Cross-slab, An Riasc, Co. Kerry

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab, An Riasc, Co. Kerry

A single piece of red sandstone, barely half a metre long, manages to carry two distinct cross types on opposite faces, as well as a Maltese cross set within a circle, a carved step pattern, a spiral design, and traces of a titulus, the label that in medieval iconography typically appeared above the crucified Christ.

That a slab of these dimensions could be worked so deliberately, with so much compressed into so small a surface, gives some sense of the ambition behind early Christian carving on the Dingle Peninsula.

The stone, known as Stone G from the An Riasc monastic site, was found inside the remains of an oratory at Calluragh burial ground, An Cheallnúach, which sits on roughly the highest point of the townland, about 1.25 kilometres east of Ballyferriter, with open views northward over Smerwick Harbour. The slab was shaped to give a rounded head and a tapering shaft, though the shaft is now broken. The main dressed face bears the recessed Maltese cross within its circle, and below it the carved stem works through a symmetrical step pattern before opening into a spiral. The plainer reverse carries a Latin cross without further ornament. The site and this stone were recorded in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne peninsula. The slab has since been removed from the site for safekeeping and is now held at Músaem Chorca Dhuibhne in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh, where visitors can examine it directly alongside other material from the peninsula's early medieval past.

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