A book shrine found at the bottom of a Longford lake that has undergone an epic 39 years of conservation work at the National Museum of Ireland (NMI) will go on display after the official opening of a new exhibition on Thursday.
“There is a sense of satisfaction and relief that the shrine is now available for the public to view and appreciate,” said Paul Mullarkey, an NMI conservator who has worked on the shrine over 39 years, since just after it was found in 1986.
“To be honest there is also a slight sense of loss as I have had the shrine in our labs for over 20 years.”
The Lough Kinale Book Shrine will be displayed as part of an exhibition of 17 manuscripts and objects at the NMI called Words on the Wave: Ireland and St Gallen in Early Medieval Europe.
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The shrine was found by metal detectorists in 1986 buried in a lake about 2 kilometres northeast of Abbeylara, Co Longford.
“A book shrine is a decorative box that contained a manuscript associated with a saint or revered ecclesiastic,” said Mr Mullarkey.
“The box was permanently sealed, with no direct access to the contents.”
Book shrines are unique to Ireland. There are only eight in existence, and the Lough Kinale Book Shrine is considered to be the most important of them all.
“Its importance lies in that we have a shrine that has not undergone modification or repairs and we can see what the other book shrines have lost,” Mr Mullarkey said.
“The shrine is made from an oak box on to bronze plates, and decorative mounts were attached by nails.
“It is approximately the size of a large telephone directory, 35cm in length, 28cm wide and 12cm in thickness.
“A large cross, five bosses, four circular medallions, along with openwork panels of animal and abstract ornament, dominate the front.
“Hinged fittings forming snake heads were attached at each end to accommodate a thick leather strap, and this would have been used to display and carry the shrine during ecclesiastical and ceremonial functions.
“When intact the structure was completely sealed along the edges and corners with tubular binding strips, preventing access to the contents.”
Crucially, the sediments in which the broken-up shrine was found were lacking in oxygen, the key gas responsible for decomposition of organic material, enabling its wood to survive since the 9th century, or even earlier.
The fact that pieces of the shrine were found together, rather than scattered around the lake bed, suggests it may have been wrapped in a cloth before being thrown from a boat, and smashing on the lake bottom, Mr Mullarkey said.
Shortly after the pieces of the shrine were found, they were put on public display in a water tank at the NMI for about six months.
There followed a four-decade long effort to preserve the cracked wood and metal of the object, and understand how its pieces fitted together.
“It is definitely one of the longest, if not the longest, conservations of an object in the museum’s history,” Mr Mullarkey said. “I have been working on the front metal piece for the last 15 years.”
The shrine is a valuable object today, though Mr Mullarkey declined to put a price on it.
“Some manuscripts from Ireland have ended up on the Continent, or were used for bartering for horses and so on,” he said. “The Vikings, if they got hold of it, would have known its value.”
