Cross-slab

The National Monuments Service's description

Formerly located outside the ecclesiastical enclosure (LF021-048001-) on Inchcleraun Island, this cross-slab is one of four (see also LF021-048005-, LF021-048010- and LF021-048011-) now in the care of the OPW (Athenry depot, county Galway; see GA084-151002-).
Bigger (1900, 80-81) recorded that it stood close to 'The Women's Church' (LF021-048007-) and described it as a rough slab of sandstone grit 'bearing incised on its surface a Celtic interlaced cross with remains of an Irish inscription.' It is an irregularly shaped slab (H 0.69m; Wth 0.55m; T 0.15m) decorated with a triple-lined, incised, double Latin cross with a central incised circle, containing a geometric pattern, and expanded D-shaped terminals, which also contain geometric patterns. Running parallel along both sides of the cross are the remains of an Irish inscription. Crawford (1913, 326) recorded one of these, which was in half uncial script and is now very worn and no longer decipherable, as 'OR DO LAITHB[ER]TACH'. This translates as 'A Prayer For Laithb[er]tach'. The second inscription reads 'B, ?, A, C, H', the second letter being too worn to decipher. (English 1971, 148; Ciuchini 2010, Stone B, 91, 102, fig. 5)

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of upload: 6 June 2013

References

Bigger, F.J. 1900 Inis Chlothrann (Inis Cleraun) Lough Ree: its history and antiquities. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 30, 69-89.

Ciuchini, P. 2010 Illicit traffic of Irish antiquities: the international case of the Inchcleraun gravestones. Archeomafie 2, 88–102.

English, N.W. 1971 Field antiquities of County Longford. Journal of the Longford Historical Society 1(2), 146-55.

Crawford, H.S. 1913 A descriptive list of early cross-slabs and pillars. (cont.) Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 43, 151-69, 261-5, 326-34.