Tandragee Idol

The majority of surviving prehistoric Irish stone sculptures in the iconic (representational) format originate from the northern counties. The group consists a human figure in relief, three works showing animals and several works showing individual heads or busts that fallwithin the wider grouping of Celtic stone heads. The majority of the Irish stone heads are though to have been produced within a five hundred year period ending in the early half of first century AD.[5] The Tandragee Idol is an unusually early example that is generally dated to 2500–3000 BC. However ancient stone artifacts are extremely difficult to date, complicated by the fact that most were discovered on ruined church grounds, many of which were in turn built on much older pagan ritual sites. Given these difficulties, archeologists often rely on art-historical methods of dating, such as tracing their methodological or iconographical origins.[5]

The Corleck Head, c. 100–300 AD [6]

Like the later Corleck Head, the Tandragee Idol may have produced for a small shrine or cult worship site.[7]

Most archeologists associate the figure with Nuadha of the Silver Arm, the mythical chieftain of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who according to the Annals of the Four Masters lived between 1890–1870 BC. According to folklore, Nuadha lost an arm in battle, a mutilation that threatened his position as a leader, given it made him "not whole of body". By ledged the healer Dian Cecht made a silver false-arm for him; hence the connection to the Tandragee figure, who seems to cling to a detached left arm.[8][9]

However the archeologist Patrick Gleeson warns against such interpretations and the tendency to view prehistoric Irish stone-deities through a pan-Celtic lens, noting how such labels "are often plucked from later texts to explain the function and symbolism of items like the Corleck Head or Tandragee Idol, much as ethnic labels have been used to explain material phenomena regarded as Romano-British."[10]

The double-headed Boa Island Stone Idol, c. 400–800 AD

The Tandragee Idol is sometimes compared to a c. 400–800 AD double-headed stone figure in the early-Medieval cemetery on Boa Island, County Fermanagh, given both have seemingly detached arms, leading to speculation that both represent Nuadha.

The figure is brutish-looking and a squat (short and wide) physique. Although identifiable as male he appears as rather sexless. He seems to lack a neck and wears a horned helmet.[7] He has a grotesque face and body,[8] in particular a vulgar wide and gaping mouth reminiscent of the first millennium AD Sheela na gig style. The figure has pierced nostrils, large oval eyes with heavy drooping lids and a primitive heavily ridged brow. Each hand consists of four crudely drawn and oversized fingers that lack knuckles or thumbs.[8]

The figure is carved in the round (that is it can be seen from all sides) from a single block of local granite. The torso is positioned on a wide rectangular granite block.[8]

It was found in a peat bog near Tandragee, County Armagh, Northern Ireland sometime before 1912.[8] It was first described in 1932 by the American art historian Arthur Kingsley following a view two years earlier when it was in the possession of the widow of local man John McEndoo, who "had no clear impression of how the idol came into her husband's possession".[11]

By 1932 it was in a rockery at the rectory in Ballymore until 1932, "with some other unspecified sculptural fragments said to have come from Armagh".[12][11]

• St. Patrick's Cathedral
• Iron Age Irish Helmets Short YouTube doc by the Arthurian Historian