Publications | Down Survey | 2000 Issue Contents

What the pilgrim saw
Cormac Bourke

We are accustomed to the sight of early Christian treasures exhibited in museums and might consider this context to be far from the original. But such a conclusion would be unjustified, for the insignia of the saints were always intended to be seen. Like high crosses, which of their nature are permanently on show, Christian cult accessories functioned in a context of formal display. Croziers and bells must have been set out in honour of the saints and for the delectation of pilgrims; otherwise the investment in their making or enshrinement could scarcely have been repaid. The annals report the taking of insignia on circuit, sometimes in connection with tax-gathering, and it is reasonable to suppose that the same pieces were exhibited where they were routinely stored. Dedicated spaces are known to have existed, whether as detached buildings or parts of churches, and were termed variously (in Latin) refugium and (in Irish) airdam, scrin tech and tech na sed. These stood over the graves of the saints or enclosed their above-ground tombs. Access to such places will have been restricted, for obvious reasons, and the custos or scrinire will have manned the door.

Two methods of exhibition are worth considering. In the first case the ancillary metalwork was exhibited in conjunction with the saint's remains. Typically, in the case of bells and croziers, this was by suspension above their tombs. I note a seventh-century allusion to coronae, 'crowns' (presumably candelabra) hanging over the tombs of Brigid and Conlaed at Kildare, and an injunction attributed to Maedog in a twelfth-century life that his bell should be placed above his grave. The preposition os cionn in the latter case implies a position overhead and surely refers to a bell suspended and permanently on view. One remembers in this context the bronze bell from Terryhoogan, Co Armagh,1 inscribed in the manner of a gravestone OROIT AR CHLTMASCACH M AILELLO, 'a prayer for Cummascach son of Ailill'. Cummascach died in 909 and there can be little doubt that, although no saint, he was honoured by the provision of a bell which marked his grave.

Bronze coated bell, Nendrum, co.Down

A bell made expressly for such a context was a funerary trophy and may have served no utilitarian function. The seal of the chapter of thirteenth-century Dunkeld, Perthshire,² shows the crozier of Columba, or the crozier so attributed, exhibited - perhaps suspended - over the shrine which held his bones.

Stone figure with staff and bell, White Island, co.Fermanagh

No less interesting is the second potential method of exhibition, whereby bells and croziers were placed in the hands of statues of the saints. The White Island, county Fermanagh, figure, though entirely of stone, is shown with staff and bell and might reflect this practice; the wooden figure of Molaisse from Inishmurray, county Sligo,3 now tantalizingly handless, might have been equipped with the extant bell and crozier4 which were linked with that saint's name. A statue, presumably wooden, of Caoide of Donaghedy, county Tyrone, existed in the seventeenth century, together with his staff and bell, and all three may have been combined. More recent statues of stone and plaster, whether depicting saints or, say, Justice personified, commonly hold attributes in other media. All of the foregoing is relevant to the evidence from county Down.

The Tripartite Life of Patrick refers to the crozier, dubbed ind Etech, 'the flying [one]', of Mochaoi of Nendrum, which is said to have come from Heaven. Its name, like many another, connotes in more mundane terms a quality of mobility or portability, doubtless a reflection of the taking of such insignia on circuit. The extant iron bell from Nendrum5 is a modest example of a standard type and must have functioned in practical terms, perhaps never achieving trophy status. Together with the bell, a sundial at Nendrum attests the importance of regulating the monastic day.

Cast bronze bell, Drumgath, Co.Down

The fifteenth-century register of Archbishop Swayne of Armagh mentions for Kilbroney (Rostrevor) the bacuLus Bromanae, 'staff of Bronach', and a bronze bell with the same attribution survives.⁶ The bell dates to the ninth or tenth century and either lost or was divested of its handle at an early stage; the replacement is of twelfth-century date and its style recalls the crests of contemporary bell-shrines. Although shrines were made for iron bells alone, never for bronze, it seems that 'St Bronagh's bell' was an heirloom within two centuries of its making and was suitably embellished with a handle in the latest style.

Speaking of handles, a recent find from Downpatrick is the detached handle of an iron bell⁷ consisting of a square sectioned bar to which twisted wires have been applied on three surfaces. This is an individualistic piece of smithing which departs from the standard form and yet relates to a tradition of occasional experimentation in the making of iron bells.

A bronze bell from Drumgath⁸ (Rathfriland) is likewise unusual in the nature of its handle, which is disproportionately high and ribbed on its upper surface. Another, from Bangor,⁹ is a tour de force of the bronze- founder's art. The Bangor bell is so similar to two others from Cashel, county Tipperary,¹⁰ and Lough Lene, county Westmeath¹¹ - as to demand interpretation as the work of an itinerant smith. All three are tall, heavy and sharpangled and all bear incised crosses and panels of keypattern in ninth-century style. The crosses on the Bangor bell are ostensibly unringed, but compass-pits are visible and close inspection shows a ring to have been faintly inscribed, though never completed, on each face. The other two bells have ringed crosses, and one has to assume that the founder stopped in his tracks in deference to local taste. I note, incidentally, that Bangor too has a sundial and that unringed crosses are characteristic of slabs at Nendrum.

The tally of county Down bells must include the Clog Ban, 'white bell', which was formerly preserved in the vicinity of Moira, and a bell dubbed in contrast the Clog Rua, 'red bell' from Magherahinch in the same area, which was reported as a recent find in 1815. Both bells are lost. The neighbouring parish of Magheralin is associated with Ronan Find, who cursed Suibne (or Sweeney) to madness, and a bell would have been appropriate to his cult. A crozier attributed to Ronan was one of the talismans lost by the Ulaid in their advance against De Courcy's troops in 1177. Later in the same year the crozier of Comgall of Bangor was lost under similar circumstances. Another lost bell is the Glunan 'little knee', which Colgan reported in the seventeenth century to be a relic of Donard (Domongart) of Maghera. He refers, besides, to the saint's enshrined shoe, a rare class of relic; one can cite by way of comparison the lost 'brazen shoe', assa umaide, of Finan of Kinnitty, county Offaly, and the post-medieval, socalled shrine of St Brigid's shoe.¹²

The tally of croziers includes, finally, a 'drop' or terminal¹³ from the collection of James O'Laverty, a late nineteenth-century parish priest of Holywood. Its provenance is unknown, but an origin in county Down is not unlikely. The piece is hollow but is not designed as a container and so can hardly have held relics, a function which many drops certainly served.

Among the saint's cults of medieval Ireland that of Patrick was paramount, and Armagh and Downpatrick shared the honours. An interpolated entry in the Annals of Ulster at 553 records the finding of Patrick's grave, at a place unspecified, and the discovery therein of a cup, gospel-book and bell. The cup, we read, was allocated to Downpatrick, presumably with reference to a chalice, otherwise unknown, which was once preserved there.

Patrick's cult entered a new phase with De Courcy's staged inventio and translatio of his bones, with those of Brigid and Columba, at Downpatrick in 1185. What De Courcy found is anybody's guess, but the event seems to have been widely credited. The only hint of dissent is the record that Abbot Nicholas Mac Mael Isu of Armaglh discovered the relics of the same three patrons at Saul in I293. One or other 'discovery' must have made available the bone(s) for which the shrine of St Patrick's¹⁴ hand was made. This is an arm-reliquary in Gothic style which would not look out of place in a continental cathedral treasury. However, its Irish origin is confirmed by the presence of die-stamped foils showing lions, griffins anc stags in the manner of Irish metalwork of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Nothing is written on the shrine and one is reliant on reports of a Magennis keepership and on long-standing tradition to suggest a Downpatrick connection. Such is its quality that the shrine can only have been made for a major church.

Less easily attributed to a specific centre is the post medieval, perhaps seventeeth-century, shrine of St Patrick's jaw,¹⁵ which manifests the last gasp of medieval enshrining practice. The Savage family of Dunturk, between Castlewellan and The Spa, held the shrine in the nineteenth century and a county Down connection is not in doubt.

The golden age of ecclesiastical insignia is now past, although ceremony still has its place on occasion. But we do well to recognize the values of the middle ages, if only to put our own values in perspective. The metalwork considered here was made with posterity in mind, because the saints would be saints always. As we contemplate Christian treasures on exhibition, though we might feel ever so detached, we are but part of an endless chain of viewers.

Cormac Bourke is Curator of Medieval Antiquities at the Ulster Museum, Belfast.

1.	National Museum of Ireland
2.	Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
3.	National Museum of Ireland
4.	Castle Museum, Alnwick, Northumberland
5.	Ulster Museum
6.	St Mary's Church, Rostrevor
7.	Northern Ireland Environment and Heritage Service
8.	Ulster Museum, on loan to Down County Museum
9.	Visitors and Heritage Centre, Bangor
10.	Hunt Museum, Limerick
11.	National Museum of Ireland
12.	National Museum of Ireland
13.	Ulster Museum
14.	Diocese of Down and Connor, on loan to the Ulster Museum
15.	St Malachy's College, Belfast