Bell shrine
[2] Decorative material includes silver, gold, glass and rock crystal, and of designs using filigree, cloisonné, openwork, and interlace patterns.
A number were found in bogs, within church walls, or at the bottom of rivers, presumably after they were hidden during the Viking and later Anglo-Norman invasions of Ireland.
[7] The bells were passed between generations of successive abbots and clerics, and served a number of communal functions, including the marking of canonical hours and calling for mass.
[16] Irish monasticism generally avoided dissecting the corporeal remains of its leaders for relics and instead venerated objects with which the saint had had close personal contact.
[19] A second period of enshrinement lasted from the early 14th to late 15th centuries, when the earlier reliquaries were heavily reworked or refurbished; thus many of these objects are said to have been built in two phases.
Shrines from the second phase were often commissioned by secular owners who used their prestige to reinforce personal loyalty from a local bishop as insurers of treaties or contracts and to grant authority for tax collection.
[16] It is assumed that by the time the bells were enshrined, they were already venerated relics;[21] there is no contemporary mention or documentation as to why or by whom they were commissioned or constructed; apart from brief inscriptions on three intact shrines and one crest fragment.
[22][23] Although some sources expect that they were commissioned by high-kings for abbeys, the art-historian Karen Overbey observes that the lack of documentary evidence means the objects cannot be contextualized "nor located in secular and ecclesiastical politics".
[27] Their front plates typically contain a large central cross added in their second, late medieval phase, although some of these are lost.
These would have held straps or bronze chains as the shrines were intended to be carried around the shoulder for display at procession, pilgrimage or at battle.
[1][31] The wire chain for the Scottish Bell shrine of Kilmichael survives and is 1,070 cm (420 in) long and made from series of s-curved links.
[35] From its inscriptions, it is known that Patrick's shrine was commissioned after 1091 by the Uí Néill High King Domnall Ua Lochlainn, and donated to the Bishop of Armagh.
