⁷⁶Macalister, Robert Alexander Stewart. Tara, a Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland, New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1931, p. 40.

Regarding the frequently-mentioned anecdote regarding Roman coins being seeded in the diggings to confound the British Israelites, Macalister notes: "...it has been suggested that the coins were sur­reptitiously introduced by some practical joker. This is perhaps open to doubt: a jest of the kind, with real Roman coins, though they be as common as Constantine's, is costly enough to warrant us in expecting the jester to have de­rived from it some satisfaction, pecuniary or otherwise; but it does not appear that anyone profited. The fact, how­ever, that such a suspicion could be seriously entertained is in itself an evidence of the irresponsible nature of the whole undertaking."

The author also relates a story from Sir John Dillon, who claimed that he saw a golden bracelet in the diggings, and handed it to one of the men working at the site, "but as it was not the Ark of the Covenant, the latter flung it contemptuously into the Boyne!" (p. 40)