Stone sculpture, Knocknageehy, Co. Cork
Co. Cork |
Stone Monuments
Just outside a burial ground at Knocknageehy in West Cork, a small rectangular stone sits in the ground with no cross above it, only the memory of one.
The flat top bears a mortice hole, the square socket cut to receive the upright shaft of a cross that is now gone, leaving behind a base that speaks more quietly, and perhaps more interestingly, than the monument it once supported ever could.
The stone tapers slightly from base to top, measuring roughly 82 centimetres by 42 centimetres at its widest and narrowing to 30 centimetres by 21 centimetres at the upper surface, with a total height of 35 centimetres. What lifts it above a plain utilitarian block is the rope moulding carved along its vertical edges, a decorative detail in which the stone is worked to resemble twisted cord. This kind of ornament appears on ecclesiastical stonework across Ireland, often associated with wayside or graveyard crosses, and its presence here suggests the original cross was a considered piece of craft rather than a roughly shaped marker. The stone stands immediately to the north-east of the associated burial ground, positioned just outside the boundary in the way that cross bases and grave markers sometimes were, occupying a threshold space between the sacred enclosure and the land beyond it.