Graveslab (present location), Dublin North City, Co. Dublin

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Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab (present location), Dublin North City, Co. Dublin

A metre-long piece of granite, tapering slightly at one end and missing a large corner from the other, does not sound like much until you look at what someone carved into it many centuries ago.

At the centre is a cup-mark enclosed by three concentric circles, with an off-centre band running from the outer ring toward the opposite end of the stone. Flanking that band on both sides are diagonal and transverse lines cut in a herringbone pattern. The overall effect is deliberate and considered, the work of a hand that knew exactly what it was doing, even if we can no longer say with certainty what it meant.

The slab comes from Tully graveyard in County Dublin, where it is one of eleven early granite grave slabs recorded at the site, a collection noted by Swords in 2009 as being of particular significance. It was found in 1982, buried upright in the ground roughly fifteen metres south-west of the chancel of the church at Tully, suggesting it had been placed or disposed of in that position at some point rather than simply lost. After its discovery it was secured to the inside wall of the chancel for safekeeping, and in 1989 it was taken into the care of the Office of Public Works. The circumstances of its original burial remain unclear, as does how much stone was lost from the broken end before it was recovered. The recorded dimensions, one metre in length, 0.48 metres wide, and between 0.10 and 0.13 metres thick, give a sense of a slab intended to lie flat over a grave, though its upright burial complicates that assumption.

Because the slab is now held by the Office of Public Works rather than displayed at Tully itself, anyone wishing to see it would need to make contact with that body to establish its current accessible location. The decorated face, with its concentric circles and herringbone bands, repays close attention; the carving style is associated with early medieval Irish grave markers, a form that bridges older abstract ornamental traditions and the Christian burial practices that gradually reshaped the Irish landscape from the fifth century onward. The companion slabs that remain at Tully graveyard offer useful context for understanding the type, and the site itself is worth visiting alongside any effort to trace where this particular stone has ended up.

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