Antiquity of Smoking in Ireland (The dudeen).

From The Dublin Penny Journal, Volume 1, Number 29, January 12, 1833

The custom of smoking is of much greater antiquity in Ireland than the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Smoking pipes made of bronze are frequently found in our Irish tumuli, or sepulchral mounds of the most remote antiquity, and similar pipes made of baked clay are discovered daily in all parts of the island. A curious instance of the bathos in sculpture, which also illustrates the antiquity of this custom, occurs on the monument of Donogh O'Brien, king of Thomond, who was killed in 1267, and interred in the abbey of Corcumroe, in the county of Clare, of which his family were the founders. He is represented in the usual recumbent posture, with the short pipe or dudeen of the Irish in his mouth!

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