Clonmacnoise was among the busiest, most economically complex, and intensely sacred places in early medieval Ireland. In Animals and Sacred Bodies in Early Medieval Ireland: Religion and Urbanism at Clonmacnoise, John Soderberg argues that animals are the key to understanding Clonmacnoise’s development as a thriving settlement and a sacred space. At this sanctuary city on the River Shannon, animal bodies were an essential source of food and raw materials. They were also depicted extensively on religious objects. Drawing from new theories about the intersections between religion and economics, John Soderberg explores how transformations emerging from animal encounters made Clonmacnoise a sacred settlement and created the sacred bodies of early medieval Ireland.

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In many senses, this is a welcome addition to the archaeology of religion, as well as a contribution sure to revitalise a somewhat moribund debate surrounding ‘monastic towns’ in Ireland. Soderberg’s is an excellent volume, with much to commend it, notably its probing account of wider analytical frameworks and of how scholarship currently approaches archaeologies of religion in complex, multi-faceted fields of discourse.