Cross, Lullymore, Co. Kildare
Co. Kildare |
Crosses & Monuments
A cross in County Kildare that is no longer where it began is a quietly telling kind of monument. The site at Lullymore marks not the cross itself but the presumed original location from which it was at some point removed or displaced, leaving behind a gap in the landscape where an object of devotion or boundary-marking once stood.
The cross in question, catalogued as M. Kelly's 'Cross 9' in a 2006 study, has since been recorded at a separate location nearby. In the Irish countryside, wayside and standing crosses served a range of purposes, from marking parish boundaries and pilgrimage routes to indicating early Christian settlement sites or places of venerable local significance. That this one has shifted from its presumed original position is a reminder of how frequently such objects were moved over the centuries, whether for safekeeping, agricultural convenience, or simple repurposing. Lullymore itself sits in an area of the Bog of Allen with a long history of early medieval religious activity, which lends the displacement of even a single cross a certain quiet weight.
