Cross-slab, An Riasc, Co. Kerry

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab, An Riasc, Co. Kerry

A thin sandstone slab, just 85 centimetres tall, carries on its smoothed face something rather precise and unexpected: a Maltese cross set within a square frame, and tucked into the upper right-hand corner, a small stylised bird, most likely a peacock, which was originally one of a matching pair.

The carving is recessed into the stone rather than raised from it, a technique that gives the design an almost architectural quality, like something pressed into wax. The slab tapers slightly along its length and is squared off at the top, suggesting it was shaped deliberately rather than simply found and marked.

The stone was discovered at An Riasc, a monastic site on the Dingle Peninsula, roughly 1.25 kilometres east of the village of Ballyferriter, on what is broadly the highest ground in the townland, with open views northward over Smerwick Harbour. It had been reused as part of a ceallúnach grave within the site's oratory; a ceallúnach, or calluragh, is a small unconsecrated burial ground associated with an early Christian enclosure, often used for unbaptised children or others excluded from formal church burial. The peacock detail is worth pausing over. In early Christian iconography the peacock carried associations with immortality and resurrection, and the fact that the surviving bird was originally paired with a second suggests a composition of some theological intention rather than casual decoration. The slab is documented in J. Cuppage's 1986 archaeological survey of the Corca Dhuibhne region.

The stone itself is no longer at the site. It has been moved to Músaem Chorca Dhuibhne in Baile an Fheirtéaraigh, where it can be examined at close quarters, which is arguably the better way to appreciate the fineness of the recessed carving and the small, easily missed bird in the corner.

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