EARLY IRISH ART

New Zealand Tablet, 17 June 1915, Page 19

EARLY IRISH ART

Professor Culverwell, of Trinity College, Dublin, in a recent lecture, said that before the inroads of the Danes and' the English destroyed the splendor of her civilisation, not only was Ireland the foremost in intellectual development of Christian lands, hut even in the scanty remains which escaped destruction there was convincing evidence of the most superlative Irish dexterity in the finest of work. The ‘ Book of Kells ’ and the ‘ Book of Armagh ’ had never been approached for the delicate skill of their tracery. Referring to the ‘ Book of Kells,’ Professor Westwood, of Oxford, with all the skill and knowledge that he had acquired during fifty years in such work, wrote that he could not conceive how men could have the eyes and the tools to do it. Knowing pretty well, he added, all the libraries in Europe where books of the same type appeared, he could safely affirm that there was no such book in any of them, that within a space of three-eights of a square inch he counted, with a magnifying glass, 158 interlacements of a slender ribbon-pattern, formed of white lines edged by black ones. No modern copyist, said Professor Culverwell, with all the advantages of magnifying glasses and all the finest of steel pins, could approach the work of these earlier scribes. Examined with a lens the firm lines of their tracery showed no unevenness such as appeared in all modern work. Yet, they used quill pens. _ Where did they find the skill to cut them to such exquisitely fine points. Truly, the nerves which directed the fingers of these men must have been far more finely organised than ours. But it seemed that the illumination of these hooks was nothing uncommon at the time, for, while one of them was praised as having a remarkably fine binding, nothing was said of the fineness of the text itself. In metal work, and especially in leather work, I these early Irish craftsmen greatly excelled. Even if .the Tara Brooch, a chance find on the seashore near Drogheda, were the finest specimen ever made in Ire-

land, it proved them to be craftsmen of unequalled skill in their own arts. . . < -