Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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133. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade further to Parliamentary Question No. 23 of 27 June 2024, if he and his Department have undertaken any acts of investigation or enquiry to establish if the Holy See is in the possession of the crown of Brian Boru, former High King of Ireland (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6329/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Following the Deputy's previous PQ (23 of 27 June 2024), officials from the Embassy of Ireland to the Holy See engaged with the Chair of the Irish Manuscripts Commission and Professor of History at UCD, John McCafferty on this matter. His report provides no evidence for the existance of such a crown. This is also corroborated by an article from another academic, Jesse Harrington, UCC, published in the November/December 2024 edition of the History Ireland magazine.

By way of historical context it should be noted that the existence of the crown of Brian Boru, former High King of Ireland, is doubted by historians. It is understood that there are no records of Irish kings of the high Middle Ages wearing crowns. They neither feature in inauguration rituals nor were worn as symbols of authority. Furthermore, the first written reference to a putative crown of Brian Boru dates only from the 1627 Annals of Clonmacnoise. No crown has been recorded or catalogued in the Vatican museums or archives. In the absence of new historical research, the matter rests.