Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm

Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm
Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm
Material	Wooden core with bronze, silver, copper, gold, glass and niello[1]
Size	Height 39 cm, width 7 cm, depth 7 cm
Created	Between 1118 and 1121
Period/culture	Celtic, Insular
Discovered	1750 Donoughmore, County Cork, Ireland
Present location	National Museum of Ireland, Dublin
Identification	NMI, R2988

The Shrine of Saint Lachtin's Arm (known in Irish as Lámh Lachtaín^[2]) is an early 10th century Irish arm-shrine type reliquary made of wood and metal shaped as an outstretched forearm and clenched fist.^[3] St. Lachtin's dates to between 1118 and 1121 and is associated with his church in the village of Stuake, Donoughmore, County Cork, but probably originates from Kilnamartyra, also in Cork. It consists of a yew-wood core lined with decorated bronze and silver plates. The wood at the hand is hollowed out to create a reliquary cavity which once held the arm bone of St. Lachtin (b. 526, County Cork), but is now empty.^[3] The circular cap at its base contains a large transparent gemstone and is inlayed with silver decorated with filigree.

The shrine is 39 cm high, 7 cm wide and 7 cm deep.^[3] Because the hand is clenched rather than, as is more usual for arm shrines, open as if in the act of blessing, it may have functioned as battle standard or talisman to protect or heal combatants. Saint Lachtin's Arm was rediscovered by antiquarians c. 1750 having been in the care of its hereditary keepers the Healy family for around 200 years. It was acquired that year from Donoughmore Church by the art collector Andrew Fountaine. Thereafter it passed through various private and public collections, and has been in the collection of the archaeology branch of the National Museum of Ireland (NMI), Dublin, since 1890.

The shrine is described as "one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical metalwork from medieval Ireland".^[4] It is one of two surviving Irish arm-shrines (although many more would have been produced, including those of Ruadhán of Lorrha (d. 584) and Ciarán of Clonmacnoise (d. c. 549)^[5]), the other being the 14th-century Shrine of Saint Patrick's Hand, also empty and also at the NMI.