Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Irish Art, Volume III: Sculpture and Architecture

Over the past fifty years, Françoise Henry has been the leading authority on the history of early Irish art. A pupil of Henri Focillon, she united two traditions of scholarship, one French and one Irish, and her understanding of the European context within which the art of early Christian Ireland developed has had a profound influence on subsequent research. These three volumes bring together the articles that Dr. Henry published on Irish art and its European links. The third volume of Françoise Henry's Studies features her papers on early Christian architecture and sculpture in Ireland. They include one of the author's earliest contributions, Les origines de l'iconographie irlandaise, and the subject of Irish sculpture, particularly the high crosses and cross-slabs, remained one of Françoise Henry's main interests. Her list of dated inscriptions on early Irish graveslabs helps to provide a chronology for this type of monument that is of unique value. The author's studies of the monastic sites represent a particularly valuable contribution to the archaeology of early Christian Ireland. This comprises the results of nearly fifty years of field-work in some of the more inaccessible areas of Ireland. Two of the papers reprinted here carry the study of Irish sculpture into the post-Norman period, with notes on the carved decoration of the Irish Cistercian monasteries, and a figure in Lismore Cathedral. Volume III contents include: Preface by Hilary Richardson; L'art irlandais du VIIIe siècle et ses origins; Early Irish monasteries, boat-shaped oratories and beehive huts; Early monasteries, beehive huts and dry-stone houses in the neighbourhood of Caherciveen and Waterville, Co. Kerry; Three engraved slabs in the neighbourhood of Waterville, Co. Kerry, and the cross on Skellig Michael; Remains of the early Christian period on Inishkea North, Co. Mayo; New monuments from Inishkea North; A wooden hut from Inishkea North; The antiquities of Caher Island, Co. Mayo; Habitations irlandaises du haut moyen âge; The decorated stones at Ballyvourney, Co. Cork; Early Christian slab and pillar stones in the west of Ireland; L'inscription de Bealin; A list of dated inscriptions with the corresponding entries in the Annals; A cross at Durrow; Les origines de l'iconographie irlandaise; Irish Cistercian monasteries and their carved decoration; A figure in Lismore Cathedral; Bibliography of Françoise Henry by Hilary Richardson; Index.