Graveslab, Burgagery-Lands, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Tombs & Memorials
Inside the west porch of St. Mary's church in Burgagery-Lands, a graveslab lies flat on the floor in the north-west corner, easy to step past without a second glance.
What marks it out is its carved decoration: a seven-armed cross with fleur-de-lis terminals, the trefoil flourishes at each arm's end lending the design an unmistakably medieval character. Fleur-de-lis terminals of this kind appear across Irish funerary stonework from the medieval period, typically indicating a slab of some age and craft, though the precise date and identity of whoever it once marked remain unrecorded.
The slab sits within St. Mary's church, a structure that carries its own archaeological designation. The carving itself is the kind of detail that rewards slow looking: seven arms rather than the more familiar four or six, a configuration that would have carried symbolic weight for whoever commissioned the stone, even if the exact reasoning behind that choice has long since been lost.