Cross-slab, Eochaill, Co. Galway
Co. Galway |
Crosses & Monuments
A limestone slab lying broken in a field in Eochaill, County Galway, presents a question that has occupied scholars for decades: what exactly is carved on it?
The slab, which measures just under one and a half metres in length, split at some point into two pieces, and the damage has made its imagery ambiguous in an almost philosophical way. The larger lower portion carries an incised cross set within a circle, with the shaft continuing below the circle and terminating in a large triangle. The smaller upper portion has a two-line circle containing traces of something that can no longer be clearly identified.
The interpretive puzzle centres on the cross itself. Higgins, writing in 1987, laid out the two possibilities. The carving could represent a Greek cross, in which all four arms are of equal length, with a long shaft added below the encircling ring. Alternatively, it could be a Latin cross, where the vertical arm is longer than the horizontal, with only the upper portion enclosed within the circle. Both readings are consistent with the lines as they survive, and the break between the two fragments falls at precisely the point that might have settled the matter. Cross-slabs of this kind are flat, recumbent grave markers incised with a cross and sometimes additional ornament, and they are associated with early medieval ecclesiastical sites across Ireland. This one lies in a field to the east of Teampall Asurnaí, a church site in Eochaill, and is one of three such slabs recorded in the same area, suggesting the field around the church once served as a burial ground of some significance.
The slab lies in the open, in the company of its two companions, close to the remains of the church. The triangle terminating the shaft is an unusual detail, and even in its broken state the carving retains a quiet precision that makes the uncertainty about its meaning all the more striking.