TreeAlive
‹ Sites and Monuments Record, Ireland

Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Sundial

Monasterboice, County Louth, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Sundial, Monasterboice, County Louth, with a pin at the register's coordinates
Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915), covering this location. Courtesy of the National Library of Scotland. The pin is ours, placed from the register's coordinates.

The record

Townland
Monasterboice
County
Louth
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.77792, -6.41752
SMR number
LH021-062011-

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

4 historical maps cover this location, the earliest the 1636 map "Vltoniae Orientalis Pars" (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1636 · Vltoniae Orientalis Pars (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1799 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

Get directions ↗

This record in the National Monuments Service's Historic Environment Viewer ↗

The National Monuments Service's description

A monolith of fine greenish sandstone (H 1.85m) now erected beside the N cross (LH021-062009-) at Monasterboice. The S face is decorated and there is a plain panel in slight relief at the top of each of the narrow sides. At the top of the S face there are the remains of two horizontal lines. At the mid-point of the lower of these there is a small hole from which three incised lines radiate. Each of these lines terminates in three prongs indicating the hours of terce, sext and none. Below the sundial there is an incised circle, now faint. A vertical line divides this circle in two. There is another circle below the last; this surrounds an incised maltese cross.

See attached photographs courtesy of M.J. Harley (https://www.sundials-ireland.com/amedieval/medmellifont.htm)

Compiled by: Claire Breen

Revised by: Caimin O'Brien

Date of revised upload: 27 May 2022

Nearby in the register

Other entries of the same register within about three miles of this one, by straight line.

Sites and Monuments Record data: National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Record text is reproduced unchanged. National Monuments Service, Government of Ireland · CC BY 4.0
All Sundial in Louth All County Louth records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
See your own family's places on a living map