House-shaped shrine

[4] Like many Insular shrines, they were heavily reworked and embellished in the centuries following their initial construction, often with metal adornments or figures influenced by Romanesque sculpture.

[5] Similar forms, probably intended to evoke a church or tomb, became very common across Latin Europe for reliquaries in the Late Middle Ages, often decorated with champlevé enamel.

[6] The format draws from Ancient Roman and contemporary continental influences, including for later examples, French Romanesque architecture.

[18] It is thought that most ironwork reliquaries were commissioned in part as status symbols, and primarily to be housed in their home monastery or church, perhaps in front of the altar.

[20] The now badly damaged[11] Breac Maodhóg was probably used as a battle standard, when it would have been carried onto the battlefield by a cleric so as to offer protection to the troops and perhaps bring victory.

The sides of an example found in a grave for a woman at Sunndal Municipality, Norway, are decorated with opposing pairs of birds heads.

[2] The high-pitched, usually sloped "roof"s are held together by ridge-poles[15][1] and hinged lids secured by a sliding pin which when opened give access to the wooden core and its relic.

[15] A modified version of the shape, more usually called a chasse, remained popular for reliquaries in mainland Europe until the Late Middle Ages; a well known example is the Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral.

[31] Contemporary Irish metalworkers had close ties with craftsmen in Scotland, including the Pictish monastery at Portmahomack, and monasteries in Northumbria; exchanges of styles and influences are evident in the examples from these areas,[32] at a time when artisans across the British Isles where both exposed to multiple classical and complex mainland European influences.

[7][36] Although a great many more where likely produced, most lost during Viking rates, 12th century Norman wars, later internal battles,[17] or were dismantled and smelted so the bronze and sliver could be sold off.

[5] In addition, there are dozens of surviving fragments,[15] including a portion of what is thought to have been an important 9th house-shrine found in a drain near Clonard, County Meath in the late 19th century.