Graveslab, Fethard, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Tombs & Memorials
Among a row of graveslabs leaning against the north wall of the north transept of Fethard's Augustinian abbey, one slab stands out for what it shows and what it withholds.
It carries no inscription, no name, no date, nothing to identify whose remains it once marked. Instead, its surface is given over entirely to carved imagery, a broad decorative border, a three-armed cross rendered in relief, and at the very top of the slab, a motif known as the sol et lunulae, the sun occupying the upper right corner and crescent moon-shapes filling the upper left. These are old symbols, appearing on medieval funerary carving across Ireland and Europe, invoking the cosmic order of creation and mortality without needing words to do it.
The slab measures 1.52 metres above ground, nearly a metre wide, and averages around 19 centimetres in thickness. Roll-mouldings run along the right-hand edge, and the border framing the face is a substantial band of between 15 and 17 centimetres. The cross itself is carefully composed: its horizontal arms terminate in trefoils, small three-lobed forms familiar from Gothic stonework, while the upper terminal dissolves into the border rather than ending separately. Three cross-bands mark the junction between the cross-head and the shaft, and a comparable banded motif appears again lower down, where the shaft meets what is described as a pillar-base form. Researcher Maher, writing in 1997, documented the decorative programme in detail, and the slab remains in good condition. Its anonymity, given the evident care put into its carving, is part of what makes it quietly unusual.