452 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
art of design andthe working of metals, as well as in various processes 
of enamelling, before the coming of Patrick. The bronzes of the Late 
Celtic period have never been surpassed in the metal-work of the Chris- 
tian period in Ireland; and many of their processes appear to have 
been totally different from those introduced with Christianity. After 
this new system had had time to settle and bear fruit, we find the 
arts of filigree, damascening, mosaic, glasswork, and enamelling, are 
brought to much excellence. Interlaced designs are introduced, which 
never appeared in the pre-Christian art of Ireland; and it would seem 
to be the case that they came into Ireland with the first missionaries, 
since similar patterns characterize the early Christian art of the north 
of Italy, and were probably Roman in origin. Indeed, designs formed 
of knots and plaited bands are common in the primitive art of many 
and various races. 
Still the advance of any decorative Christian art in Ireland was but 
gradual. Nothing can exceed the rudeness of those relics of the early 
teachers of religion, that have been preserved for us through the care 
of their relic-loving successors in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 
The rude iron and bronze bells of St. Patrick or of St. Columba, of 
the fifth and sixth centuries, are as inferior to the bronze bell of 
Cumascach M‘Ailello (4.p. 904) as the uncemented stone oratory is 
to the Romanesque church of the twelfth: and we read of croziers, 
but find them to have been the oaken staff of the itinerant bishop, 
which is still visible through the chinks and openings of the metal 
case in which it was afterwards enshrined. But perhaps nothing 
helps the mind more vividly to realize the simple practices of these 
early Christians than the sight and touch of the rude stone chalices— 
such as have been preserved to the present date in a few of our most 
remote churches. Decorative Christian art grew to gradual perfection 
from the ninth to the tenth centuries; and it is interesting to see that 
it had been grafted on the pagan art of pre-Christian Ireland, and that 
certain designs (besides those interlaced patterns which we hold to 
have been of foreign importation), common in the native art and the 
bronzes of the Late Celtic period, were used by workers in metal of the 
Christian period, and carried to great perfection in the illuminations 
of manuscripts. These native designs, however, are not seen at so 
late a date as the interlaced patterns; and rarely, if ever, appear in 
the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which period was distinguished by 
the finest interlaced work. 
In the ornament that enriches the surface of such examples of 
architecture, sculpture, and metal-work, as bear evidence of having 
been executed before the year 1020, we invariably find one distin- 
euishing design, which fell into disuse after the date 1050: this has 
been termed the divergent spiral, or trumpet pattern. This design 
consists of two lines wound in a spiral, on leaving which the two lines 
diverge ; and at the end of the space is a curve formed by the parting 
of the lines, like the mouth of a trumpet; then the lines converge 
again, whirling to a centre, where they turn, and, winding back again. 
