1,400-year-old brooch is found in Ballylongford ashes
The Mortata Brooch: Sheila and Pat Joe Edgeworth pictured at home in Mortara, Ballylongford on Monday afternoon by the range in which they discovered the brooch which was embedded in a sod of turf from the bog in Tullahinell. Sheila is holding a near... Credit: Photo by John Reidy
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Wednesday February 03 2010
OVER 1,400 years after Christians first began spreading the gospel in Kerry a Ballylongford family has made the startling find of a bronze brooch in the peat ashes of their range, bridging the time gap in an instant and stunning archaeologists.
The brooch — which is embossed with a cross — has been described as a national treasure and is dated to earliest Christian times in Kerry over 1,400 years ago.
Buried deep in the bog of Tullahinell for a millenium and a half, the brooch found itself in human fingers once again as Pat Joe and Sheila Edgeworth, of Mortara, Ballylongford, went to inspect a puzzling item stuck in their range grate.
- DÓNAL NOLAN
