Cross, Aghamore Near, Co. Sligo

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross, Aghamore Near, Co. Sligo

A small sandstone ringed cross sits above a holy well near Aghamore in County Sligo, quiet enough that it would be easy to pass without a second glance.

What gives it a mild air of ambiguity is the question of age: despite occupying a spot associated with older devotional practice, the cross itself is probably no earlier than the twentieth century, a relatively recent addition to a much older kind of place.

The well is recorded on the Ordnance Survey six-inch map under the name Toberan Aillt, a name that suggests a longer history of use than the stonework above it can claim. Holy wells, found in great numbers across Ireland, were sites of pre-Christian and later Christian veneration, visited for healing, for prayer, and for pattern days tied to local saints or seasonal observance. The cross set into the wall above the well is modest in scale, measuring around forty-three centimetres high and nineteen centimetres wide, with a circular head of the kind associated with the ringed or Celtic cross form. It is accompanied by plaques of modern date, suggesting the site has continued to attract quiet, incremental additions over time rather than any single moment of formal commemoration.

The sandstone cross is not a medieval survival or an ancient monument in any conventional sense, but that is part of what makes it worth attention. It represents a thread of living devotional practice, the kind of thing that gets added to a landscape not by institutional decision but by local habit and ongoing belief.

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Pete F
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