Abstract
No matter which road you choose to approach the ruined medieval monastery at Clonmacnoise, county Offaly, you can just barely make out the tips of the round tower and ancient churches over the rolling green hills of the Irish midlands. Anticipating an imminent moment of real contact with the medieval past, you are first guided through an experience of the present, as the entryway into the site feeds into the visitors’ parking lot. Leaving your vehicle, you follow a directed path through tall hedges that make it nearly impossible to see the ruins in the distance. You pass a modern statue of a pilgrim, intended to enhance your expectant sensations of reverence, nostalgia, and possibly even faith. When you finally come upon a doorway, it is the entrance to the Visitors’ Centre, a modern construction that houses the gift shop, a small movie theater, an elaborate exhibition, and perhaps most surprisingly, many of the original medieval objects from the site.1
The antiquarian searches for an internal relation between past and present which is made possible by their absolute disruption. Hence his or her search is primarily an aesthetic one, an attempt to erase the actual past in order to create an imagined past which is available for consumption.
Susan Stewart, On Longing
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Notes
This type of guided sequence is typical of many heritage sites in Ireland and similar tourist attractions elsewhere. The curatorial choices made by the designers of Irish heritage sites have been analyzed by David Brett as “narrative structures”. See David Brett, The Construction of Heritage (Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 1996).
For an astute analysis of the theme-park phenomenon, see Annabel Wharton, Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
Heather King directed the excavations at Clonmacnoise during the 1990s, and most of the findings were published in the volume she edited. Heather A. King, ed., Clonmacnoise Studies: Seminar Papers 1994 (Dublin: Dúchas, the Heritage Service, 1998).
For a wonderful analysis of the concomitant issues of dis- and re-membering, see Kathleen Biddick, “Humanist History and the Haunting of Virtual Technologies: Problems of Memory and Rememoration”, in The Shock of Medievalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), pp. 165–84.
The best sources for Petrie’s biography include William Stokes, The Life and Labours in Art and Archaeology of George Petrie (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1868).
Peter Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866): The Rediscovery of Ireland’s Past (Cork, Ireland: The Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, 2004).
As a less institutionally connected figure, O’Neill’s biography is more difficult to trace, but some information can be gathered from sources like Walter G. Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists, 2 vols. (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1969).
Jeanne Sheehy and George Mott, The Rediscovery of Ireland’s Past: The Celtic Revival, 1830–1930 (London: Thames & Hudson, 1980), p. 23.
For more on both Petrie and O’Neill, as well as some of their contemporaries, see Maire De Paor, “Irish Antiquarian Artists”, in Visualizing Ireland: National Identity and the Pictorial Tradition, ed. Adele M. Dalsimer (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), pp. 119–32.
Petrie’s seminal study was published as George Petrie, The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1845).
John Andrews, A Paper Landscape: The Ordnance Survey in Nineteenth-Century Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
Stiofán Ó Cadhla and Eamon Ó Cuív, Civilizing Ireland: Ordnance Survey 1824–1842: Ethnography, Cartography, Translation (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007).
Karen Eileen Overbey, Sacral Geographies: Saints, Shrines, and Territories in Medieval Ireland (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012).
Henry O’Neill, Ireland for the Irish: A Practical, Peaceable, and Just Solution of the Irish Land Question (Dublin: Trubner & Co, 1868). See also Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists, 1:199–200.
W. B. Yeats, The Celtic Twilight (London: H. Bullen, 1902).
Denis Murphy, ed., The Annals of Clonmacnoise, Being Annals of Ireland from the Earliest Period to A.D. 1408, trans. Conell Mageoghagan (Dublin: Llanerch Publishers, 1993), p. 178.
A similar reference appears in John O’Donovan, ed., Annala Rioghachta Eireann, Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, 6 vols. (Dublin: Hodges, Smith and Co., 1856), 1:878–79.
Catherine Herbert argues convincingly for the significance of David imagery on the Irish high crosses as one component in “a dialogue on rulership between ecclesiastical authorities and their secular patrons”. See Catherine Herbert, “Psalms in Stone: Royalty and Spirituality on Irish High Crosses”. PhD diss., University of Delaware, 1997, pp. xv, and 273–339.
For a thorough iconographical analysis of the cross, see Peter Harbison, The High Crosses of Ireland: An Iconographical and Photographic Survey, 3 vols. (Bonn: R. Habelt, 1992), 1:48–53.
This transcription and translation are taken from Harbison, The High Crosses of Ireland, 1:356–57. Only a few letters of the inscription remain legible today: ANDORRO/AR/D on the east and NDM on the west. For more on interpreting the inscription, see Peter Harbison, “The Extent of Royal Patronage on Irish High Crosses”, Studia Celtica Japonica 6 (1994): 77–105. Françoise Henry, “Around an Inscription: The Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 110 (1980): 36–46. Dómhnall O’Murchadha and Giollamuire O’Murchú, “Fragmentary Inscriptions from the West Cross at Durrow, the South Cross at Clonmacnoise and the Cross of Kinnitty”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 118 (1988): 53–66.
Françoise Henry, “Around an Inscription: The Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 110 (1980): 36–46.
Dómhnall O’Murchadha and Giollamuire O’Murchú, “Fragmentary Inscriptions from the West Cross at Durrow, the South Cross at Clonmacnoise and the Cross of Kinnitty”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 118 (1988): 53–66.
Although some scholars have questioned the dating of the Cross of the Scriptures, I am convinced by the early tenth-century date. Not only does the inscription name King Fland and Abbot Colman, but the carving style is also similar to other crosses that bear comparable inscriptions, such as those at Durrow and Monasterboice. For confirmation of the tenth-century date, see Henry, “Around an Inscription” and Conleth Manning, “Clonmacnoise Cathedral”, in Clonmacnoise Studies: Seminar Papers 1994, ed. Heather A. King (Dublin: Dúchas, The Heritage Service, 1998), pp. 57–87.
For alternative arguments, see Peter Harbison, “The Inscriptions on the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnois, County Offaly”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 79C. 7 (1979): 177–88.
Liam De Paor, “The High Crosses of Tech Theille (Tihilly), Kinnitty, and Related Sculpture”, in Figures from the Past: Studies on Figurative Art in Christian Ireland in Honour of Helen M. Roe, ed. Etienne Rynne (Dun Laoghaire: Glendale Press, 1987), pp. 131–58.
Douglas MacLean, “The Status of the Sculptor in Old-Irish Law and the Evidence of the Crosses”, Peritia 9 (1995): 125–55. See also De Paor, “The High Crosses of Tech Theille” and O’Murchadha and O’Murchú, “Fragmentary Inscriptions.”
See Robin Flower, “Irish High Crosses”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes (1954): 94 [87–97].
Harbison, The High Crosses of Ireland, 1:154–57, figs. 512–513. Flower’s notion of the “Help of God” theme has been influential, but other interpretations of the imagery have also been put forward. For instance, Eamonn O’Carragáin has traced the appearance of SS. Paul and Anthony in the reliefs and described the monastic themes inherent in the depiction of these two desert fathers. See Eamonn O’Carragáin, “The Meeting of Saint Paul and Saint Anthony”, in Keimelia: Studies in Medieval Archaeology and History in Memory of Tom Delaney, eds. Gearóid MacNiocaill and Patrick F. Wallace (Galway, Ireland: Galway University Press, 1988), pp. 1–59.
see Margaret M. Williams, “The Sign of the Cross: Irish High Crosses as Cultural Emblems”, PhD diss., Columbia University, 2000
Margaret M. Williams, “Warrior Kings and Savvy Abbots: The Sacred, The Secular, and the Depiction of Contemporary Costume on the Cross of the Scriptures, Clonmacnois”, Avista Forum Journal 12.1 (1999): 4–11.
Roger Stalley has argued that the bottom relief depicts Moses and the Brazen Serpent, while Peter Harbison contends that the scene and its companion in the panel above are episodes from the Joseph story. I posit that resonances with both would have appealed to tenth-century viewers, who could have interpreted the imagery in multiple ways. See Roger Stalley, “European Art and the Irish High Crosses”, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 90C.6 (1990): 135–58 and Harbison, The High Crosses of Ireland, 1:202–04. In a recent conference paper, Stalley changed his position, arguing that the figures may represent contemporary secular leaders. Roger Stalley, “The Irish High Crosses—Time for a Re-Think?” (Kalamazoo, MI: Forty-Sixth International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2011).
see Mairead Dunlevy, Dress in Ireland (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1989)
M. Fitzgerald, “Insular Dress in Early Medieval Ireland”, in Anglo-Saxon Texts and Contexts, ed. G. R. Owen-Crocker, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 79.3 (1997): 251–61
H. F. McClintock, Old Irish and Highland Dress (Dundalk: Dundalgan Press, 1943)
Joseph C. Walker, An Historical Essay on the Dress of the Ancient and Modern Irish (Dublin: J. Christie, 1818).
Whitley Stokes, ed., Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 276. When founding the site in the sixth century, St. Ciarán erected a church with the assistance of a future high-king of Ireland named Diarmait mac Cerbaill. At the time, Diarmait was a fugitive from the current high-king, Tuathal Maelgarb, and he was rewarded for his assistance by being appointed the royal successor. Diarmait provided his services in the form of physical labor—or perhaps financial assistance, represented metaphorically as brute work.
see Janet Nelson, “Royal Saints and Early Medieval Kingship”, Studies in Church History 10 (1973): 39–44
Janet Nelson, “Inauguration Rituals”, in Early Medieval Kingship, eds. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (Leeds: University of Leeds, School of History, 1977), pp. 50–71.
David Brett provides an excellent summary of the sublime versus the picturesque in an Irish context. See Brett, The Construction of Heritage. See also Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 49.
Tom Dunne, “Towards a National Art? George Petrie’s Two Versions of The Last Circuit of Pilgrims at Clonmacnoise”, in Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866), pp. 125–36.
See also Thomas Davis, “Art and the Nation”, in Thomas Davis: Essays and Poems with a Centenary Memoir 1845–1945 (Dublin: Gill and Son, 1945), pp. 113–118.
In a recent article, Marian Bleeke makes a related argument regarding Petrie’s role in constructing Irish art history through his antiquarian activities. See Marian Bleeke, “George Petrie, the Ordnance Survey, and Nineteenth-Century Constructions of the Irish Past”, in Medieval Art and Architecture after the Middle Ages, eds. Janet T. Marquardt and Alyce A. Jordan (Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), pp. 129–49.
See Dunne, “Towards a National Art?” in Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 128.
Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 42.
Dunne, “Towards a National Art?” in George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 133.
See also Tom Dunne, Maria Edgeworth and the Colonial Mind: The 26th O’Donnell lecture (National University of Ireland, Dublin, 1984)
W. L. Renwick, ed., Edmund Spenser: a View of the Present State of Ireland (London: Scholartis Press, 1934).
Dunne, “Towards a National Art?” in George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 133.
As Dunne suggested, Petrie had a sense that contemporary Ireland was “a prisoner of that past, and all that could be done was to achieve greater understanding of what was lost”. Dunne, “Towards a National Art?” in George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 129.
Over the past several decades, several scholars have investigated the colonial role of the Ordnance Survey. See Andrews, A Paper Landscape, and Stiofán O’Cadhla and Eamon O’Cuív, Civilizing Ireland: Ordnance Survey 1824–1842: Ethnography, Cartography, Translation (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2007). More recently, some scholars have felt a need to come to the defense of the Survey’s vast production of information. For example, Joep Leerssen, “Petrie: Polymath and Innovator”, writes, “The Irish Ordnance Survey has come to enjoy a poor reputation (as yet another Anglocentric nail in the coffin of native culture), which is undeserved and probably due to some unguarded remarks by Douglas Hyde (in his lecture ‘On the necessity for de-Anglicising Ireland’, 1891) and Brian Friel’s misguided and misleading play Translations”, in Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 8.
Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 3–4.
The round towers are colossal stone structures, many of which are approximately one-hundred-feet high and capped with conical stone roofs. Petrie established that they were constructions of the Christian era, built by native Irishmen. He also suggested that they should be identified with the cloichtechs, or bell-houses, mentioned in the written sources, and that they might have served as keeps. Prior to Petrie’s work, scholars had presented a variety of speculative theories that denied the possibility that the round towers could have been constructed by local builders—theories ranged from the idea that they might have been sorcerers’ temples or astrological observatories to the notion that they were built by Phoenicians, African sea champions, or Danes. Like the round towers, the high crosses have frequently been considered improbable oddities. See Michael F. Hearn, Romanesque Sculpture: The Revival of Monumental Stone Sculpture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 22, who refers to them as “provincial survival[s].”
Petrie was profoundly motivated by previous suggestions that the surviving Irish ruins could not possibly be of native origin, such as Sir James Ware’s declaration that no stone buildings had been built in Ireland prior to the twelfth century. For a summary of the round tower controversy, see Joep Leerssen, Remembrance and Imagination: Patterns in the Historical and Literary Representation of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp. 109–46.
Even Michael Camille refers to Petrie as “the founder of Irish archaeology”. Michael Camille, “Domesticating the Dragon: The Rediscovery, Reproduction, and Re-Invention of Early Irish Metalwork”, in Imagining an Irish Past: The Celtic Revival, 1840–1940, ed. T. J. Edelstein (Chicago: David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, 1990), p. 1. In fact, Petrie did found the Irish Archaeological Society. See Joep Leerssen, “Petrie: Polymath and Innovator”, in Murray, George Petrie (1790–1866), p. 10.
George Petrie, “A Note to Our Readers”, Irish Penny Journal 1 (1840): 8.
T. K. Cromwell’s Excursions through Ireland (1820–21)
G. N. Wright’s Historical Guide to Ancient and Modern Dublin (1821–25)
G. N. Wright’s Guide to the Giant’s Causeway, Guide to Wicklow and Guide to Killarney (1823)
James Norris Brewer’s Beauties of Ireland (1825–26)
G. N. Wright’s Ireland Illustrated (ca. 1842).
Henry O’ Neill, Illustrations of the Most Interesting of the Sculptured Crosses of Ancient Ireland (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1857), p. i.
Edmund Burke, a Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (London: Verner and Hood, 1798).
Henry O’ Neill, The Fine Arts and Civilization of Ancient Ireland, Illustrated with Chromo and Other Lithographs, and Several Woodcuts (Dublin: George Herbert, 1863).
R.R. Brash, “The Sculptured Crosses of Ireland, What We Learn from Them”, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 12 (1872–74): 98–112
J.H. Smith, “Ancient Stone Crosses in Ireland”, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 1 (1853): 53–7.
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© 2012 Maggie M. Williams
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Williams, M.M. (2012). Visualizing Antiquity. In: Icons of Irishness from the Middle Ages to the Modern World. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137057266_2
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