Cross, Toureen, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Crosses & Monuments

Cross, Toureen, Co. Tipperary

At Toureen in County Tipperary, close to the south-east angle of St Peakaun's church, a large early medieval stone cross stands incomplete and partly buried.

The shaft remains upright, roughly two metres tall, but the upper portion of what was once a composite cross, meaning one assembled from separately carved sections fitted together, lies embedded in the ground just to the east of it. The full cross, when intact, would have reached over four metres in length. That fallen headpiece, tenon still attached, sits in the soil where it came to rest, and has apparently never been re-erected.

The shaft itself repays close attention. It was fashioned with a rebate, a recessed channel, along its edges, and where shaft met arms this rebate opened inward to create hollow angles at the crossing, a distinctive constructional feature noted by Waddell and Holland. The stonework carries a long inscription in Irish, which scholars including Okasha, Forsyth, and Charles-Edwards have studied in some detail, along with rudimentary incised ornament. Three equal-armed crosses are incised into the surface, and on the west face, at the centre of the crossing, there is an outline cross with hollowed armpits; a similar motif appears on the east face in the middle of the shaft. These hollowed armpits are a recurring feature of early Irish stonework, giving the cross-head a slightly recessed, almost negative appearance where the arms meet the upright. According to Hugh Weir, writing in 1980, the main cross was once flanked by two smaller stone supports known as crutches, interpreted as representing the Thieves' Crosses, recalling the two figures crucified alongside Christ at Calvary. Whether those flanking stones survive in any form is not recorded.

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