New find could change our understanding of an Irish national treasure

Fragments of a mediaeval manuscript hidden in the spine of a book for hundreds of years could shed new light on Ireland's greatest cultural treasure, 'The Book of Kells'.

The pieces, discovered in a German library, bear “remarkable similarities” to the Irish national icon and could even pre-date ‘The Book of Kells’.

‘The Book of Kells’ is thought by scholars to have been produced on the island of Iona, in Gaelic Scotland, around AD 800, although conflicting views have suggested that its origins could lie in English Northumbria or in Pictland in eastern Scotland.

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