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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Cross-slab

Churchland, County Offaly, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Cross-slab, Churchland, County Offaly, 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
Churchland
County
Offaly
Country
Ireland
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
53.07048, -7.79326
SMR number
OF039-003015-

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 1790 map "Composite: Ireland." (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries).

Historical maps covering this location

  • 1790 · Composite: Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1811 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1869 · Ireland. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

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

The National Monuments Service's description

Monastery founded by St. Kieran the elder in the fifth century (ITA Survey 1943), consisting of an irregular shaped graveyard (OF039-003007-) with poorly preserved church (OF039-003005-) with gun turret at SE angle, base of round tower (OF039-003003-) at NW angle, base of high cross (OF039-003002-), cross-slabs, architectural fragments, 19th-century C of I church and medieval earthworks of a deserted medieval settlement enclosing graveyard from S through W to N and low motte (OF039-003----) to SW, all of which is contained within the impressive remains of a bivallate ecclesiastical enclosure (OF039-003001-). Early Christian cross-slab described by Crawford as 'a similar slab, incised with a seven line cross of similar shape, having the centre a crosslet, with spiral ends' (Crawford 1913, 265). By 1916 Crawford described this cross-slab as being missing (Crawford 1916, 166). This cross-slab may be the same slab (OF039-064----) that has been incorporated into the walls of the nearby Roman Catholic church that was built between 1899-1901.

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien.

Date of upload: 23 May 2011

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.

Crawford, H.S. 1916 Supplementary list of early cross-slabs and pillars. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 46, 163-7.

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
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