Murphy — Ancient MS. Life of St. Caillin of Fenagh. 443 
the reacli of such, as cannot come here to study. It is almost ungene- 
rous to find fault even in the smallest way with such a valuable contri- 
bution to Irish literature. But I do not think it would have been 
amiss to have retained the initial capital letter for its own sake, as also 
for the peculiarity of Irish mediaeval Latinity of which it is a specimen. 
A few words on the second object exhibited : this is the shrine 
of Caillin. In the enumeration of the shrines made by Miss Stokes in 
her very valuable work on Irish Inscriptions, ii. 159, no mention is 
made of this one. 0' Curry has fallen into a strange mistake in refe- 
rence to it. Having spoken at length of the well-known shrines, the 
Domnach Airgid and the Cathach, he makes mention of " several other 
shrines and reliquaries still remaining." The chief of them," he 
says, ''are that of St. Manchan, that of St. Maedog, which belonged 
to the O'Euarcs of Erefeey, but was lately in the possession of His 
Grace the Most Eev. Dr. Slattery, late Archbishop of Cashel ; and the 
beautiful shrine of St. Caillin, now or lately in the hands of Dr. 
Petrie." 
Much cannot be said of it perhaps as a work of art. It has but 
little of the characteristics of Irish ornamentation. The style of a 
good part of it is rather a debased Gothic. At the top is a figure of 
Christ crucified. The four panels into which the upper surface is 
divided contain each three figures, the whole representing no doubt 
the twelve Apostles, though they are without any distinctive emblems, 
each panel being nothing more than an exact facsimile of the others. 
A narrow band acts as a kind of frame for each of these panels, on 
which there is a very rich and varied style of ornamentation consist- 
ing partly of figures and partly of interlaced scroll-work. This, the 
lettering, and the bosses on the corner clamps, are in niello work of a 
very superior kind. Stones, mostly cornelian and spar, are placed at 
intervals immediately outside these bands ; and in the centre a piece of 
spar much larger and higher than the rest. Eound the edge there is an 
ornament, running from a stem ending in a six-leaved flower, a thing 
wholly foreign to ancient Irish art. On the back we have the usual 
plate with incised crosses, such as we see in the Cathach and other 
shrines in the Museum. Here, too, we have that strange irregularity 
both in the position and outline of each of the crosses as well in the 
pattern of the whole plate. 
Eound the edge of the upper and lower surface there is an Irish 
inscription in capital letters, partly Gothic, partly Irish ; those on the 
upper edge being less than half the size of the lower. It begins at 
the left hand of the figure below, runs round the edge of that surface, 
2 12 
