Cross, Clonbroney, Co. Longford
Co. Longford |
Crosses & Monuments
In a graveyard at Clonbroney in County Longford, there is something recorded on paper that is no longer visible on the ground.
A plain rectangular limestone pillar, tapering from its base toward a broken top, was observed in 1982 wedged into the earth between the south-east angle of a possible nunnery and the graveyard's eastern wall. Both faces were smooth and undecorated. Whether it was ever a cross in any formal sense is uncertain, but its tapering profile and proportions led those who examined it to consider that it might represent the shaft of one, the lower portion of a standing cross whose head is long gone.
The site sits beside the remains of what may have been a nunnery, a classification noted with appropriate caution given how difficult such foundations are to identify with certainty from surface remains alone. Clonbroney itself has early ecclesiastical associations, and the combination of a graveyard, a possible religious house, and an ambiguous stone pillar of unknown date suggests a layered history that has not been fully untangled. By 1982, when the pillar was formally noted, the top was already broken; its current condition, buried or otherwise no longer visible at ground level, leaves open the question of whether it survives intact beneath the surface or has since been disturbed or removed entirely.