Cross-slab, Ardane, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Crosses & Monuments
Among the many carved slabs gathered at the site known as St. Berrihert's Kyle in County Tipperary, one small piece of grey sandstone sits on an internal ledge and rewards close attention.
It measures just 28 centimetres by 18 centimetres, not much larger than a hardback book, yet its surface carries a Latin cross in low relief, only 7 millimetres proud of the stone, with large rounded hollows cut into each of the four angles where the arms of the cross meet. The top edge, where it can be examined, bears a second cross, this one incised directly into the stone rather than raised from it. The back remains inaccessible, pressed against the ledge, so whatever marks it carries, if any, have not been recorded.
The slab is catalogued as number 23 in a study by Ó hÉailidhe, published in 1967, and sits within an oval stone enclosure that was built by the Office of Public Works in 1946 to house and protect the collection of early medieval cross-slabs associated with this site. St. Berrihert's Kyle is an ecclesiastical enclosure, a term referring to the boundary that once defined a sacred or monastic precinct in early Christian Ireland, and the Kyle at Ardane preserves an unusual concentration of these carved stones, many of them modest in scale and worn by centuries of exposure. The stepped interior of the OPW enclosure was designed to display the slabs on different levels, which is how this particular fragment came to rest on its ledge in the southern sector.