What is recorded here

Cross stands in County Offaly as the truncated pyramidal base of a lost high cross beside a small companion stone, marking a fifth-century monastery founded by St. Kieran the elder. The graveyard, ruined church, round tower stump and double earthworks still surround that absent shrine, preserving the shape of a place where worship, defense and memory became one.

Monastery founded by St. Kieran the elder in the fifth century (ITA Survey 1943). Ecclesiastical site consists 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-). A truncated pyramidal shaped base of a high cross (OF039-003002-) with rectangular socket located to the S of the priory (OF039-003005-) with smaller pyramidal shaped base of a small cross (0.32m by 0.46m by 0.33m) beside larger cross base (OF039-003002-). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

The high cross in Churchland was likely built by a monastic community associated with St. Kieran the Elder in the 5th or early 6th century. It is of early Christian Irish style and may have had a liturgical or territorial significance for the ecclesiastical site.

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