Book of Dimma

A well-known legend relates that Crónán asked a monk named Dimma to copy the book, but that it had to be done in one day.

Dimma set to work on this impossible task and copied continuously without a break for any meals.

[5] In the 12th century, the manuscript was encased in a richly worked cumdach or reliquary case, which remains with it at Trinity.

On one face it has panels of openwork decoration in Viking Ringerike style over the wood case.

Meagher lent it to Dr Thomas Harrison, who sold it without permission to Henry Monck Mason, a librarian at the King's Inns society in Dublin, sometime before 1816.

Evangelist portrait
St. John
St. Matthew
Cumdach of the Book of Dimma, 20th-century reproduction of front