The Ulster Museum - Object Of The Month

The Clonmore shrine

July

The Clonmore shrine is the oldest known example of Irish Christian metalwork and one of the treasures of the Ulster Museum. It was found in pieces between 1990 and 2001 in spoil dredged from the River Blackwater around 1970.

The shrine, which held relics of the saints, consisted originally of nine copper-alloy plates and is just 8cm long, 8cm high and 3cm deep. The outer surfaces are tinned and decorated with spirals, crescents and trumpet curves reserved against a background of hatching. The decoration is hand-cut, though in part compass-drawn, and the golden colour of the recessed surfaces contrasts with the silvery patterns in relief. Such ornament has Iron Age roots, but compares with that of the 7th century Book of Durrow. The shrine must be approximately contemporary and is a major, if miniature, work of art. Clonmore is only 15km from Armagh and the shrine might have housed some of the imported, apostolic relics which Armagh promoted in the 7th century in support of its primatial claims.

An Irish shrine closely resembling that from Clonmore is preserved in Bobbio in the north of Italy, the famous foundation of the Bangor monk Columbanus, who died there in 615. The two shrines are related in shape and decoration and had identical hinges and locks. Both are products of the same tradition and confirm that metalworking in Ireland flourished under Church patronage in the 7th century.

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