dagger-blade, and
adding a narrow tang with a peg-hole to fix into the shaft. The
addition of a ferule was the next step; and the omission of the tang,
and amalgamation of the ferule with the blade, gave rise to the
socketed spear-head.

[Illustration: Fig. 24.]

[Illustration: Fig. 25.]

The Irish spear-heads may be divided into two well-defined groups,
looped and riveted; and it will be found that the separation of the
types extends farther than the mode of attachment. The form of the blade
of each class is quite distinct. Taking the looped spear-heads first, we
can follow the development of the spear-head from the dagger-blade. The
adaptation is shown in fig. 24 (the centre spear-head), which is, in
fact, a dagger-blade placed on a socket. The socket does not enter the
blade, but is stopped at the shoulders. The #V#-shaped base of the blade
is derived from the dagger, and disappears as the true character of the
spear form is developed. A feature of special interest is the survival
of the rivet-heads of the dagger in the form of ornamental bosses at
the base of the blade. The rivet-holes appear to have been drilled, and
not formed in casting. No examples of this form of spear-head have been
found in England; and but one is recorded from the Isle of Man and two
from Scotland. In the last example (in fig. 24), the imitative rivets
are reduced to a single boss, and completely disappear in the next stage
(fig. 25).

[Illustration: Fig. 26.]

[Illustration: Fig. 27.]

In the subsequent figures we see the blade developed at the expense of
the socket; and the transition to the fully developed spear-head
begins. The derivation of this form of spear-head from the so-called
Arreton Down type of tanged blade is now admitted. Though tanged
spear-heads of the Arreton Down type are fairly represented in Irish
finds, no socket has been so far recovered with any of them; but an
early form of nondescript tanged blade with a socket was found at
Lough Ruadh bog near Tullamore, King's County, in 1910, and shows the
socket was known in Ireland.

[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Leaf-shaped Spear-heads.]

[Illustration: Fig. 29.]

Another very early type of spear-head, nearly all the known examples of
which were found in Ireland, was derived by mounting the rapier on a
socket (fig. 27). There are six of these spear-heads in the collection
of the Royal Irish Academy, and one in the collection of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries