Bell Shrine of St. Cuileáin
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The Bell Shrine of St. Cuileáin (or Glenkeen Bell Shrine or the Barnaan-Cuilawn) is an early mediaeval Irish
bell shrine 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 and 16th centuries, the more well-known date from the 11th cent ...
found near
Borrisoleigh Borrisoleigh () is a small town in County Tipperary, Ireland. At the 2016 census, it had a population of 679. In recent years the population has exceeded 1,000 while historically the population has been around 8,000. It is in the ecclesiastical ...
in
County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after th ...
, Ireland. The bell is capped by
arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...
ed
openwork Openwork or open-work is a term in art history, architecture and related fields for any technique that produces decoration by creating holes, piercings, or gaps that go right through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, l ...
mounds, decorated with silver, gold and copper, and has two facing human heads at either side. The main panel would have been its most decorated but is lost, apart from various animal heads on both sides of its upper wings. The shrine was built for to enshrine an early Christian Iron hand-bell dated to c. 1100, used to mark
canonical hours In the practice of Christianity, canonical hours mark the divisions of the day in terms of fixed times of prayer at regular intervals. A book of hours, chiefly a breviary, normally contains a version of, or selection from, such prayers. In ...
and to call for
mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...
. The shrine is badly damaged, having lost all of its front plate and one of its sides. It is first mentioned in Irish records in 1825, and has been in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
's collection since 1854.Bell-shrine
British Museum. Retrieved 9 January 2022


Function

Objects associated with saints and church leaders were venerated by for their miraculous powers and were an important feature of religious life in
early medieval Ireland Early may refer to: History * The beginning or oldest part of a defined historical period, as opposed to middle or late periods, e.g.: ** Early Christianity ** Early modern Europe Places in the United States * Early, Iowa * Early, Texas * Early ...
. Irish monasticism generally avoided dissecting the actual remains of its leaders for relics, but valued objects with which they had had close personal contact. In later periods these were often cased in an elaborate covering;
cumdach A (, in Irish "cover"Joynt (1917), p. 186) 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 c ...
is a term for books treated in this way. Early monastic leaders called their small communities together for the events of their daily routine by ringing a handbell. Revered for their divine intervention, water drank from the
reliquaries A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including '' phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it is housed a ''fer ...
was said to cure illnesses and bring good fortune. Other important bell shrines include St Patrick's Bell and the 10th century
Corp Naomh The Corp Naomh (, , en, Holy or Sacred Body) is an Irish bell shrine made in the 9th or 10th century to enclose a now-lost Handbell, hand-bell, which probably dated to and belonged to an List of saints of Ireland, early Irish saint. The shri ...
(both in the
National Museum of Ireland The National Museum of Ireland ( ga, Ard-Mhúsaem na hÉireann) is Ireland's leading museum institution, with a strong emphasis on national and some international archaeology, Irish history, Irish art, culture, and natural history. It has thre ...
), and St Conall Cael's Bell (in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
).St Conall Cael's bell
. Google Arts & Culture. Retrieved 9 January 2022


Description

The bell was made from iron in the 7th or 8th centuries AD, while the shrine was formed in a number of phases. The shrine is badly damaged and is missing its front face and one of its side plates. The outer case was produced in the late 11th or early 12th century. The brass case is incomplete and would have originally been fronted by a jewelled
crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...
. The two sides of the upper section each contain an inward looking human faces. The red and yellow enamel and niello inlaid crest on the outer case forms decorations influenced by the Ringerike style, reflecting the influence of
Viking art Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries ...
on contemporary Irish relics. The ribboned,
zoomorphic The word ''zoomorphism'' derives from the Greek ζωον (''zōon''), meaning "animal", and μορφη (''morphē''), meaning "shape" or "form". In the context of art, zoomorphism could describe art that imagines humans as non-human animals. It c ...
animals on the sides resemble those on the early 10th century
Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm The Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm (known in Irish as Lámh Lachtaín) is an early 10th century Irish arm-shrine type reliquary made of wood and metal shaped as an outstretched forearm and clenched fist.Moss (2014), p. 291 St. Lachtin's dates to ...
, while the human heads recall those on the 12th century
Lismore Crozier 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 decora ...
. Early records claim that the front of the shrine once contained a cross "enriched with...precious stones".


Providence

The bell-shrine is said to have been made for the
Glenkeen Glenkeen or Glankeen ( ga, Gleann Caoin) is a civil parish in County Tipperary, Ireland. It is one of seven civil parishes in the barony of Kilnamanagh Upper. The former Church of Ireland parish of Glenkeen, which was co-extensive with the c ...
Monastery, founded by Saint Cuileáin in the 7th century AD. Cuileáin came from a powerful dynasty in mediaeval Ireland as his brother
Cormac Cormac is a masculine given name in the Irish and English languages. The name is ancient in the Irish language and is also seen in the rendered Old Norse as ''Kormákr''. Mac is Irish for "son", and can be used as either a prefix or a suffix. ...
was Bishop of Cashel nearby. The bell-shrine was revered for centuries by the local population and is said to have been discovered inside a tree at Kilcuilawn near Glankeen in the early nineteenth century. It was purchased by the Anglo Irish antiquary T. L. Cooke, who in turn sold it to the British Museum in 1854.


References


Sources

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External links


The Bells of the Irish Saints
2021 video lecture by
Cormac Bourke Cormac Bourke (born in Dublin) is an Irish archeologist specialising in Medieval studies, early church history and insular Christianity. He is a former, long term, curator of Medieval Antiquities at the Ulster Museum, Belfast, and currently works a ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bell Shrine of St. Cuileain Archaeology of Ireland Bell-shrines Medieval European objects in the British Museum