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XVIII.

ON A SHRINE LATELY FOUND IN LOUGH ERNE, NOW BELONGING TO THOMAS PLUNKETT, Esq, T.C., ENNISKILLEN. BY REV. DENIS MURPHY, S.J.

[Read DECEMBER 14, 1892.]

I BEG leave to call the attention of the Academy to an important find lately made. In the late spring of this year, while some fishermen were plying their trade on Lough Erne one of them hooked a fish. The fish, to use a technical term that will be readily understood by disciples of Isaac Walton, if any are here, sulked, i.e. went to the bottom and remained there for some time. After a while, stirred by the gentle pressure of the hook, he began to move about, still on the bottom, and in his circumvolutions he somehow got the line entangled in what the fisherman thought was a stump. When he rose to the surface, the fisherman to his surprise found entangled in the line the shrine which you now see before you, and with a twofold motive for putting forward all his skill he succeeded in capturing his twofold prize. Mr. Plunkett, the Chairman of the Enniskillen Town Commissioners, hearing of the find, communicated immediately with the finder, and with the happy result to him, and I may add to the public-for Mr. Plunkett is well known to be a man who has the public interest deeply at heart, and devotes a great deal of his time to promote the welfare of his neighbours-he is now its happy possessor.

In his letter to me, stating that he had sent on the shrine for exhibition here this evening, Mr. Plunkett described the exact spot where it was found. There is a small bay on the western shore of Lower Lough Erne, about midway between Enniskillen and Belleek. On a projecting point close by, Mr. Plunkett says he found some remains of a stone structure, surrounded by a square fosse, one side of which runs along the top of the steep bank that bounds the shore of the lake. Tully Castle, built at the time of the Ulster Settlement, is quite near; possibly the stones of the abbey were used to build it. All tradition about the abbey, if such a building ever existed, has died out. The building would have been a small one, as the fosse encloses not more than twenty perches of ground.

To come to the shrine which is now exhibited-a visit to the Museum shows that these shrines vary in shape. Most of those in the collection are flat, being used to contain very possibly the writings or the Life of some saint, the founder of the church where the shrine was

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kept; others are of the shape of a church, recalling somewhat the very ancient church of St. Benin, in the Island of Arran. A drawing closely resembling the outlines of this shrine will be found in the "Book of Kells." Miss Stokes gives it in vol. ii., p. 163, of her "Irish Inscriptions."

The measurement of the shrine (fig. 1) is-length 7 inches, width 31, height 57. It consists of two distinct parts, an inner shrine and an outer shell or double shell. The inner shrine is very simple; very possibly it is the more ancient part. The sides, roof, and the lower part of the two ends still remain. There seems to be no sign of ornament on any part of it, nor any opening to show that anything of the kind was ever attached to it. It has, however, at the end two ansæ, as the other one has, not unlike one portion of a hinge. The outer shrine has a lining of yew-wood in two distinct pieces, one in the upper part, another in the lower, each made of one solid piece scooped out roughly.

FIG. 2.

This wood serves as a support for the placques of metal forming the outer shell. The greater part of the exterior is plain and unorna

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mented; but clearly this was not its original state, for we have still remaining a highly ornamental boss (fig. 2), one of six very probably,

seeing that on the corresponding part of the roof on the other side there is a hole through which such another boss would be fastened on. Then below on both sides we have evident remains of four other bosses, the circular traces still remaining of these bosses. The tracing running round the central knob is of the very highest type of Irish art, calling to mind the finest work of the "Book of Kells." Then there is another beautiful piece of work, the ansa; what its use was we shall see later on (fig. 3). On this we have two specimens of the opus Hibernicum, a larger pattern filling the central semicircle, and a smaller the edge round as a framework. On the top are three projections pierced through, somewhat like one part of a hinge, as on the inner shrine. Then there is a piece of metal, evidently meant to cover the joining of the side and roof. It has a pattern of a lozenge shape with interlacing lines. And lastly, there is the ridging, where we have several patterns of Irish work of a very finished and perfect type.

In connexion with this shrine, I would call your attention to another shrine very similar in shape and style of ornament to it, a description of which is given by Dr. Joseph Anderson, the Keeper of the Edinburgh Museum; it belongs to Sir Archibald Grant, of Moneymusk, and goes by the name of the Moneymusk Shrine. It is much smaller than that now exhibited, but its present state is far more complete. The side placques and the bosses are still remaining. Mr.

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Longfield has kindly drawn for me, on an enlarged scale, the ornamental scrollwork on the boss of this shrine (fig. 4) and that on one of the bosses of the Moneymusk Shrine (fig. 5). These two figures will show at once how similar the shrines are, not merely in their general outline but in their ornamentation. In the Moneymusk Shrine we see the uses of the portion of the anse which still remains; a metal placque has its

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