Rare Medieval Wall Paintings Explored off the West Coast of Ireland

I’m overworked at the moment, so it’s a press release that I missed earlier in the week that goes up today, courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy.

The Abbey on Clare Island is an exceptional treasure in the mouth of Clew Bay off the coast of County Mayo, Ireland. It contains a wonderful display of unusual and extremely rare medieval wall paintings. These fragile wall paintings have survived on this lonely Atlantic outpost against the odds and give a wonderful and extraordinary insight into life, imagination and decoration on Clare Island, Mayo in medieval times. The circumstances under which the church was founded remain puzzling but it is clear that during the 13th Century the earlier part of the Abbey was built for the Cistercian order and that the O’Malleys, who were chiefs of the area, were in some way involved. The church went on to become more of a monument to the O’Malleys rather than a spiritual outpost of the Cistercian order. In fact, the chancel of the Abbey appears to have been built as a veritable royal burial chapel for the O’Malleys in the 15th Century. The O’Malley coat of arms is displayed on a heraldic plaque on the wall of this burial chamber. Local rumour has it that the notorious Grace O’Malley or Granuaile, the Pirate Queen: an Irish noblewoman who led a band of over 200 sea-raiders of the west coast of Ireland in the 16th Century, is buried in this chamber although historians think that it is much more likely that her true burial place is in Abbeyknockmoy, County Galway.

A book about the Abbey on Clare Island and its wall paintings was launched in May 2005 on Clare Island by the Royal Irish Academy, Ireland’s Academy for Science and Humanities, as part of The New Survey of Clare Island series. The wall paintings are photographed and beautifully reproduced in colour for this volume and the importance and rarity of these paintings in a national and European context is highlighted and explained.

Image courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy.

Cistercian monks from Roscrea, Co. Tipperary were invited by the Royal Irish Academy to participate in the launch of the book. People crowded into the small Abbey and were captivated by simple, solemn chants sung by the Monks. Brother Richard of Mount St. Joseph Abbey explained to the crowd that Cistercian Monks stationed on the island in medieval times would have sung the same chants that are sung in present day Cistercian Monasteries such as the Salve Maria. The wonderful mixture of the beauty of the wall paintings with atmosphere created by the chanting of the monks made it a most magical experience for those present in the little church. It may have been up to 300 years since Cistercians had last sung in the Abbey until that summery Saturday in May.

The most surprising aspect of the wall paintings in the Abbey is that many of the images are not of a religious nature. There are definite religious images such as a crucifixion and also St. Michael weighing souls which conveys the message that on Judgement Day, St. Michael weighs one’s good deeds and sins against each other in order to determine the fate of the soul. Predominant however, are non-religious images depicting a variety of real and imaginary animals and persons adorning the walls of the chancel of the Abbey making these wall paintings extremely rare and scarce.

Image courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy.

There is a cattle raid taking place across the roof of the Abbey showing herds of cattle, sheep and pigs and an armed herdsman who has been wounded by an arrow in his back, fired by a nearby archer. There are soldiers and a magnificent knight on horseback, brandishing a spear over his head. Cattle raiding is well documented in Irish literature and was regarded as a particularly aristocratic occupation right up to the 17th Century. Wonderful mythical beasts: a winged dragon, body sharing beasts a double-headed eagle and serpents also feature and have survived in bright red and vivid yellow across the walls of the Abbey as well as some more usual wildlife: cranes, birds cats and dogs.

Image courtesy of the Royal Irish Academy.

Musicians and musical instruments are well represented on the walls of the Abbey, in keeping with medieval musical imagery making reference to rejoicing and singing of God’s praises. A harpist and a lyre player are making heavenly music and close by the first and only known picture of a medieval organ was uncovered during the recent conservation work showing one person playing the organ with another operating a bellows in order to create the sound for the organ.

The Royal Irish Academy has been travelling to Clare Island for over 100 years. At the start of the 20th Century, Robert Lloyd Praeger and a team of fieldworkers set off from the capital Dublin for Clare Island. Their goal was to embark on the most ambitious natural history project ever undertaken in Ireland and the first major biological survey of a specific area carried out in the world which was known as the Survey of Clare Island (1901-1911). Visitors of all kinds to the island were for years referred to as ‘Praegers’ by the islanders.

The New Survey of Clare Island was launched in 1991, to re-survey the island using up to date methods and data and compare and contrast the findings with the results of the original survey and assess almost a century of change. The wall paintings in the Abbey were included in this and were in precarious condition at the time of the re-survey, some of the paintings were literally in danger of falling of the walls. The survival of these unique paintings has been helped by a painstaking restoration over more than 10 years headed up by Christoph Oldenbourg and Karena Morton and teams of conservators with the support of the government National Monuments Section of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.

Many of the images were not in as good condition as during the first survey of Clare Island at the start of the 20th century. Indeed, some of the images that were documented in the original survey were no longer there, while others had deteriorated badly. Oldenberg and Morton pioneered new methods of conservation during their restoration such as using Ultra-Violet light to kill fungi and other microbiology growing on the damp walls. This growth and bacteria was then gently removed from the painting with a variety of apparatus from sponges to dental implements. This conservation technique led to the discovery of some previously unknown images, most important of which the first and only Irish image of a medieval organ.

The New Survey of Clare Island Volume 4: The Abbey is available online at www.ria.ie and in all good bookshops. For more information on the New Survey of Clare Island see www.ria.ie/projects/clare_island —–