JEWS IN IRELANDof gold. It is decorated in gold filigree, stamped foil,
brambled bosses, and openwork marginal animal orna-
ment. Its pin however is modeled on the Pictish style.
It typifies the experimentation of the creative work-
shops of the period.
Personal ornaments were not just for those of very
high status. Throughout the period, simple pins, with
closed free-swiveling rings, were used as cloak fasteners—
they were not able to function as penannulars and
perhaps a thong or cord was used to supplement the
fastening. These “ringed pins” had more elaborate ver-
sions in which the ring was decorated or a small deco-
rative circular head was sometimes substituted for
it—in which case they are referred to as
“ring brooches.”
Some of these are very elaborate—an especially fine large
example is the Westness Brooch from Orkney, the dec-
oration of which is not far short of the quality of the
finest pseudo-penannulars. Simple ringed pins remained
popular in a number of variants as late as the eleventh
century and they are particularly well represented in the
Viking-age levels of Dublin.
A further variant is the brooch with a hinged tab
connecting a large pendant head to a pin. The best known
of these are the “kite brooches” so-called from the shape
of their heads which were often the field for fine orna-
ment including sometimes, filigree in a style which owes
much to Viking traditions. A very fine example was exca-
vated from Viking-age deposits in Waterford and hum-
bler versions have been found in Viking Dublin.
The fashion for wearing very sumptuous personal
ornaments seems to have died out during the tenth
century but the reasons for this are not clear.
M
ICHAEL
R
YAN
References and Further Reading
Graham-Campbell, James. “Two Groups of Ninth-century Irish
Brooches.”
Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of
Ireland
102 (1972). 113–128.
——— “Bossed Penannular Brooches: A Review.”
Medieval
Archaeology
19 (1975), 33–47.
Henry, Francoise.
Irish Art in the Early Christian Period to AD
800
. London, 1965.
———
Irish Art during the Viking Invasions 800–1020 A.D.
London, 1967.
Nieke, Margaret R. “Penannular and Related Brooches: Secular
Ornament or Symbol in Action.” In
The Age of Migrating
Ideas: Early Medieval Art in Northern Britain and Ireland
,
edited by R. Michael Spearman and John Higgett, 128–134.
Edinburgh, 1993.
Smith, Reginald A. “Irish Brooches of Five Centuries.”
Archae-
ologia
65 (1914), 223–250.
Stevenson R.B. K. “The Hunterston Brooch and its Signifi-
cance.”
Medieval Archaeology
18 (1974): 16–42.
Whitfield, Niamh. “The ‘Tara’ Brooch: an Irish Emblem of
Status in its European Context.” (ed.) In
From Ireland Com-
ing: Irish Art from the Early Christian to the Late Gothic
Period and its European Context
, edited by Colum Houri-
hane, 210–247. Princeton, 2001.
Youngs, S. ed.
The Work of Angels: Masterpieces of Celtic
Metalwork 6th-9th Centuries AD
.
London, 1989.
See also
Early Christian Art; Hoards; Metalwork;
Viking IncursionsJEWS IN IRELAND
In history and in legend, connections between the
Irish and the Jews exist. Chronicles linking the two
peoples document contact more on fanciful invention
than solid foundation. Medieval Ireland had little con-
tact with real Jewish settlers. But their reputation pre-
ceded their actual arrival through centuries of Christian
supposition.Legend
Efforts to reconcile biblical and native traditions, while
endeavoring to explain the settlement of Ireland,
resulted in fabricated accounts of exploits by alleged
Jewish ancestors—as in
Lebor Gabála Érenn. This
source lists Cessair, daughter of Bith, a son of Noah,
among Ireland’s first immigrants. Spurned by Noah,
she arrived on her own ark with fifty women and three
men.
The Book of Druim Snechta
counters this by
promoting Banba as an escapee from the flood.
Magog’s son and Japhet’s grandson Aithechda was
held to be the distant progenitor of the Túatha Dé
Danann. Their name was tied to the tribe of Dan.
Pedigrees for Leinster and Munster’s kings stretched
back to Éremon and Éber, sons of Míl and, earlier, to
the Patriarchs. The
Senchas Már
legal compilation
claimed its predecessor as Mosaic law. Exodus
inspired tales that Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, fled after
defending Moses. After landing in Ireland, this widow
of Míl set up Jacob’s stone pillow from Bethel as the
Lia Fáil
(“stone of destiny”). Having fallen in the
battle of Slieve Mis, her grave lies in “Scotia’s Glen,”
Glanaskagheen in Kerry.
The ten lost tribes and the story of the
Lia Fáil
merge Torah with Tara. Another royal refugee, Tea-
Tephi, after the fall of the First Temple in Jerusalem,
reached the Hill of Tara. She married Eochaid, king of
Ulster. Alternatively, King Heremon married Tara,
daughter of Judah’s last king, Zedekiah. The mountain
Kippure near Dublin; scapegoats and Puck Fair; the
names Eber and Hebrew; Hibernia and Iberia; Iveragh
and
éver yam
(Hebrew: “a region across the sea”): all
have been suggested as Irish–Hebrew proof-texts.
History
Trade along the Mediterranean over the Atlantic to the
British Isles may have involved Hebrew merchants.
The first recorded encounter happened much later.