Inscribed slab, Toureen, Co. Tipperary

Co. Tipperary |

Religious Objects

Inscribed slab, Toureen, Co. Tipperary

Set into the interior east wall of St Peakaun's church in Toureen, County Tipperary, is a fragment of inscribed stone so small it could fit in a coat pocket.

Measuring roughly eight centimetres in height and just under twenty centimetres wide, it is broken on all four sides, meaning whatever it once was, whether grave marker, votive slab, or something else entirely, its original form is now lost. What survives on its visible face is a pair of parallel horizontal lines, interpreted by scholars as guide-lines laid down to keep a scribe's lettering straight, the kind of ruled preparation a craftsman would make before cutting a single line of text. The text itself, if it was ever completed, is gone.

The stone was uncovered in 1944 during an excavation at the site, with the find recorded by Duignan that same year and subsequently noted by Macalister in 1949. It was catalogued more recently by Okasha and Forsyth in 2001, who listed it as Toureen Peacaun 6, placing it within a broader corpus of early medieval inscribed stones from the area. St Peakaun's church is itself a site of some antiquity, and small inscribed fragments of this kind are often associated with early Christian monastic activity, where stone-cutting and literacy overlapped in the production of memorial or devotional objects. The fact that only the guide-lines remain, with no legible inscription, gives the piece an oddly suspended quality, as though the carver simply stopped.

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 Inscribed slab, Toureen, 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