Cross-slab, Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab, Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow

Inside the ruined medieval church at Kilcoole, a granite cross-slab leans against the chancel arch at the eastern end of the nave.

It is a quiet, easy thing to walk past, the kind of object that does not announce itself. Cross-slabs are among the earliest forms of Christian grave and commemorative markers found across Ireland, typically flat stones incised with a cross in one of several traditional forms, and this example in County Wicklow sits in a position that suggests it was deliberately placed rather than simply left where it fell.

The church itself is the context here, and the slab's positioning against the chancel arch, the structural division between the nave where a congregation gathered and the chancel reserved for the clergy, places it at a significant threshold within the building. Granite is not the easiest stone to work, being coarse-grained and hard, which makes the decision to use it for a carved marker worth noting. Beyond its material and its location within the nave's eastern end, the documentary record offers little further detail about the slab's date or the identity of whoever it may once have commemorated.

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Pete F
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