Graveslab, Portlecka, Co. Clare

Co. Clare |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Portlecka, Co. Clare

In the south-west corner of Ruan Church in County Clare, a fragment of carved stone lies flat on the ground, easy to overlook among the more upright remnants of the site.

It is a portion of a graveslab, roughly 74 centimetres long and just 7 centimetres thick, bearing a raised Latin cross that has been worn down over time to little more than a faint relief. A graveslab is a flat stone laid over or beside a burial, often carved with religious imagery or inscriptions, and this example retains just enough of its decoration to suggest what it once communicated about the person beneath or beside it.

The slab does not lie alone. Immediately to its east, a second graveslab stands upright on its side, the two pieces forming a quiet grouping in the corner of the old church. The church itself, recorded separately, provides the broader context: Ruan is a settlement in the Barony of Inchiquin, and its ecclesiastical remains have accumulated layers of use and abandonment across centuries. The Latin cross carved in raised relief on this fragment points to a medieval tradition of Christian burial marking, though the degree of wear makes any closer dating difficult. The slightly tapering shape of the slab, narrower at the base than the top, is a form commonly associated with medieval funerary stonework in Ireland.

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Pete F
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