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Section 3: Early medieval crafts and the
manufacture and use of people’s dress and
ornament.
Maureen Doyle
This section explores what people in early medieval Ireland wore – clothing, accessories and
ornaments – and examines the evidence from the sites detailed in the attached gazetteer for
both the presence of these dress items, and for their manufacture. The first part considers
what was worn in this period, and our sources for reconstructing the costume; and analyses
the most common artefacts found, with reference to their location and other details. The
second part considers the evidence for the crafts involved in making clothing and ornaments;
this deals primarily with textile working, but includes brief assessments of working in other
materials (metals, leather, glass, bone, jet/lignite) insofar as they relate specifically to
personal ornaments. A broader consideration of these latter crafts was given in Section 2.
Chapter 7: Early medieval dress and ornament
Dress in early medieval Ireland was based around the main garments of the léine or tunic,
the brat or cloak, the ionar (a type of jacket) and trousers or breeches (Dunleavy 1999). With
the exception of the latter, the same garments were generally worn by both men and
women; variations in length, quality and embellishment (embroidery, colour, etc.) provided
the main distinguishing features of this basic costume. The basic garments were also
accompanied by accessories, including shoes and belts. Few headdresses are known, other
than caps and scarves from Viking Dublin, made of wool and silk. A wide range of ornaments
was also used. Some, such as brooches and pins, were in the first instance functional, being
used to fasten garments, especially the brat, although they also offered the opportunity for
display. Others, such as bracelets, rings and beads, were more purely decorative. Taken
together they offer an insight into the overall costume, and what it was used to convey to
society in terms of statements of age, gender or status.
Literary evidence
Contemporary literature, including the law tracts, sagas, saints’ Lives and other documents,
gives considerable information on dress. The basic garments are taken for granted, and it is
the details of the tunics and cloaks – colour, fabric, decoration, and how they are worn –
which is the focus of attention. In Táin Bó Cuailgne, for example, varying lengths of tunic (to
the knee, or to the feet) are described (O’Rahilly 1976, 125, 183). The extent to which we
can rely on these texts varies; the law tracts, for example, dating originally from the seventh
to eighth century but incorporating later glosses and corruptions (Kelly 1988, 1, 225-6, 232),
are largely normative in nature, setting out what people of particular social ranks were
entitled – or expected – to wear. Thus, for example, a late gloss on the law on fosterage
prescribes different colours of clothes to be worn by children based on their fathers’ social
rank: the sons of kings may wear purple and blue, the sons of lords red, grey and brown,
and commoners’ sons may wear clothes of yellow, black, white or dun-colour. Similarly, noble
children are permitted to wear silver brooches, while lower grades are restricted to lesser
metals (Ní Chonaill 2008, 14). While this law is specific to children in fosterage, similar
restrictions may have been proposed for adults of the relevant ranks, at least in principle.
Whether such sumptuary dictats actually operated in practice, they may ‘reflect a general
truth that the higher ranks wore more colourful clothing than those of lower rank’ (Kelly
1997, 263). The Annals of the Four Masters include an early entry which supports this idea,
suggesting that status was displayed through the number of colours worn: ‘one colour in the
clothes of slaves; two in the clothes of soldiers; three in the clothes of goodly heroes, or
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