Volume / Number: S / 1684

• Dublin Ireland National Museum of Ireland S.A. 1914: 2

Written in Ireland. This Bog-book is a unique phenomenon to which it is difficult to assign a place in the development of Irish script. It is manifestly akin to the Ussher Gospels referred to above. It was found in the ‘Springmount Bog’ near Clough, Co. Antrim, Ireland. Purchased by the National Museum in 1914.

The script, by an inexpert hand, represents an eclectic minuscule with definite Irish features and with echoes of the quarter-uncial seen in such manuscripts as the Naples Sacerdos (CLA 3.398): a is closed and often pinched at the top; c mostly rises above the line, its two strokes meeting at an angle; the bows of d, p, and q are often inflated, a characteristically Irish feature; the tail of Ᵹ swings boldly to the right; i-longa, extending either above or below the line, is used indiscriminately, even in mid-word and especially after t; particularly worthy of attention is the exaggerated size of the capital form of N with its sagging, sinuous oblique stroke, seen also in the Irish Codex ‘Usserianus Primus’ (CLA 2.271); the stem of r is short and the shoulder high; the form of u often consists of two unjoined down-strokes; ascenders here and there have an incipient loop; ligatures include te, ec, and et.

• https://100objects.ie/springmount-wax-tablets/

• Text: MSS containing biblical text (including Gospels)