Cross-inscribed stone, Ceathrú An Teampaill, Co. Kerry

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-inscribed stone, Ceathrú An Teampaill, Co. Kerry

At the eastern end of a grave in a small graveyard on the Dingle Peninsula, a stone slab stands barely thirty centimetres high and thirty centimetres wide.

It is easy to overlook, and that is precisely the point. Cut into its east-facing surface is an equal-armed cross with T-bar terminals, the arms extending just slightly beyond each bar, a detail that gives it a quiet precision. A cross-inscribed stone of this kind served as a grave marker, a devotional object, or both; the incised cross was one of the most enduring forms of early Christian expression in Ireland, carved onto slabs, boulders, and standing stones throughout the early medieval period.

The stone sits roughly 5.7 metres west-northwest of the southwest corner of Ballywiheen Church, known in Irish as Teampall Bhaile Bhoithín, whose simple rectangular ruin still stands near the foot of the eastern slopes of Croagh Marhin. The site was recorded and described by J. Cuppage in the 1986 Corca Dhuibhne archaeological survey of the Dingle Peninsula, a foundational reference for the extraordinary concentration of early Christian and prehistoric monuments in this part of County Kerry. The graveyard itself continues to be associated with the ruined church, and the small slab is just one of several cross-inscribed stones recorded across the site, each marking a presence that is modest in scale but considerable in age.

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Pete F
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