The Cathach of St. Columba, known as the Cathach, is a late 6th century Insular psalter. It is the oldest surviving manuscript in Ireland, and the second oldest Latin psalter in the world.
A cumdach or book shrine is an elaborate ornamented metal reliquary box or case used to hold Early Medieval Irish manuscripts or relics. They are typically later than the book they contain, often by several centuries. In most surviving examples, the book comes from the peak age of Irish monasticism before 800, and the extant cumdachs date from after 1000, although it is clear the form dates from considerably earlier. The majority are of Irish origin, with most surviving examples held by the National Museum of Ireland (NMI).
The Monymusk Reliquary is an eighth century Scottish house-shape reliquary made of wood and metal characterised by an Insular fusion of Gaelic and Pictish design and Anglo-Saxon metalworking, probably by Ionan monks. It is now in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The Cross of Cong is an early 12th-century Irish Christian ornamented cusped processional cross, which was, as an inscription says, made for Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair, King of Connacht and High King of Ireland to donate to the Cathedral church of the period that was located at Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. The cross was subsequently moved to Cong Abbey at Cong, County Mayo, from which it takes its name.
The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology is a branch of the National Museum of Ireland located on Kildare Street in Dublin, Ireland, that specialises in Irish and other antiquities dating from the Stone Age to the Late Middle Ages.
The Domnach Airgid is an 8th-century Irish wooden reliquary. It was considerably reworked between the 13th and 15th centuries and became a cumdach or "book shrine", when its basic timber structure was reinforced and decorated by elaborate silver-gilt metalwork. Its front cover was enhanced by gilded relief showing Jesus in "Arma Christi", alongside depictions of saints, angels, and clerics, in scenes imbued with complex iconography. It is thus considered a mixture of the early Insular and later International Gothic styles.
The Breac Maodhóg is a relatively large Irish house-shaped reliquary, today in the National Museum of Ireland. It is thought to date from the second half of the 11th century, and while periods as early as the 9th century have been proposed, the later dating is thought more likely based on the style of its decoration.
The Soiscél Molaisse is an Irish cumdach that originated from an 8th-century wooden core embellished in the 11th and 15th centuries with metal plates decorated in the Insular style. Until the late 18th century, the shrine held a now-lost companion text, presumed to be a small illuminated gospel book associated with Saint Laisrén mac Nad Froích, also known as Molaisse or "Mo Laisse". In the 6th century, Molaisse founded a church on Devenish Island in the southern part of Lough Erne in County Fermanagh, with which the cumdach is associated.
Saint Manchan's Shrine is a large 12th-century Irish house-shaped shrine dedicated to Manchán of Lemanaghan, now in Boher Roman Catholic Church, outside Ballycumber, County Offaly. Built to hold human remains, still intact and presumably of Manchán himself, the relic container consists of a wooden core made of yew, placed on four cast bronze feet, overlain by sliver plates containing gilt, cast copper alloy and bronze decorations, with large bosses.
The Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm is an early 10th-century Irish arm-shrine type reliquary made of wood and metal shaped as an outstretched forearm and clenched fist. St. Lachtin's dates to between 1118 and 1121 and is associated with his church in the village of Stuake, Donoughmore, County Cork, but probably originates from Kilnamartyra, also in Cork. It consists of a yew-wood core lined with decorated bronze and silver plates. The wood at the hand is hollowed out to create a reliquary cavity which once held the arm bone of St. Lachtin, but is now empty. The circular cap at its base contains a large transparent gemstone and is inlayed with silver decorated with filigree.
An Insular crozier is a type of processional bishop's staff (crozier) produced in Ireland and Scotland between 800 and 1200. Such items can be distinguished from mainland European types by their curved and open crooks, and drop. By the end of the 12th century, production of Irish croziers had largely ended, but examples continued to be reworked and added to throughout the Romanesque and Gothic periods. Although many of the croziers are associated with 5th- and 6th-century saints, the objects were not made until long after the saints had died. A majority originate from around the 9th century, with a number further embellished between the 11th and 13th centuries.
The Clonmacnoise Crozier is a late-11th-century Insular crozier that would have been used as a ceremonial staff for bishops and mitred abbots. Its origins and medieval provenance are unknown. It was likely discovered in the late 18th or early 19th century in the monastery of Clonmacnoise in County Offaly, Ireland. The crozier has two main parts: a long shaft and a curved crook. Its style reflects elements of Viking art, especially the snake-like animals in figure-of-eight patterns running on the sides of the body of the crook, and the ribbon of dog-like animals in openwork that form the crest at its top. Apart from a shortening to the staff length and the loss of some inserted gems, it is largely intact and is one of the best-preserved surviving pieces of Insular metalwork.
Griffin Murray is an Irish archaeologist and art historian specialising in medieval Ireland and Insular art–especially metalwork–in the period between 400–1550 AD. His interests include identifying and contextualizing the social role of medieval craftsmen, Viking art and the relations between insular and Scandinavian craftsmen, and he is a leading expert on both house-shaped shrines and insular croziers.
The Lismore Crozier is an Irish Insular-type crozier dated to between 1100 and 1113 AD. It consists of a wooden tubular staff lined with copper-alloy plates; embellished with silver, gold, niello and glass; and capped by a crook with a decorative openwork crest. The inscriptions on the upper knope record that it was built by "Nechtain the craftsman" and commissioned by Niall mac Meic Aeducain, bishop of Lismore. This makes it the only extant insular crozier to be inscribed, and the only one whose date of origin can be closely approximated. It was rediscovered in 1814, along with the 15th-century Book of Lismore, in a walled-up doorway in Lismore Castle, County Waterford, where it was probably hidden in the late Middle Ages during a period of either religious persecution or raids.
The Moylough Belt-Shrine is a highly decorated 8th-century Irish reliquary shaped in the form of a belt. It consists of four hinged bronze segments, each forming cavities that hold strips of plain leather assumed to have once been a girdle belonging to a saint and thus the intended relic. It remains the only known relic container created as a belt-shrine, although such objects are mentioned in some lives of Irish saints, where they are attributed with "remarkable cures", and there are surviving reliquary buckles in continental Europe. The belt may have been influenced by 7th-century Frankish and Burgundian types.
The term Crucifixion plaque refers to small early medieval sculptures with a central panel of the still alive but crucified Jesus surrounded by four smaller ancillary panels, consisting of Stephaton and Longinus in the lower quadrants, and two hovering attendant angels in the quadrants above his arms. Notable examples are found in classical Roman and 8th to mid-12th century Irish Insular art.
The Corp Naomh is an Irish bell shrine made in the 9th or 10th century to enclose a now-lost hand-bell, which probably dated to c. 600 to 900 AD and belonged to an early Irish saint. The shrine was rediscovered sometime before 1682 at Tristernagh Abbey, near Templecross, County Westmeath. The shrine is 23 cm (9.1 in) high and 12 cm (4.7 in) wide. It was heavily refurbished and added to during a second phase of embellishment in the 15th century, and now consists of cast and sheet bronze plates mounted on a wooden core decorated with silver, niello and rock crystal. It is severely damaged with extensive losses and wear across almost all of its parts, and when discovered a block of wood had been substituted for the bell itself. The remaining elements are considered of high historical and artistic value by archaeologists and art historians.
The Shrine of St. Patrick's Bell is a bell shrine reliquary completed c. 1094–1105 in County Armagh, Ireland, to contain a c. 500 iron hand-bell traditionally associated with the Irish patron saint Saint Patrick. Inscriptions on the back of the shrine record that it was commissioned after 1091 by the Uí Néill High King Domnall Ua Lochlainn and completed c. 1105 by the metalworker Cú Dúilig, about whom nothing is known. Both objects are historically significant, with the bell being one of the few Irish very-early medieval artifacts with a continuous provenance lasting from around the 8th century to the present, and the shrine is a highpoint of Irish metalwork from the late Insular and early Romanesque periods.
The Shrine of St Patrick's Tooth is a medieval reliquary traditionally believed to contain a tooth belonging to Patrick, Ireland's patron saint, who lived in the 5th century. The shrine comprises a wooden case lined with bronze and decorated with gold, silver and amber fittings, and was built in two phases. Its basic structure and the central ringed crosses on either side are 12th century, while the purse-shaped form and most of the metal work, including the saints, were added in the 1370s when the object was substantially refurbished.
Bell shrines are metal objects built to hold early medieval hand-bells, particularly those associated with early Irish saints. Although the enshrinement of bells lasted from the 9th to the 16th centuries, the more well-known examples date from the 11th century. Nineteen such Irish or British bell shrines survive, along with several fragments, although many more would have been produced. Of those extant, fifteen are Irish, three are Scottish and one is English. Most follow the general shape of a hand-bell capped with a crest above a semicircular cap that matches the shape of a bell handle.
