Ballinderry brooch, circa 600 AD
Found in the 1930s in a crannóg (lake dwelling) on the south side of Ballinderry Lough in Co Offaly, this is one of the most startlingly complex objects ever found in Ireland. It arose from a richly sophisticated and cosmopolitan culture in which pre-Christian forms are being subtly reshaped to elaborate Christian theology. It tells us that Irish art was both absorbing influences from far afield and radiating them outwards from Ireland.
The brooch is zoomorphic (animal-shaped) and penannular, meaning that there is a gap in the ring, a style developed in Roman Britain but popular in Ireland between the fifth and seventh centuries. This is the most elaborate ever found.
The maker of the brooch is an Irish artist of international standing, who also made a large hanging bowl found in one of the most famous archaeological discoveries in western Europe, the Anglo-Saxon ship burial from Sutton Hoo in East Anglia.
The key to understanding the complex imagery of the brooch is, however, found elsewhere, on what is known as the “marigold stone”, from Carndonough, Co Donegal. The two objects are linked by having the same pattern of a geometrical stem rising towards a marigold flower. The stone makes the meaning of these symbols more explicit.
Firstly the coiled shape of the brooch represents a two-headed snake – which is not, here, a symbol of Satan. It hints, rather at the resurrection of Christ, the analogy being with the snake’s ability to shed its skin and be “reborn”.
More remarkably, however, the patterns on the brooch come from Jerusalem, and specifically from the little jars of holy oil that were sold to wealthy pilgrims at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the reputed burial place of Jesus. Inscribed on these jars were the images that lie behind the patterns on the Ballinderry brooch. They show Christ’s tomb under the dome of the church. Rising from the tomb is the Tree of Life on which Jesus ascends into Heaven. In Irish art, the face of Christ at the top of the tree is represented by a marigold flower. This is the image of the resurrection that is shown in abstract and condensed form on the brooch.
“There is a remarkably sophisticated iconography at work here,” says Conor Newman, “and it’s the same message which ultimately can be sourced to the iconologists at work in Jerusalem in the sixth century. So you have a brooch that is pagan in its original form but that carries this complex symbolism of the resurrected Christ.” Very early in the history of Irish Christianity, there is a brilliant mixture of continuity with older traditions and up-to-date cosmopolitan thinking.
“You have somebody,” says Newman, “living around AD 600 in the Midlands who is very wealthy, whose brooch is probably made by the same person who made the biggest hanging bowl found at Sutton Hoo [in Suffolk, England] and its iconography speaks, not just his religious persuasion, but to deep intellectual traditions that are most current in Palestine at this time.”
With thanks to Conor Newman, National University of Ireland, Galway
Where to see itNational Museum of Ireland, Kildare Street, Dublin 2, 01-6777444, museum.ie
