106 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



wood. They inform me it is yew ;. the small piece of wood, inset apparently in 

 modern times, to repair the box, is oak. 



The box (Plate V) has the appearance of having been made with a sliding 

 lid ; the two sides show a rebate ; one end is slightly lower than the other and 

 levelled to the rebate ; but though the present breadth of the lid would allow 

 it to rest on the rebated sides, it is the full length of the box, and if slid in and 

 placed against the higher end it would leave a portion protruding from the ease. 



The date, or rather dates, of the various parts of the shrine can now be > 

 considered. The three remaining plates of the first metal covering available 

 for examination, /.«.. the lower plate "ii the top and the two sides, are un- 

 that their dating rest upon artistic grounds; they are 



i with interlaced work: the sides have a border of fret patterns. 

 These interlaced patterns closely resemble those of the Book of Durrow. The 

 ■•vidence collected by Dr. Lawlor, 1 and published in his Memoir on the 

 Cathach, points to the seventh century as the probable date for the Book of 

 Durrow. Professor W. M. Lindsay, 1 in his palaeographical notes appended to 

 Dr. I Memoir, Bays that tJ innot be much older than 700 A.D., 



but seems inclined topnt it little later. Profeaeoi 1;. A. S. Maealister 3 lias, how- 

 ever, sought t" prove that the middle of the ninth century is a more probable 

 period fur the writing of the IIS. in question. Now the interlaced style was 

 ooti nth century,* and as the ornament 



of tin' panels of tin- Domnach A ' shows no trace of La Tone survivals, it 

 cannot, I think. t than the seventh century, while it is probablj 



late as the eighth. It i< impossible to date with certainty the wooden box 

 to which tb- - were atl . if it< lid was originally a sliding 



one _ end would have hindered the fastening on of one of the 



metal ends, but the metal pi had a framework to 



which they were fastened; so it is probable that the wooden box is at least as 

 old as they are. 



The inscriptions on the front of the shrine show that it was redecorated 

 not later than the middle of the fourteenth century, and to this period may 

 be assigned the silver panels with figures of saints in relief and the earlier 

 portions of the rim. 



The sdver plate now covering the top is more difficult to date. Petrie 5 

 considei' be contemporary with the added panels on the front and 



Vr Royal Irish Academy, xxziii, sec. C, pp. 317-322 

 1 Appendix ii of the same paper, p. -Jot; ; see also the Rev. .S. F. H. Robinson, Celtic 

 lUuminnl, xx . 



1 Es*' - udiesprest,.'- ■ |o II', \ia\ . 191S, p. 301. 



Coffey, Royal Irish Academy's Celt. 910, p. 8. 



i Op. cit., p. 16. 



