Graveslab, Gaganstown, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Gaganstown, Co. Kildare

In a small graveyard in Gaganstown, Co. Kildare, a medieval graveslab has ended up standing the wrong way around. The granite slab, which tapers gently along its length in the manner typical of early Christian and medieval grave markers, was apparently set upright with its base where its head should be. It leans noticeably eastward, adding a further tilt to its already inverted stance, and on what is now its outward-facing side a Latin cross has been carved in relief, raised from the surface of the stone rather than cut into it.

The slab measures roughly 0.95 metres in height, between 0.3 and 0.4 metres wide, and about 0.18 metres thick, making it a modest but solid piece of granite work. It sits in the eastern part of the graveyard, which also contains the remains of a ruined church, the two features together suggesting a site with a long history of religious use. Cormac Corlett, writing in 2003, recorded the slab and noted its inverted orientation, though the circumstances that led to it being placed upside-down, whether through accident, later disturbance, or simple mishandling at some point in the past, are not documented.

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Pete F
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