Neither of the two scholars most closely identified with the recent find of an early medieval psalter near Birr expected to be confronted with a discovery of this importance in their lifetime, they told a conference in the midland town on Saturday.
The conference was organised by the Birr Historical Society to celebrate the return of the 9th-century Macregol Gospels to the Co Offaly town in a two-volume facsimile edition photographed from the original in Oxford's Bodleian Library and printed by a Ferbane firm.
Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum, and Dr Bernard Meehan, keeper of antiquities at Trinity College Dublin, were speaking for the first time in public on the status of the restoration plans for the psalter, uncovered during excavations in a drained bogland in the townland of Fadden.
As a "Viking" (his specialisation is that period of Irish history), Dr Wallace said he was nervous about addressing a conference of medievalists, but he felt the district should be "dignified by discussion" of the find even if they could not say much about the project at this stage.
He complimented the Leonard family on whose land the discovery had been made for their great dedication and interest.
Despite the best efforts of Mr Fogarty, the excavator operator, the psalter was damaged twice by a blade during its uncovering, Dr Wallace said. It looked like "a large platter of lasagne" and despite the fact that no conservator had ever been faced with the task of rescuing a bog-stored vellum artefact, the museum team had worked with great urgency and skill to stabilise the book in cold wet storage at their laboratories in Collins Barracks.
He paid special tribute to the National Muesum's "rescue team" of Rory Reid, head of conservation; Éamonn Kelly, keeper of Irish antiquities and Raghnall Ó Floinn, head of collections, who had first deciphered the 83rd Psalm. As "custodian of Kells and Durrow" (a reference to the manuscripts under his care), Bernard Meehan was an old friend of the museum and a valued adviser, despite popular perceptions of a museum-Trinity stand-off.
Dr Wallace said the photograph of the psalter that "went around the world" had been taken with a mobile phone camera, but National Museum photographer Valerie Dowling had since taken a full portfolio of photographs, some of which would be published in a special supplement to the magazine Archaeology Ireland this autumn.
John Murray of the museum staff was now engaged in a careful operation of removing pieces of bog from the treasure and assembling what might be called the "giblets" found around the volume, Dr Wallace said. The wrap-style cover was detached at discovery and represented a very exciting prospect for conservation - the only other such binding extant was of the Book of Armagh.
The Fadden book, which has over 100 pages and at least three pages of decoration, would be carefully studied and restored by a European team over the next two years and then put on public display in the museum. The BBC will also produce a documentary on the restoration.
Bernard Meehan said that when he got a message to phone Pat Wallace, he assumed it was about some security issue or plans for an overseas exhibit.
"I thought that if any new manuscript material ever came to light during my career, it would be an odd leaf or two falling from bindings on a library shelf, as happened at the Folger Library [in Washington] recently."
When the book was wheeled in on a trolley for viewing, it looked in such a bad state that he was tempted to make a joke about hospital trollies.
"It was in very very poor condition, but even with a cursory examination we could see that this was of Irish origin from sometime in region of AD 800, give or take 50 years, on a grand scale of size and script, and with very few abbreviations." In recent days they had been able to catch a glimpse of one of the decorated pages, he said, and this provided a tantalising image of a bird - an eagle, peacock or dove - perched on top of one of the illuminated capitals.
If the initial presumption that this was a "Beatus" page proved to be true, they might also expect to have illuminated introductions for Psalms 1, 51 and 101, Dr Meehan concluded.
The state of the Fadden book, as reported by its carers, contrasted with the understated elegance of the Macregol facsimile. The €40,000 restoration project commissioned by Birr Historical Society came about as a result of the initiative of a young Birr journalist and television producer who had worked with the BBC and al-Jazeera.
Teresa Ryan heard a lecture on Macregol by local historian Margaret Hogan in 2000 and with her Birr fiancee, Joe Feehan, arranged to view the original in the Bodleian Library, to which this Book of Birr had been given by a bibliophile named Thomas Rushworth in the 17th century.
Ms Ryan raised the possibility of making a facsimile version with her Bodleian guide, and worked with fellow historical society members Irene Morrow, Margaret Hogan and Bridget O'Sullivan to raise the funds and supervise the production once permission was given.
With 344 images on 59 CDs, the massive origination was downloaded to computers at Brosna Press in Ferbane. There design director Diarmaid Guinan ensured that the single copy (produced on a high-resolution laser printer) was faithful to the original, and sent the finished sheets to be mounted on interleaves and bound by former Trinity College bookbinder Tony Cains.
The magnificent result will be on display in the new Birr public library. Sadly, as Teresa Ryan reported to the conference, her husband did not live to see the results of their original expedition to Oxford; he died tragically 18 months ago.