Font, Newcastle, Co. Meath

The contrast is quietly telling: an ancient object in a practical contemporary setting, neither displayed as a trophy nor hidden from view.

A font of this kind was used for baptismal rites, the basin holding the water through which a person was received into the church. This example is carved from sandstone and has an unusual tapered form, wider at the top than at the base, with an exterior diameter of 0.66 metres narrowing to 0.56 metres at the bottom and a height of 0.46 metres. The interior basin is flat-bottomed, roughly half a metre across and about 24 to 26 centimetres deep, with a small central drain-hole five centimetres in diameter. Running vertically around the outside are four projecting lugs, narrow strips of stone that may have served a structural or decorative purpose, or perhaps supported a covering. The combination of a drain-hole and these lugs suggests a font that was designed with some care for practical use rather than purely symbolic effect.