Ceanannus Mór

Book of Kells, the, compiled some time in the 8th or 9th cent., and written on calf vellum. In the 11th and 12th cents. it was kept in Kells, Co. Meath. Scholars differ on its provenance: whether Iona, Kells, or even Northumbria. The manuscript is a Latin copy of the four Gospels. It is written in a majestic large-lettered script. Richly decorated initials mark the text, but sumptuous paintings and so-called carpet pages—for example the famous Chi-Rho, and the Evangelists—make the Book of Kells one of the great achievements of the early Church of the insular Celts. The book may have been intended as the centrepiece at the commemoration of the bicentennial of the death of Colum Cille on Iona, 797.

Several towns in Ireland and one in Scotland bear this name, but the one most often denoted is the market town and former monastic site [Irish Ceanannus Mór, head fort] in Co. Meath, about 55 miles NW of Dublin. Home of the celebrated treasures of early Christian Ireland, the Book of Kells and the Crozier of Kells. Although the founding date of the monastery here is not known, it enters history about 804 after the successive sackings of Iona and the massacre of the community caused the division of the Columban or Celtic Christian Church. The monastery is cited in many narratives, e.g. Esnada Tige Buchet [The Melodies of Buchet's House], in which Eithne Tháebfhota lies with Cormac mac Airt near here to conceive Cairbre Lifechair. The next best-known Kells is the village in Co. Kilkenny, site of many an important Norman settlement.

Bibliography

• Máire Herbert, Iona, Kells and Derry (Oxford, 1988)