What is recorded here

Half a metre of garnet mica-schist sits broken and empty on the altar of High Island, its socket severed before the eye can follow the ghost of the cross it once held. Wakeman drew that missing shape in 1839, but the stone itself has no marking to prove the line. It may be the base of a taller claim, or it may be all that remains of a taller claim. Either way the island keeps the hole as much as the stone, and the hole is the interesting part.

In 1984 this broken cross-base was noted inside the church (GA021-026014-) on High Island, to the N of the doorway (SMR file). By the 1990s it had been placed on the altar against the E wall (White Marshall and Rourke 2000, 83-4). Described by Fisher (2014, 214, no. 58, Fig. 7.10) as an undecorated roughly quadrangular slab (L 0.49m; Wth 0.38m; T 0.07m) of garnet mica-schist. The socket was incomplete as a result of the break in the slab. This may be the base of a cross (see GA021-026079-), which is now missing, based on a drawing by Wakeman in 1839 (Wakeman 1839a). The cross-base is now in the care of the OPW (Athenry depot, Co. Galway, see GA084-151027-). Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 20 November 2015

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