Font (present location), Toor, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Religious Objects

Font (present location), Toor, Co. Tipperary

At the rear of a nineteenth-century Catholic church in Kilcash, tucked beside the south side of the porch, sits a large octagonal limestone font that almost certainly predates the building around it by several centuries.

Local tradition holds that it was brought here from the medieval church at Kilcash, a short distance away, rescued from a ruined site and given a new home when the old one fell out of use. That kind of quiet relocation was not unusual in rural Ireland, where objects of religious significance were moved rather than abandoned, but it means this font now occupies a slightly anomalous position, a medieval object embedded in a much later setting.

The font is substantial and carefully made. It measures roughly 0.7 metres across and is octagonal in form, a shape that carries deliberate symbolic weight in Christian liturgical tradition, the number eight being associated with resurrection and new beginnings. The limestone surface is worn and polished from long use, and an incised horizontal line runs around the top as a border, with rough vertical drafting below it. The base echoes the form of the bowl above, with octagonal moulding sitting on a square plinth with chamfered, or angled, corners. A central hole of around nine centimetres in diameter runs through the base, which would have allowed water to drain away after use. A survey carried out in 1942 noted a carved representation of the Baptism of Christ on the font, which would be consistent with its function as a place of baptism or holy water, though the surface is now considerably worn.

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Pete F
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