Lying at Europe's remote western edge, Ireland has long been seen as having an artistic heritage that owes little to influences beyond its borders. This publication, the first to focus on Irish art from the eighth century A.D. to the end of the sixteenth century, challenges the idea that the best-known Irish movements of that period—the high crosses, the Book of Kells, the Tara Brooch, the round towers—reflect isolated, insular traditions. Seventeen essays examine the iconography, history, and structure of these familiar works, as well as a number of previously unpublished pieces, and demonstrate that they do have a place on the main currents of European art.

While this book reveals unexpected links between Ireland, Late-Antique Italy, the Byzantine Empire, and the Anglo-Saxons, its center is always the artistic culture of Ireland itself. It includes new research on the Sheela-na-gigs, often thought to be merely erotic sculptures; on the larger cultural meanings of the Tuam Market Cross and its nineteenth-century re-erection; and on late-medieval Irish stone crosses and metal-work. The emphasis on later monuments makes this one of the first volumes to deal with Irish art after the Norman invasion.