In 1978 the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was one of the venues visited by an exhibition, Treasures of Early Irish Art, that included the glorious Book of Kells, containing the four gospels, from Trinity College Dublin.

Hugh Kearney and my husband, John Smeltz, obtained a grant to create a lecture/slide presentation, and professors from four universities toured the state and beyond to tell people about the book’s beauty and significance. When the exhibition opened, there were queues around the block – museum officials told us that it had the largest attendance up to that time for any art show.