Graveslab, Callan, Co. Kilkenny
Co. Kilkenny |
Tombs & Memorials
On the floor of St Mary's church in Callan, County Kilkenny, a fragment of medieval stonework lies face-up in the nave, walked over or around by anyone who enters.
It is a graveslab, or rather the lower portion of one, a limestone piece measuring just over a metre in length and roughly two thirds of a metre wide. The slab has lost its upper section entirely, and the border along its left-hand side is also gone, leaving an object that is more ruin than monument, though no less interesting for that.
What remains is carefully worked. The surviving right-hand edge is straight and clean, while the bottom edge is chamfered, meaning it is cut at an angle along the top surface, a detail that suggests the original slab was finished with some attention to craft. Incised into the stone is a cross-shaft, the kind of linear, carved cross common on medieval Irish grave markers, and this one terminates at a stepped base, a small architectural flourish that gives the design a sense of solidity and formality. Along the right-hand border there is lettering, almost certainly an inscription naming the person commemorated, but time and wear have reduced it to something barely traceable. It cannot be read. Whoever commissioned this stone, whoever it was meant to memorialise, has slipped beyond recovery, leaving only the geometry of the cross and the ghost of an alphabet.