Graveslab, Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow

In the townland of Rathdrum, County Wicklow, a late medieval graveslab once lay associated with a church that has long since faded from the landscape.

What makes this particular stone unusual is the detail carved into it: a wheel cross, a common enough motif on medieval funerary slabs, but accompanied at the base of its inscription by an incised serpent. That combination of Christian symbol and serpentine figure is a quietly arresting thing to contemplate, and it raises questions about the carver, the patron, and the particular tradition of stonemasonry at work in this part of Wicklow.

The church with which the slab is associated was first recorded in 1280, placing it firmly in the medieval ecclesiastical landscape of Leinster. Leinagh Price, writing in 1980, noted its presence in the townland, and it is from that church site that the graveslab is believed, though not with absolute certainty, to have originated. The slab itself is now held at the National Museum of Ireland, having been removed from its original context at some point before formal recording. That relocation, while preserving the stone, means the precise relationship between slab and site remains a matter of reasonable inference rather than documented fact.

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