Cross-slab, Ardane, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab, Ardane, Co. Tipperary

A small piece of reddish sandstone, barely larger than a hardback book, sits on top of a wall in County Tipperary with an early medieval cross carved on each of its faces.

The carving is not bold or theatrical; on one side, an equal-armed cross sits in low relief just three millimetres proud of the surface, while on the reverse the same form appears only lightly pocked into the stone, its arms left open at the ends. Both sides of the slab have been carefully shaped, the edges pocked smooth into a gentle curve, suggesting the object was finished with deliberate attention rather than cut down from something larger.

The slab belongs to St. Berrihert's Kyle, an early ecclesiastical enclosure at Ardane in the Glen of Aherlow. The site takes its name from St. Berrihert, an early Christian saint associated with this part of Tipperary, and the Kyle, meaning a narrow wood or secluded place in Irish, preserves something of the sheltered character such early monastic sites often sought out. The stone itself was catalogued by scholar Ó hÉailidhe in 1967 as slab 40A/40B, indicating both faces were recorded separately, a detail that hints at just how many carved stones were gathered or surviving here. The oval enclosure in which the slab now sits was constructed by the Office of Public Works in 1946, stepped internally to display the collection of stones. That intervention, well-intentioned as it was, means visitors today are looking at a mid-twentieth-century arrangement of early medieval material, which adds its own layer of complexity to the place.

The cross-slab rests on top of the enclosure wall in the western sector of the site. Its modest scale means it can be easy to overlook among the other stones, but the double-sided carving rewards close attention, particularly the contrast between the bolder relief on one face and the barely-there pocking on the other.

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