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Sites and Monuments Record · Ireland

Shrine

Toureen, County Tipperary South, Ireland

Ordnance Survey six-inch map, 2nd edition (1888–1915) covering the location of Shrine, Toureen, County Tipperary South, 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
Toureen
County
Tipperary South
Country
Ireland
First-edition OS map
Not indicated
Latest-edition OS map
Not indicated
Coordinates
52.40879, -7.99284
SMR number
TS075-023072-

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)
  • 1882 · Ireland (southern half). (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1891 · Ireland 16 (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
  • 1904 · Sheet 13. (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

Two 'posts' of a corner-post shrine currently located in a small display area 5m SE of the church (TS075023001-) to the N and S of the E cross (TS075-023002-). Both posts are of similar size and design, each a tapering slab (L c. 1.4m) with a wheeled cross in relief on one face. Each slab has two rectangular mortises in one side and were evidently part of a composite composition (Waddell and Holland 1990, 179). Duignan postulated that the two pillars and the E cross may have formed a unit, the pillars representing the thieves' crosses at Calvery (ibid.). Ó Carragáin (2003, 166) interprets these cross-pillars as 'posts' from a 'corner-post shrine of both wood and stone; and, though not closely dateable, the ringed crosses on the posts would not be out of place in an eight or ninth century context'. The N post, though found intact is currently embedded in the ground (H above ground 1.08m). It is a roughly rectangular stone (Wth at top 0.28m; Wth at ground level 0.32m; T at top 0.13m; T at ground level 0.24m). The upper mortise also has a dowel hole. The upper portion of the S post, with the wheeled cross (Wth 0.32m; H 0.42m; max. T 0.17m), is currently upside down on top of a block of stone (Wth at top 0.29m; Wth at base 0.32m; H 0.26m; T 0.13-0.17m) which rests on another block of stone (Wth 0.33m; H 0.27m; max. T 0.2m) with a cross shaft (Wth 0.05m) and border in relief on one side. Only the upper mortise is currently visible. Okasha and Forsyth (2001, 288) suggest that two other smaller pillars (TS075-023074-; TS075-023075-) may also form part of this shrine.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 25 March 2014

References

Okasha, E. and Forsyth, K. 2001 Early Christian inscriptions of Munster: a corpus of the inscribed stones. Cork University Press.

Waddell, J. and Holland, P. 1990 The Peakaun site: Duignan's 1944 investigations. Tipperary Historical Journal, 165-86.

Ó Carragáin, T. 2003 The architectural setting of the cult of relics in early medieval Ireland. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 133, 130-76.

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 Shrine in Tipperary South All County Tipperary South records All Ireland Heritage registers Historical markers (US)National Register of Historic Places (US)
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