Graveslab, St. Patricksrock, Co. Tipperary

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Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, St. Patricksrock, Co. Tipperary

The choir floor of the cathedral on the Rock of Cashel holds a graveslab that is, in a very literal sense, only half a story.

What remains is the lower portion of a tapering limestone slab, its straight edge suggesting a clean break somewhere above, and on its surviving surface a raised cross whose shaft and pillar-form base are still legible, though whatever arms or head the cross once had are long gone along with the missing stone.

The inscription cut into the slab, framed within a border margin and rendered in Roman capitals, was transcribed by Fitzgerald in 1903. The surviving text reads, with gaps at either end: MEAGHER ALIAS COMYNE FECERVNT FIERI, a Latin phrase meaning roughly "caused this to be made". The formula fecervnt fieri was a conventional medieval commissioner's tag, indicating that the named individuals arranged and paid for the monument rather than necessarily being those buried beneath it. The names themselves are striking in their combination: Meagher and, under the alias, Comyne, suggesting a person or family known by two distinct surnames, whether through intermarriage, adoption, or the common Irish practice of carrying both a Gaelic and an anglicised or Norman name. Beyond those fragments, the fuller identity of the commissioners and the date of the slab remain uncertain.

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