Wall monument, Inishcaltra, Co. Clare

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Religious Objects

Wall monument, Inishcaltra, Co. Clare

High on the southern wall of St. Caimin's church on the island of Inis Cealtra, in Lough Derg, a modest stone slab carries an inscription that manages to be both proud and badly spelled.

Carved in 1703, it commemorates one I.A. Grady, who "REPAIRED THOS CHVRCHES AND MOWMENT TO THE GRACEC AND GLORIE OF GOD." The phonetic spellings and idiosyncratic lettering are not especially unusual for vernacular stonework of the period, but they give the monument an oddly direct, unpolished quality that sits in curious contrast to the heraldic ambition of its carved imagery.

The slab itself, measuring roughly 77 by 60 centimetres, bears three lions passant, the classic heraldic pose of a lion walking with one paw raised, surrounded by a mantling of floral scrollwork. The phrase cut beneath the imagery, "VULNERATUS NON VICTUS," meaning "wounded but not defeated," is a motto with a defiant edge, suggesting the Grady family were keen to associate themselves with resilience. The antiquarian R.A.S. Macalister documented the slab in a 1916 to 1917 publication, noting its position 7.82 metres from the eastern end of the nave. A chest-tomb slab set against the same southern wall may once have formed part of the same funerary arrangement, implying that what survives as a wall-mounted fragment was originally a more substantial monument.

Inishcaltra, sometimes called Holy Island, is accessible by boat from Mountshannon on the Clare shore of Lough Derg, and the early medieval monastic remains on the island include several churches and a round tower. St. Caimin's church, where the monument sits, is the largest of the ecclesiastical structures on the island. The Grady slab is mounted high enough on the wall that it rewards a careful look upward rather than the casual glance one might give a floor-level inscription.

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