Graveslab, Kiltullagh, Co. Galway

Co. Galway |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Kiltullagh, Co. Galway

At Kiltullagh in County Galway, a plain stone slab stands upright against the north wall of a ruined church, doing quiet duty as a grave-marker.

What makes it worth a second look is what it lacks: there is no inscription, no carved cross, no decorative detail of any kind. Just a tapering wedge of stone, wider at the base and narrowing slightly toward the top, standing just over a metre tall and not much more than four centimetres wider at the foot than at the head.

Graveslabs of this type, sometimes called recumbent grave-markers before they were moved or repositioned, were typically laid flat over a burial before later generations stood them upright to mark the plot more visibly. The plain form here is thought to date from somewhere in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, a period when such unadorned slabs were not unusual, particularly in rural Connacht parishes where elaborate carving was less common than in wealthier or more urban settings. The slab sits within the graveyard attached to the remains of the church at Kiltullagh, and its current upright position against the surviving section of the church wall suggests it has been repurposed and moved at some point, though exactly when is not recorded.

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