Graveslab, Townparks (Nethercross By.), Co. Dublin

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Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Townparks (Nethercross By.), Co. Dublin

A limestone floor slab set into the centre aisle of a church is easy enough to walk over without a second thought, but the graveslab in the Church of Ireland at Townparks, in the barony of Nethercross in County Dublin, rewards closer attention.

Measuring 1.85 metres long and 0.88 metres wide, the rectangular slab carries an incised inscription written in a mixture of Roman lettering and script, a combination that suggests it belongs to a transitional period in funerary carving when two distinct epigraphic traditions were being used side by side, sometimes even by the same hand. Floor slabs of this kind were a common feature of medieval and early modern church interiors across Ireland, laid down to mark the burial place of a notable individual or family directly beneath the church floor, as close to sacred ground as it was possible to be.

The church building itself dates from 1818, a relatively late construction of the kind that proliferated across Ireland during the early nineteenth century as the Church of Ireland consolidated and rebuilt its network of parish churches. The slab, however, is considerably older than the building that now houses it, having been retained in the centre aisle when the present structure was raised. The inscription was catalogued by Bradley and King in 1988, recorded in volume four of their corpus of Irish inscriptions at pages 318 to 319, which remains the primary scholarly reference for the text.

Visitors hoping to examine the slab in person should be aware that access is currently not possible. A section of the church roof has collapsed, rendering the interior unsafe and effectively closing the building to the public. This is worth bearing in mind before making a specific journey to Townparks. The notes compiled by Geraldine Stout and updated by Christine Baker, uploaded in January 2015, do not indicate whether repair work is planned or under way, so the situation may or may not have changed. Anyone with a particular research interest in the inscription itself would be better served by consulting the Bradley and King volume in a library before attempting a site visit.

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