Civic officials and historians in Waterford have expressed delight that an ancient treasure is to come back to the city with which it has been linked for more than five centuries.
The "Magi Cope", a late 15th century Benediction vestment, is to be returned to Waterford this summer and will take pride of place in the new heritage museum which is to open there in September.
The cope, or cloak, is an extremely ornate and exquisitely decorated ecclesiastical garment, part of a unique set that belongs to the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore but has been in the care of the National Museum since the late 1940s.
"We're very excited that we are to have it, because this is the only complete set of medieval vestments to survive in Ireland," says Mr Eamonn McEneany, history adviser to Waterford Corporation.
The red velvet cope, richly embroidered in silk and gilt metal threads, had become stained and soiled in use and in transit over the centuries, and it is now being carefully restored at the textile conservation studios of Cliodna Devitt in Dublin.
The main body of the semicircular vestment appears to have been made in Italy around the year 1480. Its orphrey, or ornamented border, was probably Flemish in origin and consists of six embroidered panels.
The hood depicts the Adoration of the Magi, from which the cope derives its name, and other scenes depicted include the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon.
The earliest historical reference to this extremely rare vestment was found by Waterford historians in the will of the dean of the medieval Catholic cathedral, John Collyn, dated 1481.
It passed to the Protestant bishop during the Reformation, and references in the city archives indicate that the Corporation was given custody of it in the late 16th century, in pledge for a sum of £400.
The Corporation has a letter, dated 1637, in which Lord Deputy Wentworth (who was later beheaded by the Cromwellians) demanded the return of the cope. It was apparently hidden for safekeeping during the Cromwellian invasion, and when rediscovered in 1777 it was presented by the then Church of Ireland bishop to the Catholic dean as an ecumenical gesture.
The present Catholic bishop, Dr William Lee, has now approved the transfer of the cope from the National Museum on loan to the Corporation for display in the new heritage centre.
The pre-Reformation vestment, which has been dated by experts from London's Victoria and Albert Museum, will be displayed along with another highly treasured item in the civic regalia of Waterford, the "cap of maintenance" sent by Henry VIII to the mayor of the city in the mid16th century.