Graveslab, Graney, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Graney, Co. Kildare

A granite graveslab that began its life in one place and ended up cemented into a graveyard wall is already an unusual object, but what makes this particular stone more curious still is the carving it carries and the questions that carving raises. The slab, which tapers slightly along its length and measures roughly 75 centimetres tall by between 31 and 37 centimetres wide, originated at Graney in County Kildare before being moved to Knockpatrick graveyard, where it now sits fixed to the wall, its base and right-hand edge obscured by concrete.

The face of the stone bears a ringed cross, a form in which a circle connects the arms, carved in low relief with splayed terminals and a stem. At the point where the cross meets the stem there is a rounded, bulbous feature, roughly 11 centimetres across, which may be a boss or a knop, a decorative raised element common in early medieval stonework. From this central feature, two diagonal appendages extend outward, and it is these that have attracted the most scholarly attention. Peter Harbison, writing in the period 1989 to 1991, interpreted them as representing ribbons, a reading noted by Corlett in 2003. The ribbon interpretation would place this slab within a tradition of personalised or ceremonially adorned memorial carving, though the concrete obscuring part of the stone means the full composition remains incomplete to the eye.

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