What is recorded here

Cooly Wheel-Head Cross Slab stands inside a Donegal graveyard where St. Patrick is said to have planted the first faith. The small upright stone carries a ringed cross, waiting beside older church ruins to mark lives lived under the shadow of Lough Foyle. People may have pressed palms against its smooth face, asking the dead to remember the shape of God before they forgot the way home.

The early ecclesiastical site here consists of a sub-rectangular shaped graveyard inside of which are a number of earlier features. The site is located on excellent land sloping to Lough Foyle to the E and is traditionally claimed to have been founded by St. Patrick (Gwynn and Hadcock 1970, 399; Lacy et. al. 1983, 261). To the W outside the entrance to the graveyard (DG021-008001-) is a tall, plain, ringed high-cross (DG021-008005-). Inside the graveyard are the remains of two churches (DG021-008002-/003-) and a mortuary house or tomb shrine (DG021-008004-). One of the churches served as a medieval parish church (Leslie 1937, 265). Well preserved ringed cross incised onto an upright slab (H 0.63m; Wth 0.23m; T 0.07m) in Cooly graveyard (DG021-008001-) which was recently discovered during graveyard clean-up scheme carried out in 2010. A graveyard plan drawn by the Cooley Cross Heritage Committee shows location of cross-slab as number 13. The attached image (DG021-008012-_03.jpg) is a plan of the church and graveyard commissioned by the Cooley Cross Heritage Committee showing location of cross-slab number 13 inside graveyard. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 25 February 2015

Dated to the early Christian period (5th–9th century), the Cooly Wheel-Head Cross Slab likely served a liturgical or commemorative function within a monastic or ecclesiastical setting. Its wheel-headed cross design is characteristic of Insular art and may reflect Christian symbolism or local traditions associated with the site.

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