Book of Kells

This is the Mona Lisa of literature …  the Beatles of the book world …the Pele of publishing … the Mozart of manuscripts. You get the point?

The Book of Kells is considered to be the finest illuminated medieval manuscript in the world. It is also widely regarded as Ireland’s greatest national treasure and it attracts half a million visitors every year. Now, there are some things that tell you this is quite special as books go.

It is kept in the historic Trinity College Old Library, which is well worth seeing in itself. This building houses 200,000 of the library’s oldest and most valuable books out of a vast and ever-growing collection. The library receives a copy of every book published in Britain and Ireland so needs half a mile of extra shelving each year off-site to house all the new ones.

The old library is a stately affair a tall room with two storeys of shelves stretching along its full length of nearly 64metres. It originally had one floor when built in the 18^th century but was extended upwards in 1859 so the top level of bookcases could be accommodated.

There are many ancient manuscripts within but the Book of Kells is the star. It’s a highly-decorated version of the four gospels written in a Latin-based text in around 800AD. It totals 340 double-sided sheets – so 680 pages in all. If you’ve ever seen the film The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery, then you’ll have an idea what it looks like – only think fancier.

The script in the book is enhanced and embellished by highlighting key words, initial letters and phrases with highly intricate designs and imagery. There are also some complicated scenes of images of Christ, his arrest, the Temptation of Christ, the Virgin and Child, St Matthew and St John.

The book was originally one volume but was re-bound into four to make it easier to preserve. At any one time you’ll see two of the volumes on display with one opened at a page of the hugely elaborate text and another displaying one of the spectacularly decorated pages.

It’s generally accepted that Celtic monks completed this pains-taking work but experts still debate exactly where it was created. Some say Ireland, others say Iona, in Scotland and then there’s also a school of thought that argues it came from Lindisfarne in England. The earliest definitive record of the book places it in the Abbey of Kells, in County Meath, by the 12^th century. 

Trinity College received the Book of Kells in 1653 for safekeeping from Oliver Cromwell’s army, which was stationed at Kells at the time. The accompanying exhibition gives you a pretty solid background as to how medieval manuscripts were made and goes into some detail about the production of the inks and calf-skin pages, as well as the symbolism of the various animal motifs and complex Celtic designs.  

Admission to the Old Library is €9 for adults, €8 for students and senior citizens and free for under 12s. It’s open from 9.30am till 5pm Monday to Saturday, 9.30am to 4.30pm on Sundays from May to September and noon to 4.30pm on Sundays through the remainder of the year. It is closed over the Christmas and New Year period.

The library is very easy to find, as it’s well signposted in the main courtyard of Trinity College, which is bang in the centre of the city.