whole chiefdom, would have enhanced the social bonding of society and provided an opportunity for important social interaction and negotiation. (Grogan, Eoin. The Late Bronze Age Hillfort at Mooghaun South. Ireland: Discovery Programme, 1999. 21-22.)

¹⁸Grogan The Late Bronze Age Hillfort..." 32-33.
When this small cairn, 4.3 m (14 ft) in diameter, dating from the Early or Middle Bronze Age, was excavated in 1993 it was found that the bottom course of stones rested directly on the bedrock, making it unlikely that it contained any cist burials. The cairn was likely squared off when it was re-purposed as the base of an Ordnance Survey trigonometric pillar. A viewing platform was built directly above it. (Grogan, Eoin. The North Munster Project. Vol. 1. Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wordwell, 2005. 122.)
Another remnant of a structure that seems to pre-date the construction of the hillfort is a platform and enclosure just to the S of the lower cashel. This may be noted here in a section of the 1840 Ordnance Survey map. (Grogan, Eoin. The North Munster Project. Vol. 1. Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wordwell, 2005. 124-25.)

¹⁹When comparing David Hill's illustration of domestic life in Mooghaun Hillfort during the Late Bronze Age with his two illustrations in the gallery of similar domestic activities taking place in the cashels, it is striking how little seems to have changed. Hill's reconstruction of the cashel scenes may have been drawn with the intend of illustrating an Early Historic scene, although subsequent excavation has indicated that the cashels are more likely to date from the Early Medieval. Yet compared to our modern pace of technological advancement, these illustrations of domestic scenes separated by 1500-2000 years make it seems as if time were almost standing still relative to today.

²⁰Grogan The North Munster Project. 244-45.
Dating the cashels and the hutsites, the excavator concluded, was a complex task, with some contradictory results. He concluded, "“All that can be said is that two episodes of activity are recorded, but it is not clear which may date the complex as a whole."
‪Jon Henderson‪‬ suggests that the confidence of the Mooghaun excavators regarding the dating of both the hillfort and the hutsites may be unwarranted. He suggests that the hutsite dates given by Grogan may be from a later occupation. He also calls into question the conclusion that the three hillfort ramparts were of contemporary construction, suggesting that there could be an Iron Age involvement. (Henderson, Jon C. The Atlantic Iron Age: Settlement and Identity in the First Millennium BC. London: Routledge, 2007. 107-08, 182-84.)

²¹Westropp "Types of the Ring-Forts..." 220.
John Windele, c. 1856, noted that the hoard contained among the larger decorative items"...ring-money of various sizes and patterns..." The fact that a few ingots were also included in the Find may indicate that the objects, lacking in incised decoration, were used within the community as a type of currency. There is no evidence of any coinage or currency system from this period in Europe. (Wilkin, Nel. "The Mooghaun Hoard: Early 'currency' or Bands of Equality?" The British Museum (blog). 20 Mar. 2013. Web. 18 June 2015. <http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2013/03/20/the-mooghaun-hoard-early-currency-or-bands-of-equality/>.)
While most of the objects found in the hoard are similar to others found in Munster, the collars "are much less readily compared with other material and may be unique to the area." (Grogan, Eoin. The North Munster Project. Vol. 1. Bray, Co. Wicklow: Wordwell, 2005. 70-3.)

²²Armstrong 22-23.

²³O'Toole, Fintan. "Mooghaun Hoard, C. 800BC." A History of Ireland in 100 Objects. Mar. 2013. Web. 18 June 2015. <http://www.100objects.ie/portfolio-items/mooghaun-hoard/>.
The photograph of the assembled hoard objects on our website (NMI) includes the originals from both the National Museum of Ireland and the British Museum, plus casts of some of the items that were lost.
The provenance of some of the objects may be uncertain. Tom Condit indicated in 1996 that there were only a total of 29 known originals from the hoard. There would be 30 now, in Condit's accounting, with the addition of the one acquired by the Museum in 1998. See footnote #29. (Condit, Tom. "Gold and Fulachta Fiadh: The Mooghaun Find, 1854." Archaeology Ireland 10.4 (1996): 20.)

²⁴Armstrong 22-23.
Some of the gold was sold immediately in Newmarket. Other pieces were sold afterwards in Limerick, Waterford, and Dublin. More information here.
The daily wages of a laborer on the Limerick and Ennis Railway in 1854 (1s 10p, or 22 pence) was found here. There were twelve pence in a shilling and twenty shillings, or 240 pence, in a pound. If the daily pay for the navvies in 1854 was 22 pence, then £1,500 is the same as 360,000 pence. Divide 360,000 by 22 =16,363 days divided by 313 working days (6-day week) = 52.28 years. Each worker's share, £1,500 in 1854, would be equivalent in 2015 to £116,264, or  €160,730 or $180,982.

²⁵Cahill, Mary. "Mooghaun Bracelet Re-Discovered." Archaeology Ireland 12.1 (1998): 9.
The National Museum of Ireland acquired three other bracelets during the 20th century which are considered as belonging to the Mooghaun Hoard.
According to William Ryan, (1980), "In 1854 a Dr. Todd realising the significance of the find made a determined effort to locate and record as many of the recently discovered gold pieces as possible. He was fortunately able to make bronze gilt casts of almost 150 objects, many of the gold originals shortly afterwards being melted down by their owners. These casts consist of 5 gorgets, 2 torques, 2 unwrought ingots and 137 rings and armillae. Between this work, and that of other interested parties at the time, we can state that the find contained at least the following pieces:- a) 138 penannular bracelets with solid, evenly expanded, terminals; b) 3 penannular bracelets with evenly expanded hollowed terminals; c) 6 gold collars; d) 2 lock-rings; e) 2 penannular neck-rings; f) 3 ingots; g) 2 torcs." (Ryan, William G. "Great Clare Gold Find, 1854." Clare County Library. 1980. Web. 18 June 2015. <http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/archaeology/ryan/part2_tomfinlough_parish_mooghaun_south_gold.htm>.)

²⁶Westropp "Types of the Ring-Forts..." 219.
As Westropp put it, "No doubt, fear lest the O’Briens of Dromoland should renew their claims for more than the one or two bracelets that came into their possession was long an obsession on all the discovers of the gold, and led not only to silence, but to misleading statements."
Is it also be possible that, fearing the O'Briens as well their employer, the workers may have lied because they were exploring a spot that was adjacent to, but not part of, their work for the railroad?

²⁷Westropp, T.J. "The Clare Gold Find." The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth 8.2 (1918): 185.
Westropp, as antiquarian and sleuth, wrote, " I was recently taken to the site of the Find by Mr W. Halpin, of Knocknegon, Newmarket-on-Fergus, and Messrs. Denis and Patrick O’Rorke, sons of the farmer at whose house the bulk of the early gold ornaments (found March 1854) were kept for safety for some time. The railway runs across the site, and the three traditions I found only differed as to which side of the line the discovery was made, or whether it was under the raised part of the metalled line."

²⁸Condit, Tom. "Gold and Fulachta Fiadh: The Mooghaun Find, 1854." Archaeology Ireland 10.4 (1996): 20-23.
The author notes that the fulacht fiadh he believes was the spot where the hoard was found "is c. 20m from the railway embankment and c. 10m from the lake edge...The site consists of an irregularly shaped mound of burnt earth and stone...A distinguishing feature of the mound is the large, irregular depression on top...[this] may represent the place where the find was uncovered. It is difficult to explain why the fulachta fiadh were not identified or referred to by the antiquarians who visited the spot and carried out exhaustive investigations. It is possible the mounds were covered by the rising lake or by sufficient vegetation to disguise their presence. "

²⁹Cahill 8-9.
"Following contact with the owner we were shown a gold bracelet which has been in the possession of the owner’s husband’s family - the Studderts - since it was found. According to Studdert family history it was found as part of the Great Clare Find during the building of the railway. It had remained in the family ever since and had been worn by several female members up to modern times...The Studdert family has a long historical connection with County Clare and owned several important properties, including Bunratty Castle. One branch lived at Ballyhannan, Quin, Co. Clare, which is within a few miles of Mooghaun where the Great Clare Find was made. It is highly likely that the family resident in Ballyhannan at that time would have been in a good position to acquire a piece or pieces of the hoard in the same way that Lord Inchiquin acquired a number also."

³⁰Prior to the invention of the portable metal detector (1931) and other more recent technologies to map features under the earth, gold seekers would deploy other methods. A 1751 magazine article explains how a divining rod, normally used to seek out water, could be used to find precious metals: "Metals have different degrees of attraction; gold is the strongest, next copper then iron, silver, tin, lead, bones, coals, springs of water, and limestone." (Using the Virgula Divina" from The Gentleman's Magazine, November, 1751. Quoted in Jessup, Ronald. Curiosities of British Archeology. Chinchester: Phillipmore & Co., Ltd., 1974. 85-86.)
Another "curiosity" from the same text quotes from a 1953 newspaper account, "They See When Hypnotised," about an archaeologist who put his assistants into a hypnotic trance at a historic location so that they might see into the past. "I have been able to send their minds back into the past. They have been able to describe and make sketches of things which happened during the Norman Conquest." (Daily Sketch, August 18, 1953)

³¹Westropp, T.J. "A Folklore Survey of County Clare (Concluded)." Folklore 23.2 (1912): 208.