Graveslab, Town Parks, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Town Parks, Co. Tipperary

Built into the internal face of a boundary wall on the west side of a Tipperary town, a carved graveslab fragment survives from what was once the medieval church of St Nicholas of Myra.

It is not displayed in any museum or marked with any particular ceremony; it simply sits there, absorbed into the masonry, carrying a Latin inscription that trails off into illegibility on both ends.

The slab, measuring roughly 0.78 metres by 0.6 metres, preserves the upper portion of what was once a larger memorial. Its decoration follows a scheme common to post-Reformation Irish funerary carving: a central IHS monogram, an abbreviation of the name of Jesus drawn from the Greek, with the I and S worked in interlace. Rising from the bar of the H is a four-armed cross with trefoil terminals, the three-lobed ends that appear frequently in ecclesiastical stonework of the period, set on a curving calvary mount, the stylised representation of the hill of Golgotha. Flanking the composition are a sun on the right and a crescent moon on the left, symbols associated with the crucifixion scene. Around the edge, a raised marginal inscription in plain Latin script begins "HIC JACET GUALTERUS SEIX DE CAR" and ends, after an unclear middle section, with the fragmentary letters "RINABU ILERQUAE". Interior lettering and a date, either 1640 or 1641, are also present. The church to which this slab belonged, dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra, the fourth-century bishop whose cult spread widely through medieval Europe, appears to have survived until around 1813, when it was demolished and replaced by a Church of Ireland building. The graveslab was not lost in that process; it was simply reused, pressed into the wall where it has remained ever since.

Rated 0 out of 5

Visitor Notes

Review type for post source and places source type not found
Added by
Picture of Pete F
Pete F
IrishHistory.com is passionate about helping people discover and connect with the rich stories of their local communities.
Please use the form below to submit any photos you may have of Graveslab, Town Parks, Co. Tipperary. We're happy to take any suggested edits you may have too. Please be advised it will take us some time to get to these submissions. Thank you.
Name
Email
Message
Upload images/documents
Maximum file size: 100 MB
If you'd like to add an image or a PDF please do it here.

Advertisement