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, Co. Tipperary, a limestone graveslab lies flat on the floor, walked over or around by anyone passing through.

It is not displayed on a wall or set behind a barrier. It simply sits there, underfoot, as it has for some considerable time, demanding a second glance once you notice what is carved into it.

The slab measures 1.76 metres long and 1.17 metres wide, and its surface is worked in false-relief, a technique where the background is cut away to leave the design raised, rather than incising the imagery directly into the stone. The cross it carries is set slightly off-centre, and though the upper portion has been broken or cut away, enough survives to suggest the cross-head was either a crown-of-thorns or an interlace design. Flanking what remains of the head are two carved rosettes. Below the damaged section, the letters IHS, a Christogram derived from the Greek name for Jesus, appear directly above the word MARIA, both rendered in false-relief along the cross-shaft. The shaft itself is carefully differentiated: four raised vertical bands in the upper section give way to four fluted bands lower down, a subtle shift in texture that rewards close inspection. At the base of the shaft, the cross rests on a curving calvary mount, the stepped or mounded base traditionally associated with Golgotha in Christian iconography. Within an oval surround at the centre of that mount, a skeleton is depicted from the waist up, and on either side of it, in black-letter script, run the Latin words MEMENTO MORI, meaning "remember that you must die." It is a blunt reminder, carved with considerable craft, of the one certainty that unites whoever commissioned the stone and whoever passes over it now.

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Pete F
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