Lord Emly's Shrine; two ridge-poles of Shrines, and two bronze castings

Sir Martin Conway's paper on portable reliquaries, tracing the origin of the familiar gabled type, includes a list of the Irish specimens; to this list it is possible to add another, which has twice been mentioned, but I believe neither described nor illustrated. Its existence is not generally known, for it was not alluded to by either Coffey or Romilly Allen in their works on Celtic Art. This reliquary was formerly deposited with the Royal Irish Academy by its owner, Mr. William Monsell, of Tervoe, co. Limerick, afterwards Lord Emly. It is described in one of the old Museum Registers as ‘A Shrine for holding relics 41⁄4 inches long, 33⁄4 high, and 13⁄4 broad. In shape of a house with roof sloping from both sides and ends. One side is deficient, but supplied with cork. Formed of wood with brass-ornamented ridge-pole, and brass bending at angles. One side and the adjoining slope of the roof is ornamented ingeniously with inlaying and enamel, the side having two, and the roof one circular ornament divided into compartments, which are subdivided by divisions radiating from their centres.’ The shrine was returned to Mr. Monsell in 1872. A plaster cast of it is, however, in the collection, from which the illustration is made. The colours in which the cast is painted show that the metal plates are bronze, not brass. The reliquary opens by means of hinges placed at the back, the upper part being a true lid. The ridge-pole terminates in animals' heads. The bronze plates covering the front of the shrine are ornamented with a species of fret pattern; they are inset with three roundels arranged like those on the Lough Erne and Copenhagen shrines. The empty centres of the roundels may have contained half-beads of amber (pl. IX, fig. 1)

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Brass · Brickwork · Bronze · Celtic languages · Copper · Irish · Metallurgy · Ridge · Roof · Geology · History · Irish and British Studies · Materials Science · Paleontology · Philosophy