What is recorded here

Kilfenora Cathedral in County Clare holds a weathered high cross fragment, salvaged from the graveyard and mounted inside to protect its interlacing carvings from further storm damage. The rectangular shaft rises beside a broken ring segment, preserving circular and square patterns that once belonged to a much taller monument. It stands quietly in the transept, waiting for the missing parts to reappear or for a viewer to imagine the complete cross swinging above the graves.

Erected c. 2006 in the NE corner of the ‘sacristy’ or N transept of Kilfenora Cathedral (CL016-015002-) due to weathering. Not listed in the SMR (1992) or the RMP (1996). According to de Paor (1955, 59) the fragment was found the previous year in the graveyard and was mounted in the ruined chancel. The upper part of the shaft and the bottom segment of the ring of a ringed cross. The shaft is rectangular and tapering and the sides are undecorated. Harbison (1992, vol. 1, 116) describes the ‘West face’ (now facing S into the body of the transept) as having ‘interlacing forming circular devices above which is a segment of a circle of interlace, suggesting that it may have formed part of the decoration of the ring of the head’. He describes the ‘East face’ (now facing and close to the N wall) as having ‘square panels of interlace, each subdivided into four, and beneath them, a thick-banded interlace. There are roll-mouldings at the corner.’ (ibid.) This is a national monument in state care, no. 8. The following image has been uploaded: CL016-015013-_01.jpg View of high cross fragment from SW. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 24 September 2018

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