Trinity College Library and Book of Kells

The Book of Kells is a lavishly illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels created by Celtic monks around 800 AD, likely begun at the monastery of Iona in Scotland and completed at Kells, County Meath, after Viking raids forced the community to relocate. Written in Latin on vellum, its pages combine intricate Celtic knotwork, human and animal figures, and vivid pigments with the biblical text, and it is widely regarded as the finest surviving example of Insular manuscript illumination. The book has been held at Trinity College Dublin since the mid-17th century and is displayed today in a purpose-built exhibition, 'Book of Kells: Experience,' with two of its four volumes shown at a time and pages turned periodically to limit light exposure to any single page. The manuscript exhibition leads into the Old Library's Long Room, a 65-metre barrel-vaulted chamber completed in 1732 and lined floor to ceiling with roughly 200,000 of the library's oldest books, along with marble busts of philosophers and scholars collected since the 18th century. The Long Room also displays one of the last surviving copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic and, until 2023, held a 15th-century harp long associated with Brian Boru; the harp has since moved as part of a library redevelopment. The Old Library itself was designed by Thomas Burgh and is Trinity's earliest purpose-built library building, part of the college founded by Elizabeth I's royal charter in 1592. Conservation of the Book of Kells is ongoing, with the manuscript rebound in the 1950s by Roger Powell into four separate volumes to improve preservation and reduce handling stress on the vellum.