Cross-slab, Cill Fhaoláin, Co. Kerry
Co. Kerry |
Crosses & Monuments
On the western slopes of Knocknahoran, on the Dingle Peninsula, a small stone bears a cross so lightly scratched into its surface that it could almost be missed entirely.
The incision is described as very thinly incised, a phrase that suggests deliberate restraint rather than accident, as though the carver worked with the finest possible tool or the lightest possible hand. The stone itself is modest in scale, just 54 centimetres tall and narrowing from 21 centimetres to 12 centimetres in width, yet it sits within a burial ground, Cill Fhaoláin, that carries considerably more history than its quiet hillside setting might suggest.
The site, known in English as Killelane, is a rectangular enclosure containing grave mounds, grave markers, and the foundations of a rectangular building. There is also a leacht, a low cairn-like structure typically associated with early Christian devotional practice in Ireland, often used as a focus for prayer or commemoration. Intriguingly, the notes record the possible remains of an earlier circular enclosure underlying the rectangular one, which would suggest the site was in use before the rectangular form, more common in medieval Christian contexts, was imposed upon it. There are two cross-slabs here in total, of which this thinly inscribed example is one. The cross appears on the stone's north-east face, a plain, unadorned form without the elaboration found on later high crosses.