Cross-slab (present location), Dublin South City, Co. Dublin

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Crosses & Monuments

Cross-slab (present location), Dublin South City, Co. Dublin

A carved stone that began its life in a Sligo burial ground now sits in a Dublin institution, separated from its original context by many miles and the steady hand of the collector's world.

This particular cross-slab, recorded in the Sites and Monuments Record as SL044-056019, is one of a larger group of early medieval carved stones that were originally located at Carrowntemple, County Sligo, and it is now held at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. Cross-slabs, for those unfamiliar with the term, are flat or roughly shaped stones incised with a cross, typically associated with early Christian burial sites in Ireland and dating broadly from the early medieval period. They are modest objects in comparison to the great high crosses, but they carry the same impulse: to mark, to sanctify, to remember.

Carrowntemple was evidently a significant site, given the number of carved stones it once held. A detailed index compiled by P. Walsh in September 2014, cross-referencing earlier work by Timoney and Wallace, records at least fifteen slabs associated with the site, numbered in sequence. Of those fifteen, five remain at Sligo Museum, two are recorded as still on site at Carrowntemple itself, and no fewer than six have made their way to the National Museum in Dublin. The slab known as number 13 in the Timoney and Wallace sequence is the one now catalogued under Dublin record DU018-226. The dispersal of the group across institutions and the original site reflects a pattern common enough in Irish archaeology, where significant assemblages were removed piecemeal over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leaving the original site diminished and the objects themselves scattered across different collections.

For anyone wishing to see this particular slab, the National Museum of Ireland's archaeology collection on Kildare Street in central Dublin is its present home. The museum holds a substantial collection of early medieval material, and early Christian carved stonework occasionally features in its permanent galleries, though the display of specific pieces can change. It is worth contacting the museum in advance to confirm whether the slab is currently on public display or held in storage. Those with a particular interest in the Carrowntemple group as a whole would need to make separate visits to Sligo Museum for the pieces held there, and to the Carrowntemple site itself for the two slabs that were never removed.

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