The Book of Durrow is an illuminated manuscript dated to c. 700 that consists of text from the four Gospels gospel books, written in an Irish adaption of Vulgate Latin, and illustrated in the Insular script style.
The Book of Dimma is an 8th-century Irish pocket Gospel Book originally from the Abbey of Roscrea, founded by St. Crónán in County Tipperary, Ireland. In addition to the Gospels of Luke and John, it has an order for the Unction and Communion of the Sick. The surviving illumination of the manuscript contains a number of illuminated initials, three Evangelist portrait pages, and one page with an Evangelist's symbol. The pocket gospel book is a distinctively Insular format, of which the Stowe Missal and Book of Mulling are other leading examples.
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 now in the National Museum of Ireland (NMI).
The Stowe manuscripts are a collection of about two thousand Irish, Anglo-Saxon and later medieval manuscripts, nearly all now in the British Library. The manuscripts date from 1154 to the end of the 14th century.
Abbeville is a townland in the Barony of Ormond Lower, County Tipperary, Ireland. It is located in the Civil parish of Lorrha.
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.
Lackeen Castle, a tower house within a bawn built in the 12th century as a Kennedy stronghold. The castle is a national monument in state ownership and is located in the townland of Abbeville near to Lorrha in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is occasionally open to the public. Close by, stands Lackeen House dating from around 1730.
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 believed more likely based on the style of its decoration.
The Shrine of Miosach is an elaborately ornamented 11th-century Irish cumdach. It originates from Clonmany, north County Donegal, and is first mentioned in the 1165 Irish annals. It is dated to the late 11th century, when it probably contained a manuscript with psalms or extracts from a Gospel. However, the shrine was empty when first described in detail in the 18th century. It was originally associated with St Cairneach, patron saint of Dulane, County Meath, but by the late medieval period had become part of the cult of the abbot and missionary Colm Cille.
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.
House-shaped shrine are early medieval portable metal reliquary formed in the shape of the roof of a rectangular building. They originate from both Ireland and Scotland and mostly date from the 8th or 9th centuries. Typical example consist of a wooden core covered with silver and copper alloy plates, and were built to hold relics of saints or martyrs from the early Church era; a number held corporeal remains when found in the modern period, presumably they were parts of the saint's body. Others, including the Breac Maodhóg, held manuscripts associated with the commemorated saint. Like many Insular shrines, they were heavily reworked and embellished in the centuries following their initial construction, often with metal adornments or figures influenced by Romanesque sculpture.
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.
Raghnall Ó Floinn FSA is an Irish art historian and former director of the National Museum of Ireland (NMI), who joined its staff in 1976 and becoming its director in 2013.
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 Rinnegan Crucifixion Plaque is a late 7th or early 8th century Irish gilt-bronze crucifixion plaque sculpture found in the 19th century in the churchyard of St. John’s on the head of Lough Ree in Rinnegan County Westmeath, and near Athlone, County Roscommon. It is one of the earliest extant representations of the crucifixion in Irish art, and outside of illuminated manuscripts, a rare example of both representation and a narrative scene in early Irish Insular art.
Crucifixion plaques are 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 archeologists 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 being a highpoint of Irish metalwork from the late Insular and early Romanesque periods.
