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A SAINT’S HEART and fragments of the ‘true cross’ were just two of the high-profile relics thefts in Ireland last year.
Decorative crosses said to contain fragments of the cross on which Jesus was crucified were stolen from Holy Cross Abbey in Co Tipperary in October 2011. The items, made from silver, gold and bronze, were later recovered and had not been seriously damaged.
The preserved heart of Saint Laurence O’Toole was stolen from Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin city in March. The relic, dating from the 12th century, has not been recovered despite repeated appeals. Meanwhile, a relic known as the Precious Shrine of St Manchan was stolen from a church in Boher, Co Offaly, and was recovered shortly afterwards by gardaí.
But what is a relic?
The word relic comes from the Latin word ‘reliquiae’, meaning ‘remains’ or ‘something left behind’, while a reliquary is a shrine that houses a relic, or relics.
According to Catholic Church doctrine, a relic is a physical and personal memorial of a saint and relics are classified according to a grading system. That system considers corporeal relics (ie a saint’s body parts) as being of a higher ‘grade’ than associative relics (such as a saint’s clothing):
Relics, and their veneration, are reminders of the lives of the saints and are supposed to point worshippers in the direction of God.
“I suppose saints are primarily given as examples of how to live,” explains Tommy Burns, author and expert on St Oliver Plunkett. “We ask for their intercession on our behalf in praying to God. So the relics and blessed objects are venerated in the sense that we don’t expect miracles from them, but they are an important element of practising our faith.”
Under Canon Law, the sale of relics is strictly forbidden. Canon Law also states that relics “of great sigjnificance” or which are “honoured with great reverence by the people” cannot be transferred on a permanent basis without permission from the Holy See.
How have ancient relics survived in Ireland?
“One of the most characteristic things about relics in Ireland is that they tend to have been preserved by what are known as ‘hereditary keepers’,” the National Museum‘s Head of Collections Raghnall Ó Floinn said.
“There were families who were entrusted with relics from the Middle Ages and the time of the Reformation. Because there was no official Catholic Church in Ireland, many relics were damaged or destroyed at the time, while others hidden or entrusted to families were passed down from generation to generation. There are a couple we can trace back from the 19th century to the 12th century, such as St Patrick’s Bell.”
The family entrusted with the bell had their name inscribed on the bell’s shrine (or protective container), which dates from around 1100.
“The bell and its shrine were still with that family when they entered the public collection – that’s an exceptional continuity there,” Ó Floinn said. “In other cases, we know the names of the families because the items were acquired by collectors such as George Petrie.” (Petrie was a highly-regarded archaeologist and collector of antiquities in the 19th century. His wide collection of Irish antiquities was later bought from his family by the Irish government.)
There was a “changing of the guard” in the management and ownership of relics in the 19th century, as collectors increasingly acquired items entrusted to private families for their preservation. However, others have been held by religious communities for centuries.
St Oliver Plunkett’s head is one of the best-known and most-visited relics in Ireland. The relic is housed at St Peter’s Church in Drogheda, while other parts of his remains are venerated in dioceses in England and Germany.
“St Oliver’s poor body leant itself to relics because it was hung, drawn and quartered,” Tommy Burns told TheJournal.ie. “So different communities have different relics from his body.”
Plunkett was executed in July 1681. Although his head was thrown on a fire, it was quickly recovered by some of his companions and taken to Rome. Decades later, it was returned to Ireland and secretly stored in a special casket in a grandfather clock by Dominican nuns at the Siena convent in Drogheda for safekeeping during years of Catholic persecution in Ireland.
“Because of penal times, he was largely forgotten about here,” Burns said. “The Irish church wasn’t thinking about specific martyrs at the time, it was trying to live from hand to mouth. It was only later there was a resurgence of interest in St Oliver.”
St Oliver Plunkett’s head in its shrine in Drogheda, Co Louth. (Image: IrishFireside/Flickr/Creative Commons)
Among the National Museum’s collection of relics, Ó Floinn says that the most important are the Cathach of St Columba (a book shrine said to contain a fragment of the psalms which dates to around 600AD; the manuscript is thought to have been written by St Columba) and the Bell of St Patrick.
The hand bell would have been used to call monks to prayer and is traditionally believed to have belong to St Patrick. “The bell can’t be dated really,” says Ó Floinn, “but its jewelled cover was made in the 11th century, and at that time it was believed to have belonged to St Patrick.”
The Irish relics and reliquaries are seen by historians and archaeologists as unique records of traditional metalworking, and can provide invaluable information about former kings and chieftains – and their patronage:
A lot of the Irish reliquaries have actual inscriptions on them so they give the names of the individuals who had them made, like Brian Boru’s son for example. He had a covering made for one of the book shrines. Sometimes these people are otherwise not mentioned in records and it means that we can fix them in a particular time or place through the inscription.
Are more likely to show up?
Because of the reverence and veneration associated with the relics and the reliquaries, many were not sold off or melted down as other valuable metal objects have been through the years.
“You wouldn’t have much in the line of secular silver plating from the Middle Ages because when you’re strapped for cash, you literally sell the family silver for melting and reusing,” Ó Floinn said.
Most of the items which turn up unexpectedly from that period now tend to be things like swords or axes and Ó Floinn said it is unlikely that there are many valuable relics which remain unaccounted for. A bishop’s staff was found in Lismore Castle, Co Waterford during renovations of the property in the early 19th century. The crosier, which bears an inscription linking it to an 11th-century abbot in Lismore, was apparently blocked up in part of the old mediaeval castle for safekeeping during the Middle Ages.
Lismore Castle, Co Waterford. (Image: jmenard48/Flickr/Creative Commons)
The most recent to have been accidentally discovered were a book shrine found in fragments by divers in Lough Kinale, Co Longford in the 1980s and another one found by a Lough Erne fisherman around 1900.
However, a number of relics which were recorded in ordinance survey research during the 1830s remain unaccounted for and it is possible that they were passed to other families or collectors since – or were taken out of the country by people emigrating in the Famine years. Ó Floinn says that there are no known cases of this happened to valuable Irish relics, but it is a possibility.
“There are a number [of relics] in our collection which came in without any history,” he adds. “So the question is, are some of these items the same as those documented in the 1830s and which changed hands before they were recorded by the museum, or are they completely different relics?”
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Big companies trying to screw workers for all they can get! €711 million profit last year, yet they’re complaining they’re not competitive!!! Shareholder greed again!
Irish Cement Limited has extracted its profits over the past few decades by over charging its customers and keeping the price of cement in Ireland artificially inflated.
CRH (Irish Cement’s parent company) has been found guilty on numerous occasions throughout Europe of price fixing and operating illegal cartels all to the detriment of consumers and taxpayers. Most recently in Poland in 2009 when it was fined €25 million for the above offences.
After the cement cartel was uncovered in Germany in 2003 prices decreased by over 50%. Imagine how much local authorities have been over charged for cement related products throughout the Celtic Tiger. CRH claimed an annual turnover of €18 billion in 2011. How much of that belongs to the Irish people?
Irish Cement Limited can well afford to pay its workers!
Irish cement workers in Platin (meath) were always very well payed. Before the tiger days it was one of the best jobs in the area and even through the tiger days. Have to say that through the years I’ve had the misfortune of working for subbies in platin and found most of the workers to be arrogant AS**oles. They never wanted subbies in their canteen, would not even look in your general direction. Not as if they were being done out of work, subbies had to do any dirty work as this was beneath them.
In their old sister plant, premier periclase in Drogheda, If a contractor brought a machine in, say a JCB, then premiers union insisted on one of their men standing beside the machine (not doing any work) as long as it was on the premises, as it was deemed to be doing a man out of work.
I for one have no sympathy for any of the (so called) workers in Platin.
They might find out what it’s like to have to work for a subbie and have dickheads looking down their noses at you
That was a long long time ago tom. Your rant seems to stem from a hint of jealousy. How many times did you apply and not get in i wonder? Icl have already slashed their wage bill in recent years by redundancies and early retirements. . That 100 people is across 2 plants remember. Go back 2 years and the numbers were 3 times that. The monies owed are for bonuses which they are quite entitled to considering the bankers are still getting them and the banks DONT make profits of over 700 million euro a year.
@Karl, not Jealousy, More that I was surprised at the arrogance and ignorance of the majority of the employee’s.
It’s not a rant either it is fact that subcontractors are used for any “dirty work” as this is seen as below any general operatives duties in direct employment.
They lived in a bubble for years, Jobs for life and being basically unsackable made work place snobs out of sadly the majority of them.
Not sure where you are coming from, but having dealt with them at all levels for many years now, I am very familar with their ways
so tom because you were mistreated by men that have long since left that place the current relatively young workforce deserve everything they get? your holding a bitter grudge. and yes you were indirectly doing people out of a fulltime job and thats why they treated ye like that. but that was a long time ago. you have no idea what it is like to work in in recent years. the “so called platin workers” you are talking about are fighting for money they are owed. mark o brien makes a point in the comments below. you should read it. platin was a good job and always looked after the surrounding towns and clubs. but thats all stopped now because of greedy executives. your still coming across as being bitter that you never got a job there.
Lucky to be alive with you around,
You big girls blouse!
They are bloody lucky to have jobs
For God’s sake, lucky to have jobs they are not getting paid for! Mong
This kind of wage slave mentality, taken to its logical conclusion would mean that we, the great unwashed, should be grateful to even be payed for the work we do for our social betters.
It’s a moronic and self-defeating stance to take.
Yet again. “You’re lucky to have a job”. So do as you’re told and take whatever’s coming to you. Dickensian nonsense.
What I would like to know is how many government projects CRH got during the Celtic tiger years and how many T.D.s had investments and vested interest in that company. These large corporations will continue to abuse their employees in the name of profit until the Workers of the world unite and take them down. The elites continue to get rich at the expense of the regular joe. It’s only a matter of time before this game comes to an ugly end. People were kept docile and content for the last twenty years or so with the utopia of cheap credit. This is no longer the case. Now that reality has dawned the masses have become very agitated and are asking questions. I believe some equality needs to return to society as a whole, otherwise we are heading down a very dangerous road. The elites might not like what they find if they continue these policies. The French revolution comes to mind. Just because we are in 2012 doesn’t mean that history can’t repeat itself. When human beings have nothing else to loose they do strange things.
Richard Bruton, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation is a former employee and current shareholder of CRH. He has refused outright to initiate an investigation into the anti-competitive practices occurring in the cement and concrete industry even though they are costing the State and consumers millions upon millions of euro. Richard Bruton is a very good example of a politician with vested interests which are to detriment of those he is supposed to represent!
On aggregate I reckon they have a fairly concrete case, however many old companies work practices are set in their ways, curing these workers grievances with a bit of flexibility by CRH might crack the issue and cement better future working relationships.
With the Worldwide economic boom I think they have a good case.
The reason subbies were not allowed into irish cement workers facilities was because some subbies were stuffing toilet roll down the toilets and flushing them so they overflowed and p*ss and s*hit went all over the floor. In your comment you neglected to mention that subbies were built brand new canteen facilities showers and toilet block but they refused to use them because they were “too far away”
What are they owed the money for?
Work I’d say
There is no 9500 euro bonus for anyone up there anymore thats gone years ago. Workers have already taken a 20% pay cut while management have not taken any pay cut. Workers have not recieved their production based bonus and management have. Workers have been made redundant (approx 65% of them) while no managers lost jobs. When they laid off their workers they took on contractors to do the work they claimed they didnt have for the workers they laid off. Running costs for the factory have been slashed they are being payed irish cement up to €40 per tonne to burn rubbish in the kilns thus saving €25 million on importing coal. Workers who were laid off or took redundancy last year got paid their bonuses up to the point of being laid off so the precedent is set on paying this bonus to the workers for last year. People should understand there are two sides to every story sometimes three. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!!!!
This can get very messy… From the company’s point of view… If They don’t get pay cuts, then it’ll most likely be last in first out. Once they have it on the table that staff are costing “X” too much, then by hook or by crook that’s what’ll happen. Scary for those affected, but inevitable.
Regardless, If the labour court said the staff are owed money, that should be paid. Most likely a separate issue.
The key point here is that this is a profitable company looking for pay cuts. How can they possibly justify that? Another attempt to reduce the pay and conditions of workers in this country while shareholders (excluding those in the banks who got wiped when they were nationalised) the , bondholders and the high earners get rich off their backs.
The message from comments here seems to be this: unless workers are on subsistence wages, they should shut up and be grateful. Why do these people want to set back work conditions by a hundred years? Do they not realise such attitudes affect their own families, their children and their friends?
I’d be suspicious of these commenters’ motives. What’s in it for them?
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