Graveslab, Portlecka, Co. Clare

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Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Portlecka, Co. Clare

Inside the nave of Ruan Church in Portlecka, County Clare, a flat stone lies on the ground, oriented east to west with its broader end pointing west.

It measures just over a metre in length and tapers slightly toward the foot, and cut into its surface is a ringed cross-head, drawn in double incised lines. There is no shaft extending below it, and no inscription anywhere on the stone. It is a graveslab reduced to its most essential gesture: a cross, a body, a direction.

Graveslabs of this kind were commonly placed over individual burials in early medieval and later ecclesiastical settings across Ireland, often within or immediately adjacent to a church. The ringed cross, sometimes called a Celtic cross in popular usage, here appears only as a head without a stem, which is not unusual on slabs of this type and may reflect local workshop tradition or simply the mason's preference. What makes the Portlecka example quietly notable is its companion: a second graveslab with a similarly incised ringed cross lies directly to its east, the two stones side by side in the nave. Neither carries an inscription, so whoever lies beneath them left no recorded name in stone.

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