A man in his 20s has been arrested over the break-in and theft of the head of an 800-year-old mummy at St Michan’s Church in Dublin.

Gardaí recovered the head of the mummy, known as ‘the Crusader’ earlier this week after it was stolen from a crypt in the church in Smithfield last month.

The crypts at the church were forced to close temporarily after they were vandalised on the weekend of February 23rd-25th.

The man was arrested on Thursday and is being detained at Bridewell Garda station under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984.

The break-in was noted when a guide was preparing to open St Michan’s for visitors. The guide discovered the head of ‘the Crusader’ had been severed from its mummified body and was missing.

The head of a mummified nun, who died 300 years ago, had also been turned 180 degrees to face the wrong direction while a third mummy had been turned on its side.

The crypt of the family of Irish mathematician William Hamilton was also damaged.

The vaults receive about 28,000 visitors a year. The Archdeacon of Dublin, the Ven David Pierpoint warned that the closure of the crypts would significantly affect the revenue used to maintain St Michan’s, which was founded in 1095.