Graveslab, Moorstown, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Moorstown, Co. Tipperary

Along the south wall of the crossing-tower at Mora church in Moorstown, a limestone graveslab lies not as it was intended to lie.

Rather than flat, marking a grave from above, it has been set on its side and embedded in the ground, its smooth upper surface turned to face north, its roughly cut underside exposed. Whatever inscription or decoration it may once have carried has not survived, leaving a stone that is essentially anonymous, displaced, and quietly out of place.

Mora church is a medieval site in County Tipperary, and this slab is one of several similar pieces found within or immediately adjacent to the building. Taken together, they appear to date from the 13th or 14th century, a period when such graveslabs, typically plain limestone markers cut to cover individual burials, were common across ecclesiastical sites in Ireland. The fact that several survive here, in various states of displacement or reuse, suggests the church had an active burial function over a considerable period. This particular example measures 0.75 metres in length and projects roughly 0.37 metres above the ground, modest in scale and entirely without ornament as it now stands.

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