County: Armagh Site name: CLONMORE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: —
Author: Cormac Bourke, Ulster Museum
Site type: Excavation - miscellaneous
Period/Dating: Early Medieval (AD 400-AD 1099)
ITM: E 687932m, N 860999m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 54.489814, -6.642804
The tomb-shaped bronze reliquary known as the Clonmore shrine dates to c. 600 and is the earliest example of Irish Christian metalwork. Some of its constituent plates were found by a metal-detectorist beside the River Blackwater in 1990 in material dredged from the river c. 1970. A search by the Ulster Museum yielded additional pieces (including the hinge and lock) in 1991 (Excavations 1991, 5), and only the base, one end-plate and the hips of the roof were unaccounted for.
A three-week excavation in August/September 2000 was funded and licensed by the Environment & Heritage Service and was dedicated to the recovery of the missing pieces. An area 60m2 was mechanically stripped and searched with metal-detectors by a team of two. All dredged material, to a maximum depth of 0.6m, was removed until the old field surface was encountered. A layer of sand yielded the base of the shrine in an undisturbed context; the end-plate was recovered from a mixed layer and may have been moved mechanically prior to finding. The two pieces, unexpectedly, were originally continuous, as their matching edges show, but the decoration of the new end-plate duplicates that of its counterpart and, as anticipated, has a hole in the top right-hand corner to admit the pin of the lock. The base is plain.
Of the nine constituent plates of the Clonmore shrine, only the hips of the roof remain unaccounted for. Hope of recovering these has not been abandoned, and further excavation is contemplated.
Botanic Gardens, Belfast BT9 5AB
