# The Tara Brooch > Unknown Irish goldsmith (workshop) - Late 7th to early 8th century AD (commonly given as c. 700-750) > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/unknown-irish-goldsmith-tara-brooch-workshop/tara-brooch-national-museum-ireland/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-27 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Unknown Irish goldsmith (workshop) - **Date:** Late 7th to early 8th century AD (commonly given as c. 700-750) - **Medium:** Cast and gilt silver with individually made gold filigree panels set in silver trays, cast and engraved ornament on the reverse, studs of glass and amber, and a plaited silver chain - **Dimensions:** Head (ring) diameter 8.7 cm; pin length 32 cm; weight 224.36 g - **Object type:** Goldsmith's work - **Period:** Early medieval Ireland (Insular art, late 7th-early 8th century) - **Current location:** National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology, Kildare Street, Dublin, on permanent public display in the Treasury - **Attribution:** unknown ## Summary A silver-gilt pseudo-penannular brooch of the late 7th or early 8th century, decorated on both faces with gold filigree, cast ornament, glass and amber, and among the finest surviving objects of early medieval Irish metalwork. It carries a name it has no right to: a Dublin jeweller renamed it the 'Tara Brooch' in 1850 to link it commercially with the Hill of Tara, though it has no genuine connection to that site, and the replica trade the naming triggered helped drive the Victorian Celtic Revival in jewellery.Its own discovery is disputed rather than simply romantic. The popular account has children finding it in a box on a beach at Bettystown; the antiquarian Sir William Wilde's later, independent account instead places the find at harbour-wall excavations on the River Boyne near Drogheda. Neither account is confirmed closely enough by the other to be preferred, and this record states both.After a decade of international exhibition in private hands, the brooch was bought by the Royal Irish Academy, commonly dated to 1868, and transferred with the rest of the Academy's collection to the National Museum of Ireland on its foundation in 1890, where it remains on permanent public display. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **c. 700-750 AD** Unidentified elite workshop and original owner `[unknown]` (origin) Dated by stylistic comparison with related Insular metalwork (principally the Hunterston Brooch) and manuscript ornament of the period. No direct dating evidence (inscription, coin association, or scientific analysis of the metal) is cited in the sources consulted. - **c. 750-1850** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap) No owner, location or event is documented for roughly eleven centuries between the brooch's manufacture and its reported discovery. - **1850** Found by a local family (popular account) or recovered during harbour-wall excavation works (Wilde's account) `[disputed]` (discovery) The popular account has children of a peasant family finding the brooch in a box buried in the sand at Bettystown beach, County Meath, possibly altering the true inland find-spot to avoid a landowner dispute. Sir William Wilde's account, written in the 1860s and published in 1915, instead places the find during excavation of a harbour wall at the mouth of the River Boyne near Drogheda, in an oak box with other silver objects. The two accounts share only the presence of a box and a general Drogheda-area location. - **1850** A Drogheda ironmonger, then a local watchmaker `[documented]` (intermediate sale) The brooch is reported to have first been offered to an ironmonger in Drogheda, who dismissed it as worthless, before being bought by a local watchmaker who then sold it on to a Dublin jeweller. Sourced to secondary accounts rather than a primary record; flagged for replacement with Wilde's own catalogue text if it can be obtained directly. - **1850-1868** Waterhouse & Co, Dublin (jewellers) `[documented]` (purchase and renaming) Bought by the Dublin jewelling firm trading as Waterhouse & Co, which renamed it the 'Tara Brooch' in 1850 to associate it commercially with the Hill of Tara, despite the object's having no genuine connection to that site. The individual responsible is universally described in secondary sources as 'George Waterhouse', but George Waterhouse (c. 1791-1855) had by most accounts retired around 1848; the Dublin shop was by 1850 run by his son Samuel Swinburne Waterhouse (c. 1819-1905). During this period the firm exhibited the brooch at the Great Exhibition, London (1851), the Great Industrial Exhibition, Dublin (1853, where Queen Victoria had it sent to Windsor Castle for inspection), and the Exposition Universelle, Paris (1855), and built a large replica trade on the back of its fame, including a distinct 'Royal Tara Brooch' pattern and a companion 'Tara Bracelet' (1851). - **1868-1890** Royal Irish Academy `[documented]` (acquisition) Purchased from Waterhouse & Co by the Royal Irish Academy, most commonly dated to 1868 for a price of 200 pounds, on the express condition that the brooch never leave Ireland. At least one source consulted gives 1872 instead of 1868; this record states both rather than resolving the conflict. - **1890-present** National Museum of Ireland `[documented]` (transfer) Transferred to the newly established National Museum of Ireland in 1890 along with the rest of the Royal Irish Academy's antiquities collection, including the Ardagh Chalice and the Cross of Cong. On permanent public display in the Treasury of the museum's Archaeology branch, Kildare Street, Dublin, as of 2026. ## Open questions - Where exactly was the brooch found? The popular Bettystown beach account and Sir William Wilde's Boyne-estuary harbour-wall account agree only that it was found in a box somewhere near Drogheda; neither is corroborated closely enough by an independent contemporary source, in the material reviewed for this record, to be preferred over the other. - Which Waterhouse actually bought and renamed the brooch in 1850? Popular sources uniformly credit 'George Waterhouse', but George Waterhouse (c. 1791-1855) is recorded as having retired from the firm around 1848, two years before the brooch surfaced; the Dublin shop was by then run by his son, Samuel Swinburne Waterhouse (c. 1819-1905). This record has not found a source that accounts for this discrepancy. - What year and price did the Royal Irish Academy actually pay? Most sources give 1868 and 200 pounds; at least one gives 1872. This record could not resolve the difference against a primary institutional source. - Where was the brooch actually made, and for whom? Neither the workshop's location nor the original patron's identity, whether secular ruler or senior cleric, is established by any source consulted here. - When and how were the missing filigree inserts and studs lost? The brooch is shown essentially complete in engravings of 1852; ten front inserts and three studs are missing today, and this record found no account of when or how that loss occurred. - What is the brooch's current National Museum of Ireland inventory number? Secondary sources give a registration number inconsistently and this record could not verify one against the museum's own catalogue, whose page returned an access error during this research pass (see notes_for_editor). ## Sources - [1] Wikipedia, 'Tara Brooch'. Consolidates dimensions, construction detail, exhibition and acquisition dates, and condition. Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the National Museum of Ireland's own catalogue entry and Niamh Whitfield's published technical papers. - [2] Mythical Ireland, 'The Tara Brooch: Ireland's finest piece of jewellery lost for centuries'. Popular secondary account; cites Sir William Wilde's 1860s catalogue (published 1915) for the harbour-wall find account. - [3] IrishCentral, 'What you should know about the Tara Brooch, one of Ireland's greatest treasures'. - [4] Victorian Web, 'Celtic Revival Brooch by Waterhouse and Company, Dublin', citing Jeanne Sheehy's exhibition catalogue on the Celtic Revival, 1830-1930. - [5] Victorian Web (Byecroft), 'Popular and Applied Arts in the Celtic Revival'. Source for the 1849 Royal Irish Academy permission, the five 1853 brooch patterns, and the 1851 Tara Bracelet. - [6] Hawley Sheffield Knives, 'George Waterhouse & Company'. Source for the Waterhouse family firm history and the 1848 retirement / 1855 death of George Waterhouse versus Samuel Swinburne Waterhouse's tenure of the Dublin shop from 1841 to 1905. - [7] Wikipedia, 'Roscrea Brooch'. Tertiary source; cites Michael Ryan's dating of the brooch to the mid-to-late 9th century. - [8] Wikipedia, 'Hunterston Brooch'. Tertiary source, used for the comparanda discussion and the Irish/Scottish manufacture debate. - [9] officialdata.org, UK Inflation Calculator, 'Value of 1868 British pounds today'. Composite UK price index (Bank of England pre-1988 data, ONS Consumer Prices Index thereafter). - [10] Wikidata, Q1922572, 'Tara Brooch'. Used to cross-check dimensions and weight; no inventory/accession number is recorded on this entry. - [11] Niamh Whitfield, ''A stitch in time: fastening the 'Tara' brooch'', in J. Fenwick (ed.), Lost and Found: Discovering Ireland's Past, 2 (Wordwell, Bray, 2009), 263-78. The principal technical study of the brooch's pin, chain and fastening mechanism. - [12] Niamh Whitfield, '"More like the work of fairies than of human beings": the filigree on the 'Tara' brooch, a masterpiece of late Celtic metalwork'. The principal technical study of the brooch's filigree construction. - [13] Wikimedia Commons, User:Sailko. Used to confirm the identity of the photographer (Francesco Bini) for the lead and detail plates, as required for CC BY attribution. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.