Silver, gilded, Ireland (probably Co. Cork), dated 1590, no maker's mark.

The sexfoil base rises from a horizontal die-struck foot ring. Two faces of the base are engraved with pairs of cross hatched leaf sprays, each enclosing a shamrock; the third is engraved with the Crucifixion, surmounted by a shamrock-like device with rays and flanked by the emblems of Christ's Passion. Within the foot are six vertical strips added during repairs. The hexagonal shaft terminates in hexagonal punched wires; the knop is melon-shaped and chased with segments, three of which are engraved with flower heads. The base of the bowl is clasped by a shaped calyx, with alternate petals, cross hatched.

In March 1929, Miss Louisa Purcell offered this chalice for sale to the V&A. A note to the Keeper of Metalwork by curator C. Bailey, in the object acquisition file, explains that she was obliged to sell it 'owing to the troubles in Ireland', and that she 'would prefer it to go into a National Museum rather than America'. Bailey's justification for the acquisition concludes that 'for this reason she is willing to accept what, considering the beauty and rarity of the object, is a very reasonable price, £400. We have no example of an Irish chalice in the Museum collection'.
The history of the chalice before it entered the Museum is mostly undocumented. There are two inscriptions that refer to ownership on the chalice itself, both on the underside of the foot. One of these was added by Miss Purcell: 'The Mount Keefe Chalice - reconsecrated Burton Park AD 1916'. The note by C. Bailey in the V&A file explains that this was so the chalice could be used at the wedding of one of Miss Purcell's daughters, in the family's private chapel.
The other inscription is dated 1590, and records that the vessel was made at the behest of 'C.O.K.'. There have been different interpretations of the meaning of these initials. C. J. Jackson's 1905 study, English Goldsmiths and their Marks: A History of the Plateworkers of England, Scotland and Ireland, includes the chalice in the closing section, 'Addenda and Corrigenda'. He states the chalice is in the collection of Robert Day, and cites Day's opinion that the letters 'represent a maker's mark - possibly an abbreviated form of 'Cork'' (p. 668). However, as the V&A acquisition file observes, the initials in fact refer to the person for whom the chalice was made. This is now thought to be a member of the O'Keefe (or 'O'Keeffe') family.
The chalice was one of several sixteenth and seventeenth century Irish chalices in the collection of the Cork businessman and antiquarian Robert Day (1836-1914), and it was in his possession by 1905. Although Day published extensively on items in his collection (including a chalice made for Cornelius O'Keeffe, Bishop of Limerick, in 1735), no account or reference by him to the 1590 chalice has yet come to light. After his death, Day's extensive collection was auctioned by his family in September 1915. An account of the auction published in the Journal of the Cork Archaeological and History Society records that 'The silver collections contained some old chalices. The most beautiful of these sacred vessels were [...] the O'Keeffe Chalice, Early Elizabethan, for £4 16s. per oz, weight 8 oz. 16 dwt'. The weight of the chalice described in the auction report corresponds almost exactly with that of the one linked to the O'Keefe family and now in the V&A. The report's description of it as 'early Elizabethan' is probably an unintentional error.
No further written evidence for the ownership and whereabouts of the chalice has yet emerged. The Museum files include a booklet about the O'Keefe family history kindly sent to the Department by a member of the family. In it are two different accounts of the history of the chalice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first, described as 'a traditional story', is by 'a Mr Mc Auliffe and his daughter Mrs Kenneally' from Gleann an Aifrinn, near Newmarket. According to them, 'The O'Keeffes presented a chalice to the Church in Newmarket about 1600. During the worst of the Penal Times, Mass was celebrated in Gleann an Aifrinn, on the Mc Auliffe farm. The priest used to hide the vestments and chalice in an opening at the base of a tree. Sometimes in wet weather, Mass was said in the house of a Mr. O'Keeffe who lived nearby. One Sunday morning early, when a Father Gallivan and an un-named priest from Kerry were in the O'Keeffe house, a troop of Redcoats surprised the sentry and murdered the two priests. They looted the chalice and vestments. On the spot where the priests' bodies lay there grew a tall tree which resembles the shape of a chalice'.
The alternative account is offered by 'Mrs Molly Hickey of Cullen', again, 'from traditional sources'. According to her version, 'the Chalice was prsented [to] the Cullen Church by the Ahane O'Keeffes who after fighting with the priest took it back again. Charles O'Keeffe who came to the Mount Keeffe family, although protestant may have been secretly helping their Catholic relatives and neighbours and that Mount Keeffe was a safe place for keeping the Chalice, which with improving conditions for Catholics towards the end of the 18th century may have gradually ceased to be used'.
The leaflet does not favour one account over the other.

The chalice is one of the most important vessels of the Roman Catholic church, since it contains the wine consecrated by the priest during the service of Mass. It was usually made from precious metal to reflect the precious status of its contents. This chalice is grand in proportion, for a large congregation, and is engraved with the Crucifixion and the Instruments of the Passion (objects associated with Christ’s suffering and Crucifixion). It is inscribed in Latin ‘COK had me made in the Year of the Lord 1590’. The tall pyramidal foot was a regional feature. The prominence given to the shamrock leaf is unusual. At this period the shamrock was not seen specifically as a national emblem, but instead was ancient religious symbol associated with St Patrick.

M.31-1929