Faddan More Psalter

The Faddan More Psalter (Irish: Saltair an Fheadáin Mhóir) (also Irish Bog Psalter or "Faddan Mor Psalter") is an early medieval Christian psalter or text of the book of Psalms, discovered in a peat bog in July 2006, in the townland of Faddan More (Irish: Feadán Mór) in north County Tipperary, Ireland.^[1] The manuscript was probably written in about 800 CE in one of a number of monasteries in the area. After several years of conservation work, the psalter went on display at the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology in Kildare Street, Dublin in June 2011.^[2][3]

This discovery was hailed by the National Museum of Ireland as one of the most significant Irish archaeological finds in decades.^[4] Bernard Meehan of the Trinity College Library, who advised on the discovery, said that he believed the psalter was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval manuscript in two centuries.^[5] During the conservation process, in the period 2006–2010, the inside of the leather cover was found to be lined with papyrus, probably as a stiffening; it has been suggested that this points to links between Irish Celtic Christianity and the Coptic churches at the time.^[6]

The psalter joins the very small number of very early Western books that have survived fully intact with their original bookbindings. These mostly have their origins in the monastic Insular art of Britain and Ireland, and the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon missions to Europe. The earliest is the St Cuthbert Gospel of about 700 (British Library), and other examples probably of the mid-8th century are at Fulda on the continent. However the wallet-like style of the Faddan More binding, and that it does not seem to have been physically attached to the sewn-together pages, make it unique among surviving covers.