Cross, Lissagriffin, Co. Cork

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross, Lissagriffin, Co. Cork

A small stone propped just inside the doorway of a ruined church at Lissagriffin, in the far west of County Cork, carries a cross that is easy to walk past without noticing.

The stone itself is modest, roughly 38 centimetres tall and only 8 centimetres thick, but on its east face someone has incised a plain Latin cross, the kind with four arms of roughly equal length on a longer stem. That stem is now partially swallowed by the ground, so the full proportions of the carving, around 27 centimetres high and 25 wide, can only be appreciated by knowing what lies beneath the soil line.

The stone stands within a graveyard that also contains the remains of the church it once belonged to, suggesting a long continuity of use in a single enclosed space. Incised cross-stones of this type are found throughout early medieval Ireland, often associated with church sites and occasionally serving as grave markers or boundary indicators, though the precise original function of this particular example is not recorded. What is clear is that it has been moved at some point, or at least sheltered, ending up propped at the entrance to the church rather than standing in open ground. Whether that reflects deliberate preservation or simple convenience is impossible to say now.

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Pete F
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