River Laune Crozier

River Laune Crozier
Detail of the crozier's crook
Material	wood, silver, copper-alloy, gold, niello
Size	height: 1.5 m
Created	late 11th century
Discovered	1867 River Laune, Ireland
Discovered by	Denis O'Sullivan
Present location	National Museum of Ireland, Dublin

The River Laune Crozier (or Innisfallen or Dunloe Crozier) is a late 11th-century Insular crozier, now at the Archaeology branch of the National Museum of Ireland. The object would have been commissioned as a staff of office for a senior clergyman, most likely a bishop. It consists of a wooden core decorated with fitted bronze and silver metal plates. Although the metalwork is somewhat corroded in parts, it is fully intact and considered one of the finest surviving Irish examples, alongside those found at Clonmacnoise and Lismore.

Its drop plate (the hollow box-like extension at the end of the crook)^[1] shows a human figure in high relief with a long thin nose, spiral ears and a beard that radiates out and intertwines with the designs around him.

It was discovered in 1867 in the bed of the River Laune, near the Lakes of Killarney in County Kerry, by a fisherman who initially mistook it as either a salmon or a gun, before establishing it as a "curious handstick". It was first exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum (then the South Kensington Museum) in 1869, on loan from John Coffey, Bishop of Kerry.^[2]