Early medieval brooch found in highway works –

A Celtic brooch dating back to the 8th century was found during the construction of the highway in Ardshanbally in Limerick, Ireland. The artifact was excavated in 2024 with an archaeological survey of the Adare bypass route. Its discovery in official excavations gave archaeologists the opportunity to shrink when they were producing fine metal products in the Limerick region in the early Middle Ages.

The Ardshanbally brooch is in good condition and comes with pins and hinges. This is a pseudo-type channel design, which means a ring with tooth characteristics, a connection point that looks like two terminals are closed together. The brooch is made of cast copper and is 12 cm (4.7 inches) from the top of the hinge to the length of the pin. It is engraved with repeated isolation patterns along the sides of the hoop and metamorphic organisms are engraved on the vast base. The hoop is decorated on the opposite sides of the wide base with two blue glass studs, and the residue of the two red glass studs survives on both sides of the hinge.

Minister of Arts, Media, Communication, Culture and Sports, Patrick O’Donovan TD visited the National Museum of Ireland this Thursday to view the many treasures found in Co Limerick.

Speaking of visiting the museum at the museum on Kildale Street in Dublin, Minister Odonovan said: “This brooch is indeed an amazing discovery, it is indeed an amazing discovery, very detailed and started over 1,000 years ago.

“It shows the important skills, talent and wealth of the early medieval periods of County Limerick and its surrounding areas, even in the early medieval periods. The National Museum is an important institution in Ireland, a housing artifact of this nature and provides valuable insights into early Irish culture.”

The newly discovered brooch will be on display at the National Museum of Ireland for exhibition around borrowed manuscripts from the Swiss Monastery of St. Gal, which is on loan at the Monastery of St. Gal in Switzerland, which returned to Ireland after absent for 1,000 years. More than 100 objects will celebrate the manuscript’s homecoming, linking its visual language to the literary and artistic styles written by early medieval Irish scribes on the manuscript. Words of the Tide: Ireland and St. Gallen in early medieval Europe It will be open on May 30 and will last until October 24.