Cross, Killegar, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Crosses & Monuments

Cross, Killegar, Co. Wicklow

Against the south wall of the chancel at Killegar Church in County Wicklow, a small, roughly worked stone cross leans alongside a group of carved slabs that reward closer attention than they tend to receive.

The ensemble is modest in scale but varied in its decoration, and the combination of early Christian motifs with much older markings on a single slab makes this a quietly unusual corner of a little-visited site.

The most striking of the accompanying slabs, standing 1.14 metres tall, is decorated with cup and ring marks, a form of prehistoric carving consisting of concentric circular grooves pecked into stone, alongside other ornamentation. The presence of cup and ring marks on what is otherwise an early Christian assemblage hints at a site with a long ceremonial memory, where later Christian communities may have incorporated or preserved material from an earlier tradition. A second slab, 0.95 metres high, carries a Latin cross rendered in shallow relief, with circles at the top and at the ends of the arms, and semicircular curves filling the space below the arms, a composition that gives it a composed, almost architectural quality despite its small size. The third slab is the plainest of the group, just 0.49 metres tall, bearing a simple incised Latin cross. A Latin cross, with its longer lower arm, is the form most commonly associated with early Christian usage in Ireland, distinct from the equal-armed ringed high crosses more familiar from major monastic sites.

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Pete F
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