Graveyard, Delgany, Co. Wicklow

Co. Wicklow |

Burial Grounds

Graveyard, Delgany, Co. Wicklow

In the middle of Delgany village, on a south-facing slope above a stream valley, a fragment of granite shaft stands just under two metres tall and carries six lines of script that nobody has yet managed to read.

This is the remnant of a high cross, the kind of elaborately carved freestanding stone monument associated with early medieval Irish Christianity, and its lower shaft still shows the chamfered edges and rebated decorative panels that would once have framed intricate carvings across its west, south, and east faces. The inscription on the south face survives but remains indecipherable, which gives the stone a quietly unresolved quality that tidier heritage sites rarely offer.

The cross stands to the north of a ruined nave-and-chancel church set within a trapezoidal graveyard measuring roughly 70 metres by 45 metres. The church itself was in use until approximately 1789, after which it fell into the gradual decline visible today. Its walls survive mostly at lower levels, built of uncoursed rubble with larger blocks towards the footings, though a portion of the north nave wall still stands higher. The chancel walls are noticeably thicker than those of the nave, at one metre compared to 0.75 metres, and a single projecting stone in the north wall of the nave is thought to mark the original junction between the two sections. A doorway on the south side of the nave retains a large flagstone sill, and just outside it, a subrectangular baptismal font has been incorporated into a low boundary wall. Traces of plaster still cling to the inner face of the nave. Early nineteenth-century headstones have been placed inside the roofless church, while the graveyard itself contains several headstones dating from the early eighteenth century, along with the enclosing wall built in the nineteenth century.

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