Graveslab, Burgagery-Lands, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Burgagery-Lands, Co. Tipperary

In the west porch of St. Mary's church in Burgagery-Lands, a limestone graveslab lies face-up on the floor, its inscription reduced to a scatter of legible fragments by centuries of wear.

The slab is a substantial piece of stone, measuring 1.64 metres in length and 0.94 metres in width, with a semi-circular head of the kind commonly used on medieval commemorative slabs. What makes it quietly compelling is precisely its illegibility: raised capital letters, carved to be read, now surrender only scraps of the name and words they once proclaimed.

The inscription runs in horizontal bands across the surface in Latin, the conventional language of ecclesiastical commemoration throughout medieval and early modern Ireland. Only the right-hand side of the slab, the dexter in heraldic terms, remains readable, and even then just partially. The surviving fragments suggest a personal name beginning with "Andre" and what may be a second name incorporating the letters "PH(I)P", possibly a form of Philip or Philips, along with further broken sequences that likely included a date of death and the conventional phrase recording the year of the lord. The lower half of the slab is entirely blank, and it is possible that decorative carving once occupied this space before the stone wore smooth. Whether the decoration was figurative, geometric, or heraldic cannot now be determined.

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