Celtic brooch

Silver gilt "trumpet" brooch with Celtic spirals similar to those in the Book of Durrow. British, 1st or 2nd century, Trinity College Dublin

Small and simple penannular brooches in bronze, iron, and, rarely, silver were common in the Roman period as a practical fastener, but were not used for high-status objects, and any decoration was normally limited to bands around the ring or other simple patterns.[20] Often the extra thickness at the terminal, necessary to prevent the pin just falling off, is achieved simply by turning back the ends of the ring.[21]

S-shaped enamelled brooch, 1st century, Trinity College Dublin. Celtic and Romano-British tradition

In the late Roman period in Britain in the 3rd and 4th centuries, a type of penannular brooch with zoomorphic decoration to the terminals appeared, with human or animal heads, still not much wider than the rest of the ring. Some examples had enamel decoration, and the pin did not extend much beyond the ring.[22] These are found especially in southwestern Britain and Wales, and seem to have developed in these areas. This type fell from favour in southern Britain by the 5th century,[23] but was developed in Ireland by the 6–7th centuries.

These types considerably extended the size of the terminals, which now presented a flattish area often decorated with enamel or glass inlay, mostly using abstracted patterns but sometimes zoomorphic decoration. The length of the pin is now often about twice the diameter of the ring.[24] The Irish cultural zone in this period included much of Western Scotland, and in Pictish East Scotland a similar development took place, though the forms are somewhat different here. The decoration paralleled that on other metalwork fittings such as pieces of harness-tackle,[25] and the few remaining early Christian reliquaries and other pieces of church metalwork.

Tara Brooch, rear view.

By shortly after 700, highly elaborate, large brooches in precious metal and gems were being produced. These were clearly expressions of high status for the wearer, and use the full repertoire of goldsmith's techniques at a very high level of skill. They continued to be produced for about 200 years; the Pictish brooches are much more homogeneous in design than the Irish ones, which may indicate a shorter period of production, possibly from "the mid-eighth to the beginning of the ninth centuries".[26] Each surviving design is unique, but the range of types established in the more modest earlier brooches are developed and elaborated upon. There was no previous tradition of very ornate brooches in Ireland, and this development may have come from contact with Continental elites who wore large fibulae as marks of status. Such contacts were certainly made, especially by travelling monks.[27]

Archaeological, and some literary, evidence suggests that brooches in precious metal were a mark of royal status, along with wearing a purple cloak, and it is probably as such that they are worn by Christ on a high cross at Monasterboice and by the Virgin Mary on another.[28] All surviving examples, numbering over 50 (not all complete) in the case of the Irish ones,[29] have been recovered by excavation, or at least finding in the ground, but where the detailed circumstances of the find are known, few are from graves, and finds in hoards are much more common. When they were in graves, the burials are often much later than the date of the brooch,[30] as in a brooch in the Irish 8th century style found in a Norse burial in Westray, Orkney,[31] and possibly the Kilmainham Brooch.[32] Elaborate brooches often have one or more names—presumed to be those of owners—scratched on the reverse, often in runes. Plainer brooches in bronze and similar alloys continue to be found in much larger numbers.

The Kilmainham Brooch (Irish, late 8th- or early 9th–century) contains influence from Pictish art and metalwork.[33]

The most elaborate Irish brooches are pseudo-penannular, while the Scottish ones mostly retain true penannular forms.[34] Most are silver-gilt, the gilding often partial. Some are gilded base metal, of bronze or copper-alloy;[35] only one solid gold Irish brooch is known, a 9th-century one from Loughan, County Londonderry, which is less elaborate than most of the series, though the standard of work is very high.[36] However, some brooches have a hidden recess which may have contained small lead weights to make the precious metal used seem more valuable than it actually was.[37]

In Ireland, the head of the pin might be turned into a focus for decoration, sometimes using a "kite"-shaped plate, such as that on the Tara Brooch; in Scotland, the pin-heads were simple circles formed by bending the pin back on itself.[38] Scottish terminals are more often distinct lobed or square shapes extending beyond the circle of the ring on both sides, while in Irish examples, the terminals typically extend inside the ring forming another curve, but not much outside it, or sometimes form a straight line across the interior of the ring. Irish brooches may only join the two terminals by narrow strips, or not only eliminate the gap entirely, but have a central zone of decoration where the gap between the terminals would have been; the brooches found with the Ardagh Chalice show both types.[39]

Detail of the Londesborough Brooch (late 8th- or early 9th–century)

The main body was normally cast, and a number of elements of two-piece moulds have been found.[40] Many brooches have cells for studs or bosses that are most often round hemispheres, but may be square, lozenges or other shapes; very often the studs themselves are now missing. These are in a variety of materials including glass, enamel, amber, and gemstones found locally, although not including any of the classic modern "precious stones", or even the garnets found in Anglo-Saxon jewellery. However the millefiori glass rods sometimes used appear to have been imported from Italy, like those used in the Anglo-Saxon jewellery from Sutton Hoo; examples of the rods have been excavated in both Ireland and England.[41]

Like the Insular chalices and other metalwork, the very ornate Irish brooches were mostly made in many pieces which are pinned or slotted together. Filigree decoration was often made on "trays" which fitted into the main ring — on the Tara Brooch many of these are now missing (most were still in place when it was found in 1850).

The Breadalbane Brooch, Irish, 8th century, converted from its original pseudo-penannular form in 9th century Scotland.[42]

Techniques include chip-carving, cast "imitation chip-carving", filigree, engraving, inlays of various types including niello, glass and champlevé enamel, and various hammering and chasing techniques: "the range of materials and techniques is almost the full range known to man."[43] Two techniques that do not appear are the "true pierced openwork interasile, much used in Byzantine jewellery",[44] and the cloisonné work that typified much Western European jewellery, and especially large fibulae, at the time, whether in enamel or stone inlays like the garnets used so effectively at Sutton Hoo and in the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard. In the gilded brooches, enamel is restricted to studs that punctuate the composition like gems; the larger areas of champlevé found on the flared terminals of earlier types perhaps continue in simpler types, though dating is difficult.

On some brooches the decoration is too detailed to be appreciated when the brooch is being worn, and some of the most elaborate brooches have their backs, invisible when worn, decorated almost as elaborately as their fronts. The Tara Brooch shows both features, and in addition, shares with some others a difference in decorative styles between front and back, with "Celtic" triskeles and other spiral motifs restricted to the back, while the front has more interlace and zoomorphic elements.[45] These features are also shared by the most ornate brooches in London and Edinburgh, respectively the Londesborough and Hunterston Brooches.[46] This may be because decoration on the backs relies more on engraving than filigree, which would risk wires getting caught in the clothing on which the brooch was worn.[47]

Few of the major brooches, or indeed other metalwork, have been found in contexts that can be easily dated, and much of the dating of at least the earlier ones comes from comparison with Insular illuminated manuscripts, though the dating of these is often itself far from certain. The Tara Brooch has long been recognised as having clear stylistic similarities to the Lindisfarne Gospels, thought to date to about 698–715. Many of the similarities are to the carpet pages, highly detailed ornamental pages filled with decoration, which share with the brooch a certain horror vacui that leaves no area unembellished, and also complex decoration that is extremely small and perfectly executed, and best appreciated when seen at a larger than actual scale, whether in the original or in photographs. Both combine elements from many stylistic origins into a style that is distinctly Insular: La Tène Celtic art, Germanic animal style, and classical and other Mediterranean styles.

• 
  Rear of the Hunterston Brooch, an early and elaborate Irish-style brooch found in Scotland, showing a much later Viking owner's inscription
• 
  The Pictish brooches in the St Ninian's Isle Treasure, with typical Pictish lobed terminals
• 
  Pictish confronted animal terminals, St Ninian's Isle Treasure
• 
  "Brambled" terminal on a thistle brooch

Viking period pennannular brooches from the Penrith Hoard, three of the "thistle" type.

The Vikings began to raid Ireland from 795, with catastrophic effect for the monasteries in particular. However, although the Vikings established several longphorts, initially fortified encampments for over-wintering, and later towns like Dublin, Wexford, Cork, and Waterford (the first real urban centres in Ireland), the native Irish were more successful than the English and Scots in preventing large-scale Viking takeovers of areas for settlement by farmers. By about the year 1000, the situation was relatively stable, with a mixed population of Norse-Gaels in the towns and areas close to them, while the Gaelic Irish, whose elite often formed political alliances, trading partnerships and inter-marriages with Viking leaders, remained in control of the great majority of the island, and were able to draw tribute from the Viking towns.[48]

The Roscrea Brooch, 9th century. National Museum of Ireland

Silver brooch in thistle pattern, 9th-10th century AD. The Hunt Museum (Limerick, Ireland)

The period is characterised by a greatly increased availability of silver, presumably the result of Viking raiding and trading, and most brooches are made from silver throughout, as gilding and decoration in other materials nearly disappears. The brooches are often large and relatively massive, but plainer than the most elaborate earlier ones, neither using older local decorative styles nor the Viking styles that were adopted in other media. This continues a trend that can be detected in later brooches from the preceding period, before much Viking influence can have made itself felt. The 9th century Roscrea Brooch is one of a number of transitional brooches; though its form is highly ornate, with a large flat triangular pin head, the ring is thick plain silver, the gold filigree panels occupy relatively small areas, and their workmanship is a "coarse" or "crude" imitation of that of earlier works.[49] The Kilamery Brooch is another ornate and high quality example, with a marked emphasis on plain flat silver surfaces.[50] There are rare exceptions in which a highly decorated brooch shows Scandinavian stylistic and technical influence, notably an Irish brooch from Rathlin Island, with areas stamped where the Irish tradition would have used casting.[51]

The brooches appear to have been made by "native" metalworkers, but worn by both Vikings and Gaels.[52] The very popular thistle brooches have terminals and often pin-heads that are like thistle flowers, with a ball topped by a round projection, often flared; they are called by the term regardless of whether or not the ball is "brambled"—that is, formed with a regular pattern of small tapering projections, like the two lowest brooches from the Penrith Hoard illustrated here. These, and other globular endings to terminals and pin-heads, were common, but flattened terminals continued to be made, now ornamented by round silver bosses amid simple repeated patterns, or interlace that is larger in scale than in the earlier ornate badges. In these, the ring often ends in a "gripping beast" biting the terminal plate. The mixture of types seen in the 10th century Penrith Hoard is typical.[53]

Brooches made in Scandinavia, mostly in base metal

Insular brooches had been taken back to Scandinavia, and began to be produced there in the 10th century for wearing singly by men at the shoulder; Viking women wore pairs of characteristic oval brooches on the upper breast.[54] Most were simpler than Insular examples, and several hundred in "tinned bronze rather than silver" are known.[55] The 10th century Danish Møllerløkken Brooch is the most elaborate example known, with a simple overall design with ball terminals and pin-head, but with rich detailing such as interlace panels on the ring and filigree sections on the balls.[56] Other Insular types were also produced in Viking areas of England, especially Scandinavian York.[57] The penannular brooch fell from common use by the end of the 11th century, a time when Ireland and Scotland, and Scandinavia, were adopting general Western European styles in many areas of both art and life.

A distinctly Irish type of brooch found at the end of the Viking period is the kite brooch, whose name derives from the almond shape called a "kite" in heraldry, though the shapes of the heads are actually highly variable. They were apparently worn, like the larger brooches, singly with the pin pointing upwards. Only "about half a dozen" exist in silver, including examples that are much larger than average, with pins up to 7.9 cm long.[58] In these, there is no ring, but the elaborate head is connected to a pin of very variable length by a short tab of metal that can move on joints at both ends; there is also usually a cord for winding round the pin to secure it. Only 14 of these brooches have been found to date in Ireland, many incomplete, and none elsewhere;[59] five of these are from Dublin, the earliest from the 940s. They appear for about a further two centuries;[60] typical medieval ring brooches dated to after 1200 have few distinctively Irish characteristics.[61]

The brooches we have today have been discovered since the 17th century, and their odds on their survival once found have increased greatly over that period, as their value as artefacts has overtaken their scrap value. In the 19th century, as part of the Celtic Revival, many brooches copying or inspired by earlier styles were made.[62]

Early medieval Irish brooch, bronze and glass. The pin lies entirely in front of the ring in this example.

Much of the responsibility for the fashion for high-quality Celtic Revival jewellery belongs to George Waterhouse, a jeweller from Sheffield, England, who moved to Dublin in 1842. Before the end of the decade, he and the long-established Dublin firm West & Son of College Green (later moving to Grafton Street) were finding it necessary to register their designs to prevent copying. Of the various types of objects made, the brooches were both the "most resonant" and those which could be sold with the least alteration to the original form and design, although the jewellers generally reduced their size and fitted them with conventional pins and catches behind, even though the Kashmir shawls that were also fashionable at the time were often loosely woven and not unsuitable for fastening in the original way.[63] Different versions were made at different price levels, though even the most expensive struggled to recreate the full intricacy of the originals.

The National Museum of Ireland is clearly not correct in saying that the fashion began after Queen Victoria was presented with a replica of the "Cavan Brooch" on her visit to Dublin to see the Great Industrial Exhibition in 1853;[64] the Royal Collection has two brooches that Prince Albert bought for her from West & Son in 1849 on an earlier visit to Dublin, which were already being made in editions. Albert presented them in November and at Christmas that year: "...such beautiful souvenirs, both made after those very curious old Irish ornaments we saw in the College in Dublin, one a silver shawl brooch, in smaller size than the original" was her reaction to the November gift.[65] A later gift from Albert included a setting of a cairngorm he had picked up when walking in the Scottish Highlands, a more authentic type of gem than the brightly coloured foreign stones used in much Celtic Revival jewellery.[66]

The discovery of the Tara Brooch in 1850 could therefore not have been better timed in terms of attracting public interest. It was immediately recognised as the culminating masterpiece (though early in date) of the Irish development of large and superbly worked ornate brooches, a status it has retained ever since. The brooch was soon acquired by George Waterhouse, who used it as the centre of displays of his replicas and imitations of Celtic brooches in his Dublin shop, also exhibiting it at The Great Exhibition in London in 1851 and the Paris Exposition Universelle (1855), as well as the Dublin exhibition visited by the Queen in 1853 (Victoria had already seen it; it had been specially sent to Windsor Castle for her inspection).

Waterhouse had invented the brooch's name; in fact, it has nothing to do with the Hill of Tara, and while likely found some 28 km away the actual circumstances of its find still remain unclear (essentially to avoid a claim by the landowner), and Waterhouse chose to link it to the site associated with the High Kings of Ireland, "fully aware that this would feed the Irish middle-class fantasy of being descended from them".[67] Describing the trend in the mid-20th century, Adolf Mahr described the tendency for giving brooches —and more importantly their replicas— such titles as "fanciful (and sometimes ridiculous)...by a firm of Dublin jewellers".[68] By the time the Tara brooch passed to what is now the National Museum of Ireland in the 1870s, the "Tara brooch" had become a generic term for Celtic Revival brooches, some of which were now being made by Indian workshops for export to Europe.[69]

Berber or Amazigh fibulae from southern Morocco