Akmstkong and Lawlok — The Domnach Airgid. 115 



St. Mac Cairthinn was a disciple of St. Patrick. But in any case it cannot 

 have been very brief; and the necessity of allowing for it carries back the 

 date of the construction of the shrine to the confines of the eighth century, 

 which Mr. Armstrong has already indicated as a terminus a quo. We seem, 

 therefore, to have firm ground for the assertion that the Domnach was made 

 in that century, and that, if not made at Clogher, it was deposited there 

 shortly after its construction. In the church of Clogher it would seem to 

 have remained from that day up to the eleventh or twelfth century. 



2. We come now to Petrie's second proposition, that the Domnach was 

 originally a book-shrine. In favour of this hypothesis he adduces no other 

 evidence than its form. " The form of the cumdach," he says, " indicates that 

 it was intended to receive a book." 1 This is obviously disputable. Dr. Bernard 

 was of the contrary opinion. To him its form suggested, not a book-shrine, 

 but a reliquary. 2 For myself I can only say that the examples of shrines 

 undoubtedly made for the purpose of holding books do not seem sufficiently 

 numerous to warrant a dogmatic statement on the ground of form alone. 

 On the whole, I am inclined to agree with Dr. Bernard. The argument is 

 at any rate not conclusive. 



But when we turn to evidence other than the dimensions of the case, we 

 find that the only witness mentioned by Petrie tells against him. The Life 

 of St. Mac Cairthinn, as we have seen, gives a list of the contents of the 

 shrine : they are all relics ; there is no suggestion that there was, or had 

 been, a book within it. 



Petrie makes two attempts to get rid of this testimony. In the first 

 place he asserts that the relics were not in the Domnach proper, but in 

 recesses in the outer case. But that explanation of the words of the Life 

 cannot be maintained. The writer tells us that the relics were in, not outside, 

 the shrine. Moreover, the Codex Salmanticensis is a fourteenth-century 

 manuscript. It is, therefore, quite possible that no part of the present 

 outer case was in existence when it was written. But let us grant that it 

 was already made. Then it must be noted that the enumeration of the 

 relics is put into the mouth of St. Patrick. Assume everything that is 

 in favour of Dr. Petrie's contention : that the sentence before us was 

 written towards the end of the fourteenth century; that it was not copied 

 from an earlier exemplar — that of the body of the text or any other — 

 but was actually composed by the scribe himself ; that the scribe was aware 

 that the case, with its attached reliquaries, had been already constructed: 

 still the sentence cannot be dated much more than half a century after 

 the making of the case, and the writer must have known that it was a 



1 P. 19. a P. ouu. 



