Faddan More Psalter

After several years of conservation work, the psalter went on display at the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology in Kildare Street, Dublin in June 2011.

[5] During the conservation process, in the period 2006–2010, the inside of the leather cover was found to be lined with papyrus, probably as a stiffening; it has been suggested that this points to links between Irish Celtic Christianity and the Coptic churches at the time.

[2] The original leather binding has a fold-over flap with three horn buttons that were probably used to secure a thong or straps, now missing, that tied the cover up; it does not seem to have been physically attached to the gathered and sewn-together pages inside, forming what we might call today a folder or wallet.

In addition to low oxygen levels, sphagnum moss, of which the peat bog is composed, produces an antibiotic substance called sphagnan that binds with proteins on the surface of microorganisms, immobilising them.

Identifying the safest way to pry open the pages without damaging or destroying them was expected to take months, and conservation work to take two years.

Six years before the psalter find, a leather satchel was found that, by radiocarbon dating, was estimated to originate from between the seventh and ninth centuries.

The matter was clarified by the director of the National Museum of Ireland, who pointed out the difference in Septuagint vs. Masoretic numbering and that the displayed psalm contains no reference to the destruction of Israel.

Conservators then began applying this method to larger sections of the psalter, and found they could consistently achieve shrinkage of only 2–5%, against 75% on a small fragment that was air-dried.

[12] The process was described in a book from the National Museum of Ireland, The Faddan More Psalter, The Discovery and Conservation of a Medieval Treasure published in November 2021.