Graveslab, Newtown, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Tombs & Memorials
A coffin-shaped sandstone slab lying broken in four pieces near Newtown Lennon church in County Tipperary is easy to overlook, yet the carving on its surface is quietly remarkable.
The slab, measuring 1.66 metres in length and tapering from 0.44 metres at the head to 0.26 metres at the foot, follows the classic medieval graveslab form that mimics the outline of the body it once marked. What lifts it beyond an ordinary medieval grave marker is the decoration: a five-armed cross whose every terminal, including the base of the shaft, ends in a fleur-de-lys, the stylised lily motif more often associated with French heraldry and ecclesiastical ornament than with a rural Tipperary churchyard.
The slab is thought to date to the fourteenth century, a period when such decorated grave slabs were produced for relatively prosperous patrons across Ireland, typically clergy, religious houses, or members of the Norman-Irish merchant class. The chamfer, a narrow angled edge cut around the perimeter of the slab, is a finishing detail that adds a further degree of craft to the piece. It sits some seven metres west of the church at Newtown Lennon and three metres south of the graveyard's north wall, which places it slightly apart from the main burial ground, a position that may reflect the original layout of a medieval ecclesiastical enclosure or simply the movement of stones over centuries. The horizontal breaks across the slab's width are a common consequence of ground movement and long exposure, and while the four pieces no longer form a seamless whole, the carved surface remains legible.