Graveslab, Rathmore, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Rathmore, Co. Kildare

In the graveyard at Rathmore, Co. Kildare, a limestone graveslab has been broken in two, and only one half can be reliably found. The surviving upper portion stands upright in the south-east quadrant of the graveyard, measuring roughly 76 centimetres tall and 66 centimetres wide. Its whereabouts are known; the lower half is somewhere else in the same graveyard, but its precise location has not been pinned down. The slab is a single object in two pieces, separated by some unknown event and now occupying two different areas of the same burial ground.

The carving on the upper half is careful and confident. Executed in false-relief, a technique in which the background is cut away to leave the design proud of the surface, it shows an eight-armed segmented cross-head with four fleur-de-lis terminals, the whole contained within a double incised circle. A narrow chamfer, a bevelled edge cut at an angle, runs across the top of the slab. A survey conducted by Brian McCabe of the Naas Local History Group described the full composition across both halves as a floriate cross in a circle with a narrow carved shaft ending in Calvary steps, the tiered base traditionally associated with the site of the crucifixion. The quality of the work is noted as neat and deliberate, suggesting a craftsman with a clear decorative programme in mind, even if the circumstances that eventually split the slab apart remain unrecorded.

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Pete F
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