Initiated at Cork in 1985, conferences devoted to Insular art have since occurred in various locations at four- to five-year intervals. This is the proceedings of the fifth such event, held in Dublin in 2005. Though each has had a different publisher (Royal Irish Academy, Alan Sutton, HMSO, Oxbow and now Four Courts), the resulting volumes have all have been substantial and handsome, and this newest addition to the sequence is no exception. While the conferences – and hence the volumes – have had individual themes (that of the present one being ‘making and meaning’), these have been of such a general nature as to permit all branches of Insular art to be included, and the type of articles has remained fairly standard from one volume to the next. Thus there will be preliminary accounts of new finds (here, metalwork from Perthshire, and part of a Pictish slab from Hilton of Cadboll), investigations into manufacturing and creative processes (here, Celtic filigree, the sculpture of the ‘Muiredach Master’ and the legal entitlements of Irish craftsmen), consideration of decorative or architectural motifs (a rare guilloche pattern, animals on high crosses, Insular display capitals and early Irish architectural forms), plus some iconographical studies (the marigold stone at Carndonagh, canon table arcades, blessing hands and the Crucifixion in the Durham Gospels) along with some debate on methodology or historiography (here, the strengths and weaknesses of W. G. Collingwood's classification of Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture). The standard of the twenty-three articles is generally high, though many are aimed at fellow-workers in their particular fields (zoomorphic pins, Insular palaeography and so on) rather than at medievalists in general. The contributions with wider appeal include Paul Mullarkey's broad-ranging study of book shrines, Griffin Murray's analysis of Insular crosiers, Roger Stalley's case that sculptures at Clomacnoise, Monasterboice and Durrow were products of the same workshop (which would then have transcended ecclesiastical frontiers and politics) and Nancy Edward's exposé of the fickle patronage behind the early sculpture of south-west Wales. If a common theme does run through a number of the papers, it is the dialogue between new works and traditional forms, and the extent to which visual conservatism might represent conscious attempts to appropriate the past, profiting from venerable associations. Pointing out that crosier design became increasingly standardised over time, Murray concludes that this was ‘representative of a church that cherished tradition and a deep sense of antiquity in its religious practices’ (p. 91); Thomas Ó Carragáin deduces that the conservatism of early Irish architecture made ‘the past continuous with the present and in so doing made it more difficult to question the emerging power structures’ (p. 105); and Colum Hourihaine argues that the deployment of archaic Insular motifs in fourteenth-century genealogical and historical texts added to their authority (p. 328). Thus insights into ecclesiastical history may, with patience and discernment, be gleaned from some of these studies.