Cross-slab, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab, Caherlehillan, Co. Kerry

At Caherlehillan in south-west Kerry, a stone slab just over a metre tall stands quietly within an early medieval ecclesiastical enclosure, its surface carved with a Latin cross whose arms terminate in C-scrolls, and below that a roundel filled with four more C-scrolls arranged in perfect symmetry.

The design is spare and deliberate, the kind of abstract ornament that rewards close inspection rather than a glance from a distance.

The slab is one of a pair, both positioned on the western side of what is known as a corner-post shrine, a type of small stone reliquary structure characteristic of early Irish Christianity, typically constructed with upright stones at its corners to frame and protect the remains or memory of a saint. The combination of the linear cross with its scrolled terminals and the decorative roundel beneath places the carving within a broader tradition of early Christian stonework in the Irish west, where geometric and curvilinear motifs were used to mark sacred space. O'Sullivan and Sheehan, cataloguing the material culture of south-west Kerry, recorded this as slab 1 of the pair, and noted its dimensions and ornamental programme in their 1996 survey of the region.

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