Tara Brooch

Tara Brooch
Material	silver, gold, glass, enamel, amber, copper
Size	diameter: 8.7 cm (3.4 in), length: 32 cm (13 in)
Weight	224.36 g (7.914 oz)[1]
Created	late-7th or early-8th century
Discovered	1850 (reportedly) Bettystown
Present location	National Museum of Ireland, Dublin
Identification	NMI, R. 4015

The Tara Brooch is an Irish Celtic brooch, dated to the late-7th or early-8th century. It is of the pseudo-penannular type (with a fully closed head or hoop),^{[n 1]} and made from bronze, silver and gold. Its head consists of an intricately decorated circular rings, and overall its'front and reverse sides are equally decorated; each holds around 50 inserted cast panels packed with filigree. The brooch was constructed from numerous individually made piece; all of the borders and its terminals contain multiple panels holding multi-coloured studs, interlace patterns, filigree and Celtic spirals. The brooch is widely considered the most complex and ornate of its kind, and would have been commissioned as a fastener for the cloak of a high ranking cleric or as ceremonial insignia of high office for a High King of Ireland.

The brooch was hidden on the east coast of Ireland sometime during the 11th or 12th century, most likely to protect it from Viking or Norman invaders. It was re-discovered around 1850, but the exact find-spot and circumstances are unknown. Despite its title, it was not found at the Hill of Tara, but on or near the beach around Bettystown on the coast of County Meath. The name by which it became known was chosen by its first commercial owner, the Dublin based jeweler George Waterhouse, as a marketing ploy for selling copies during the height of the 19th century Celtic Revival. For this reason, many art historians describe it with inverted commas as the "Tara" brooch.^[3]

Its decoration and ornamentation is so detailed and minute that parts can only be fully seen using magnification, leading to one 19th century critic writing that it was "more like the work of fairies than of human beings".^[4] Art historians see only the contemporary Hunterston Brooch (c. 700 AD) as an equal in craftsmanship and design. The archaeologist Niamh Whitfield called it "the most ornate and intricate piece of medieval jewellery ever found in Ireland",^[5] while the NMI describes it as representing "the pinnacle of early medieval Irish metalworkers’ achievement".^[6] It was acquired by the Royal Irish Academy in 1868, and transferred to the National Museum of Ireland in 1890 where it remains on permanent display.

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