Graveslab, St. Dominicks Abbey, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Tombs & Memorials
A medieval graveslab lying face-up on the floor of a ruined nave is easy to walk past without a second glance, but the limestone slab in St. Dominick's Abbey in County Tipperary rewards a closer look.
Just over two metres long and tapering from head to foot, it is cracked across the middle and its lower portion has broken into several pieces, the lower left corner gone entirely. What remains, though, is a carefully composed piece of incised decoration that speaks to a carver who knew exactly what effect they were after.
At the head of the slab a large double-ringed circle frames a four-armed cross, each arm ending in a trefoil terminal, that is, a clover-like three-lobed form, rendered in double incised lines. Below the cross-head, a circular knop, a small rounded protrusion acting as a visual hinge, leads into a shaft of two parallel lines that runs down to a trefoil base, itself outlined in double incised lines. The decoration does not stop there. On the left side of the shaft, what is known in heraldic terms as the sinister side, a herring-bone pattern has been incised into the stone. Traces of a matching design survive on the right, or dexter, side, though these are separated from the shaft by a stem carrying a circular expansion near its top, with further incised lines linked to it. Taken together, the composition is symmetrical in intent if not entirely in survival, and suggests a slab produced for someone of enough social standing to warrant considered ornamental work. The abbey itself was a Dominican foundation, and the Dominicans, known as the Order of Preachers, were among the mendicant friars who established themselves across Munster during the medieval period, often attracting the patronage of local Gaelic and Anglo-Norman families who chose their churches as burial sites.
The slab lies prostrate in the nave close to the north wall, which is where a visitor should look for it. The lower section, in its several broken pieces, may require a moment's attention to read as a coherent whole, but the incised trefoil and herring-bone work at the upper end remains legible enough to follow the carver's intentions across the centuries.