Cross-slab, Ardane, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab, Ardane, Co. Tipperary

A flat slab of red sandstone, barely two-thirds of a metre long and less than a centimetre thick in its carved relief, sits at ground level in a corner of one of the more quietly remarkable early Christian sites in Tipperary.

What makes it worth pausing over is the double life scored into its surface: one face carries a Latin cross worked in low relief, only three millimetres proud of the stone, with small double-rounded hollows cut into each of the angles where the arms meet; turn it over, and the reverse bears a second cross, this one outlined by lightly pocked marks rather than raised carving. Two crosses, two techniques, one modest stone.

The slab sits within St. Berrihert's Kyle, an ecclesiastical enclosure near Ardane in the Glen of Aherlow. The Kyle, a word derived from the Irish for a narrow wood or corner, preserves the memory of St. Berrihert, an early medieval saint whose site accumulated a significant collection of cross-inscribed stones over the centuries. The oval stone enclosure that now houses the slabs, stepped internally, was constructed by the Office of Public Works in 1946, giving the scattered stones a degree of protection and order they had long lacked. The slab catalogued as 34A/34B was documented by Ó hÉailidhe in 1967, whose survey recorded its dimensions and the precise, restrained quality of its ornament. The Latin cross form, a simple equal-armed or upright cross without elaborate decoration, was among the earliest Christian symbols carved in Irish stone, and the hollows at the angles are a small but distinctive detail that appears on a number of early Irish cross-slabs, possibly serving a devotional function or simply reflecting a regional carving convention.

The site contains numerous other carved stones gathered within the enclosure, so this particular slab rewards close attention at ground level rather than a quick glance from the path. The shallow relief and the pocked reverse are easy to miss if the light is flat; an angled or low afternoon sun tends to pick out the carving far more clearly.

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