Cross-inscribed stone, Cinn Aird Thoir, Co. Kerry

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-inscribed stone, Cinn Aird Thoir, Co. Kerry

Among the many graves in the graveyard at Cinn Aird Thoir in County Kerry, one marker stands apart from the rest by virtue of its age and simplicity.

Rather than a carved or lettered headstone of the kind familiar from post-medieval burial grounds, this is a thin slab of old red sandstone, a sedimentary rock common to the region, bearing nothing more than an inscribed cross. It marks Grave No. 390, and its plainness is precisely what makes it worth attention.

Cross-inscribed stones of this type belong to a long tradition in early Irish Christianity, where a simple incised cross on a flat or upright slab served as a grave marker or a votive monument. The form can span a wide range of periods, and without further excavation or dating it is difficult to place this particular stone precisely in time. What is known comes from a graveyard survey conducted in 2011 by Ann Frykler and Robert Hanbidge of Headland Archaeology Ltd., which recorded the stone as part of a broader documentation of the site. Their description is spare but telling: a thin slab, old red sandstone, a cross cut into its face, set in place to mark a burial.

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