Tomb - chest tomb, Callan, Co. Kilkenny

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Tombs & Memorials

Tomb – chest tomb, Callan, Co. Kilkenny

Propped loose against the wall at the western end of the chancel of St Mary's medieval parish church in Callan, County Kilkenny, there is a limestone slab that has become separated from whatever structure it once belonged to.

It is not especially large, measuring 0.67 metres across and 0.65 metres high, but the carving on its face rewards close attention in a way that its current, somewhat forgotten position does not invite.

The slab appears to be a front panel from a chest tomb, the kind of raised rectangular monument common in late medieval Irish churches, where the sides were decorated with carved stonework and the top would have carried an effigy or inscription. This particular panel is worked in false relief, a technique in which the background is cut away to give the carved forms the illusion of projecting forward without actually undercutting them. Three round-headed niches are arranged across the face of the panel, each separated by a plain pillar. Within each niche, the soffit, the curved underside of the arch, is filled with vine-leaves, and the spandrels, the roughly triangular spaces between the arches and the border above, carry a floral motif. Running along the top of the panel is a horizontal decorative band showing branches in full leaf, with a knotted ribbon or band zig-zagging through the foliage. A plain border, modest in width, frames the top and bottom of the whole composition. The vine-leaf and foliate ornament, the interlaced knotwork, and the niche arrangement are all characteristic of the accomplished limestone carving tradition that flourished in the Irish midlands and south-east during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when workshops produced tomb furniture of considerable sophistication for wealthy patrons.

The slab sits inside the chancel of St Mary's, a substantial medieval parish church that in itself contains a good deal of surviving stonework and fabric. Visitors with an eye for carved detail will find the panel most rewarding when light falls obliquely across the surface, which is when the false-relief work reads most clearly and the vine-leaf carvings in the niche soffits come into their own.

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