Dr. Rachel Moss is an Irish art historian and professor specialising in

medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional ar ...

, with a particular interest in

Insular art Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the sub-Roman Britain, post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin language, Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland ...

, medieval Irish Gospel books and monastic history.O'Rourke, Frances.
First encounters: Rachel Moss and Catherine Marshall
. ''

Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It was launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is Ireland's leading n ...

'', 23 November 2014. Retrieved 18 July 2021 She is the current head of the Department of the History of Art at

Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...

, where she became a fellow in 2022. and a former president of the

Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland The Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland is an Irish learned society whose aims are "to preserve, examine and illustrate all ancient monuments and memorials of the arts, manners and customs of the past, as connected with the antiquities, langua ...

.Dr. Rachel Moss
.

. Retrieved 17 April 2025 Moss has written extensively on Insular art, including on its iconography, materials, methods and political and cultural settings. Her work includes detailed examinations of Irish

round tower A fortified tower (also defensive tower or castle tower or, in context, just tower) is one of the defensive structures used in fortifications, such as castles, along with defensive walls such as curtain wall (fortification), curtain walls. Castle ...

high cross A high cross or standing cross (, , ) is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors. Th ...

es,

psalter A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were ...

Celtic brooch The Celtic brooch, more properly called the penannular brooch, and its closely related type, the pseudo-penannular brooch, are types of brooch clothes fasteners, often rather large; penannular means formed as an incomplete ring. They are especial ...

chalice A chalice (from Latin 'cup', taken from the Ancient Greek () 'cup') is a drinking cup raised on a stem with a foot or base. Although it is a technical archaeological term, in modern parlance the word is now used almost exclusively for the ...

es and house-shaped and other reliquary shrines, with a close focus on

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

s such as the

Book of Durrow The Book of Durrow is an illuminated manuscript gospel book dated to that contains the Vulgate Latin text of the four Gospels, with some Irish variations, and other matter, written in Insular script, and richly illustrated in the style of Ins ...

(c. 700 AD), the

Stowe Missal The Stowe Missal (sometimes known as the Lorrha Missal), which is, strictly speaking, a sacramentary rather than a missal, is a small Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Old Irish in the late eighth or early ninth centu ...

(after 792 AD), and

Book of Mulling The Book of Mulling or less commonly, Book of Moling (Dublin, Trinity College Library MS 60 (A. I. 15)), is an Irish pocket Gospel Book from the late 8th or early 9th century. The text collection includes the four Gospels, a liturgical service ...

(late 8th or early 9th century).

Career

Moss has said that her interest in the medieval came from her grandfather, an archaeologist living in

County Sligo County Sligo ( , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is in the Northern and Western Region and is part of the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht. Sligo is the administrative capital and largest town in ...

, who took her on digs when she was a child. She remembered "vividly when I was six and he took me to see a dig. One of the archaeologists put a human jawbone in my hand and told me about how you could tell she was a young woman. Awarded her doctorate in 2009, a post-graduate, she worked on literacy projects in the then deprived Fatima Mansions area of Dublin. She became a fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London The Society of Antiquaries of London (SAL) is a learned society of historians and archaeologists in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1707, received its royal charter in 1751 and is a Charitable organization, registered charity. It is based ...

in 2011, and was elected president of the

in 2013. She is the current Head of the Department of the History of Art at

.Dr. Rachel Moss, Associate Professor, History of Art
.

. Retrieved 18 July 2021 She edited the 2014 survey " Medieval c. 400—c. 1600: Art and Architecture of Ireland", published by

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...

as part of their five-volume ''Art and architecture of Ireland'' series.Harbison, Peter.
Art and architecture of Ireland
. ''

History Ireland ''History Ireland'' is a magazine with a focus on the history of Ireland. The first issue of the magazine appeared in Spring 1993. It went full-colour in 2004 and since 2005 it is published bi-monthly. It features articles by a range of writers ...

'', Issue 1, volume 23, January 2015. Retrieved 18 July 2021 Her book was described by the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the natural sciences, arts, literature, and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned society and one of its le ...

as "an unrivalled account of all aspects of the rich and varied visual culture of Ireland in the Middle Ages. Based on decades of original research, the book contains over three hundred lively and informative essays." Writing for ''

'',

Peter Harbison Dr. Peter Desmond Harbison (14 January 1939 – 30 May 2023) was a well known Irish archaeologist and author. He was Professor of Archaeology and a member (elected in 1979) of the Royal Irish Academy (Arts division), and the academy's Honorary ...

said that Moss' book "covers a much greater span of time than all the others, and also deals with a much wider range of material. The major attractions are the famous manuscripts and metalwork from the earlier period, but there is a lot more besides—including the recently discovered

Faddan More Psalter The Faddan More Psalter () (also Irish Bog Psalter or "Faddan Mor Psalter") is an Early Middle Ages, early medieval Christian psalter or text of the book of Psalms, discovered in a peat bog in July 2006, in the townland of Faddan More () in north ...

of c. 800. Stonework is covered extensively from the earlier medieval period:

es,

s and all the church buildings from he

Gallarus Oratory The Gallarus Oratory () is a chapel on the Dingle Peninsula, County Kerry, Ireland. It has been presented variously as an early-Christian stone church by antiquary Charles Smith, in 1756; a 12th-century Romanesque church by archaeologist Pete ...

to Cormac's Chapel." Moss lives in Dublin and Sligo with her husband Jason Ellis, a sculptor.

Selected publications

Books (author)

*"The

". Dublin Trinity College Library; Thames and Hudson, 2018. *"An Insular Odyssey: Manuscript Culture in Early Christian Ireland and Beyond". Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2017. *"Making and Meaning in

Insular Art Insular art, also known as Hiberno-Saxon art, was produced in the sub-Roman Britain, post-Roman era of Great Britain and Ireland. The term derives from ''insula'', the Latin language, Latin term for "island"; in this period Britain and Ireland ...

". Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. Cosgrove, Peter. "Reviewed Work: Making and Meaning in INSULAR ART by Rachel Moss". ''Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society'', volume 22, No. 2, 2009. *"Edward Payne 1906–1991". Dublin: Moss & Glass, 1995.

Books (editor)

*" Medieval c. 400—c. 1600", Art and Architecture of Ireland". Yale University Press, 2014. * ''Art and Devotion in Late Medieval Ireland''. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006.

Books (contributed)

*"Art and Visual Literacy in the Early Irish Church". In: Boyle, Elizabeth. ''A Companion to the Church in Early Ireland, c. 400-c.1150''. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 2020 *"Resilience, restoration and revival: Insular art in later medieval Ireland". In: Thickpenny, Cynthia (ed). "Peopling Insular Art: Practice, Performance, Perception". Oxford: Oxbow, 2020 * "Irish Parish Churches: 1350-1550". In P. Barnwell (ed.) ''Places of Worship in the British Isles: 1350-1550'', Donington, Shaun Tyas, 2019 * "Material culture: c. 1200-1550". In B. Smith (ed.). ''Cambridge History of Ireland Volume 1''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018 * "The Art and the Pigments: A study of four Insular Gospel Books in the Library of Trinity College Dublin". In Panayotova and Ricciardi (eds) *''Manuscripts in the Making: Art and Science''. London and Turnhout: Brepols, 2017 * "Collective memory and municipal identity in the early modern Irish town". In Dany Sandron (ed.), ''Le Passé dans la Ville''. Paris: Presses de l'université Paris-Sorbonne, 2016Dr. Rachel Moss
. Trinity College Dublin. Retrieved 18 July 2021

Articles (selected)

* "Romanesque Chevron Ornament: the language of British, Norman and Irish sculpture in the twelfth century". ''British Archaeological Reports Limited'', 2009 * "Making and Meaning in Insular Art: Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Insular Art Held at Trinity College Dublin, 25-28 August 2005". Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007Rachel Laura Moss
Google Scholar. Retrieved 18 July 2021

References

External links

Book of Mulling – one of four precious early Irish manuscripts conserved at Trinity
overview by Moss
Online exhibition of the Book of Durrow
curated by Moss for Trinity College Dublin {{DEFAULTSORT:Moss, Rachel Academics of Trinity College Dublin Alumni of Trinity College Dublin Fellows of Trinity College Dublin Irish art historians Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Women art historians 21st-century Irish women Irish women academics