Cross - High cross, Moone, Co. Kildare
Co. Kildare |
Crosses & Monuments
Moone is already well known for one of the tallest and most elaborately carved early medieval high crosses in Ireland, but tucked to the north-east of the old church in the same graveyard sits something far more ambiguous: a granite base, sunk so deeply into the earth that only its upper surface is really visible, measuring roughly 72 centimetres by 48 centimetres. Cut into that surface is a rectangular mortice, a socket intended to receive and hold upright the shaft of a cross. No shaft survives. What stood here, and when it fell or was removed, is not recorded.
High crosses were a distinctive feature of early Irish monasticism, carved from stone and erected within monastic enclosures as focal points for prayer, processional routes, and possibly scripture teaching. Moone itself was an important early Christian site, and the graveyard retains traces of that long occupation. The existence of a second base, referred to as the East Cross in the archaeological record and documented by Bradley and colleagues in their 1986 survey, suggests the site once supported at least two such monuments. The mortice dimensions, 30 centimetres by 22 centimetres and 14 centimetres deep, are consistent with a substantial cross shaft, though nothing further about its form or date can be drawn from what remains above ground.
The base sits in a working graveyard, so access is generally straightforward, and it lies close to the more famous Moone High Cross, which is housed nearby in a reconstructed shelter. Visitors who make their way around the north-east side of the old church will find the granite block embedded in the ground, easy to miss if you are not looking for it, which is perhaps the point.