Ireland

Art

Six works you can go and stand in front of — a carved stone older than the pyramids, two pieces of metalwork nobody has bettered since, and a window that glows. With what to look at and where each one is.

Photo: nick macneill — CC BY-SA 2.0

unknown, Neolithic · c. 3200 BC
The Newgrange entrance stone

What to look atThree linked spirals cut into hard kerbstone with stone tools, and a vertical line running down the middle that lines up with the passage behind it. Nobody knows what the spirals mean. What is certain is that whoever cut them spent months on a stone most people would only ever walk past.

Where to see it
Brú na Bóinne, Co. Meath, at the entrance to the mound. Access is by guided tour from the visitor centre at Donore.
In the guideLeinster →
Photo: Johnbod — CC BY-SA 3.0

unknown Irish metalworker · c. 700
The Tara Brooch

What to look atIt is nine centimetres across and carries seventy-six separate panels of gold filigree, glass, amber and enamel — including on the back, which nobody would ever see when it was worn. Look at it with the magnifier the museum provides. It was never found at Tara; a dealer renamed it to sell it better.

Where to see it
National Museum of Ireland — Archaeology, Kildare Street, Dublin. Entry is free.
In the guideLeinster →
Photo — CC BY-SA 3.0

unknown Irish metalworker · 8th century
The Ardagh Chalice

What to look atSilver, gold, bronze, glass and enamel, in 354 separate pieces held together without a drop of solder in the visible joints. The names of the apostles are cut in a band around the bowl in letters so fine they were meant for God rather than for the congregation. A boy digging potatoes found it in 1868.

Where to see it
Same room as the Tara Brooch, in the National Museum on Kildare Street. It came out of a field in Co. Limerick.
In the guideLeinster →
Photo: Christopher Hilton — CC BY-SA 2.0

unknown, inscribed for Muiredach · c. 900
Muiredach's High Cross

What to look atFive and a half metres of sandstone carved on every face, and it was a Bible for people who could not read one: the Fall, the Adoration, the Last Judgement, each panel a scene you were meant to recognise from the sermon. The ring around the head is structural — it holds the arms up — and it became the shape the whole world now calls Celtic.

Where to see it
Monasterboice, Co. Louth, in an open graveyard beside a round tower. Free, always open, and usually empty.
In the guideLeinster →
Daniel Maclise, 1854 — public domain

Daniel Maclise · 1854
The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife

What to look atMaclise painted a wedding as a funeral. The Norman lord and the Irish princess meet in the middle, but the whole bottom of the canvas is corpses, a broken high cross and a keening harper. It was painted seven hundred years after the event and six years after the Famine, and it is not subtle about which of the two it is really about.

Where to see it
National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square, Dublin. Free, and the canvas takes up an entire wall.
In the guideLeinster →
Photo: NateBergin — CC BY 4.0

Harry Clarke Studios · 1920s – 1930s
The Carrickmacross windows

What to look atClarke and his studio worked the glass itself rather than painting on it — acid-etching layer after layer so the deep blues glow and the figures dissolve into pattern. The faces are long, strange and slightly unsettling, which is exactly why they are unmistakable. Stand close, then walk back.

Where to see it
St Joseph's Church, Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan. A working parish church; go on a bright morning.
In the guideUlster (Republic) →

The Newgrange entrance stone

The Tara Brooch

The Ardagh Chalice

Muiredach's High Cross

The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife

The Carrickmacross windows