Stowe Missal

The Stowe Missal (sometimes known as the Lorrha Missal), which is, strictly speaking, a sacramentary rather than a missal, is a small Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Old Irish in the late eighth or early ninth century, probably after 792. In the mid-11th century, it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery in County Tipperary, Ireland. Between 1026 and 1033 the manuscript was encased within a protective cumdach (a reliquary book-shrine), which was refurbished and embellished a number of times in the late medieval period, in particular before 1381, the year of death of Pilib O'Ceinneidigh (Philip O'Kennedy), Lord of Ormond, who then had possession of the shrine.^[1]

It is known as the "Stowe" Missal as it reappeared in the 18th century as part of the Stowe manuscripts collection formed by George Nugent-Temple-Grenville, 1st Marquess of Buckingham at Stowe House.^[2] When the collection was bought by the nation in 1883, it and the other Irish manuscripts were handed over to the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, where it remains, catalogued as MS D II 3.^[3]

The cumdach, which up to this point had survived together with the book, was later transferred, with the rest of the academy's collection of antiquities, to the National Museum of Ireland (museum number 1883, 614a).^[4] The old story was that the manuscript and shrine left Ireland after about 1375, as they were collected on the Continent in the 18th century,^[5] but this appears to be incorrect, and they were found inside a stone wall at Lackeen Castle near Lorrha in the 18th century, where they had been hidden for centuries from Norman and later Protestant attackers, as well as Irish looters.^[4][6]