Armstrong and Lawlok — The Domnach Airgid. 101 



pleated garment, belted at the waist. According to Irish custom bhoy do 

 not use stirrups. At two of the corners of the plate are small circular 

 settings of headed work, with tleurs-de-lis claws : the dexter is now empty ; 

 the sinister contains a pearl : possibly these settings were originally attached 

 to the corners of the rim. Petrie 1 stated that the crystals set into the bosses 

 covered relics. Examination has failed to disclose these. 



The sides (Plate IV) are bronze panels, coated with tin, attached to the 

 wooden box. They are engraved with interlaced work, bordered with a fret- 

 pattern at the side edges. 



The base (Plate V) has, according to Petrie, 2 lost its original ornaments, 

 their place having been supplied by the " recent repairer " with panels 

 taken from the sides : now it is covered by three silver-gilt panels, each 

 roughly square, measuring about 70 mm. by 70 mm., ornamented with effigies 

 in relief, contained in a beaded and linear framework. The dexter panel 

 contains an effigy of St. John the Baptist, who wears a camel's-hair robe, 

 and holds a black enamelled disc, on which is the Agnus Dei, in his left 

 hand ; in his right is a scroll bearing an inscription in Lombardic characters 

 adder. : A GnUS DSL To the saint's left, engraved on the field of the panel, 

 is Salome, with the Baptist's head on a charger. An effigy of St. Katherine 

 crowned occupies the centre panel : she holds a wheel in her right hand, 

 and in her left a book. On her right is engraved a priest adoring her; and 

 on her left is a server, swinging censers. In the sinister panel is a male 

 effigy, enthroned, wearing a cope, fastened by a jewel, and an albe; his right 

 hand is raised in benediction ; he holds a small cross in his left : engraved 

 at each side of him is a figure, swinging a censer. 



The back of the shrine (Plate IV) is a bronze or latten plate, attached 

 by rivets to the wooden box, engraved with a plain ornament of straight lines 

 round the edge, and with quarter-circles at the corners, and also round the 

 centre of the copper-gilt cross which is riveted to the plate : the upright 

 shaft of the cross is ornamented with a floral decoration ; on its cross-piece 

 is engraved an inscription in black letter. Petrie 3 wrote that he was unable 

 wholly to decipher this inscription on account of its injured state, but- that it 

 ended with the word ClOilCbar, the name of the see to which the reliquary 

 had originally belonged.' After examining the inscription carefully 1 saw 



1 Op. ait., p. 16. 2 Ibid. ■"' Op. eit., p. 17. 



1 In the extract about the shrine printed in the Academy's Celtic Christian Ovidi . 

 pp. 94, 95, Petrie's reading of this inscription is repeated In the preface to dial work 

 it is stated that Mr. R. I. Best, of the School of Irish Learning, had re-examined the 

 inscriptions on the various shrines. Mr. Best is not, however, responsible for the 

 repetition of this error: he only examined the Irish inscriptions on die different 

 shrines. 



