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Cross-inscribed stone in Glassamucky Mountain

Cross-inscribed stone

What is recorded here

Death on Glassmucky Mountain still wears the shape of a cross. A granite boulder stands beside the road with expanded arms carved into its face, marking the place where a chimney sweep may have frozen after a snowstorm erased the path home. The cross does not decorate the mountain; it answers the cruelty of that lost night by naming the victim and refusing to let the white silence take him without witness.
Situated to the E of the R115 and a small gravel pit on Glassmucky Mountain. A roadside granite boulder set on its long axis (dims. L 1.10m, Wth 0.62m, N-S, H 0.42m) with a cross inscribed on its exposed face. This cross has expanded terminals (H 0.40m, Wth 0.35m, Healy 1961, 125, Price 1959, 165). There is a local tradition that it marks the spot where the body of a chimney sweep was found who had been caught in a snowstorm and had frozen to death. It is known as 'Sweep's Cross' (Swords, K. ed.2009, 109). Compiled by: Geraldine Stout and Padraig Clancy Uploaded on: 28 July 2018
is likely to date from the early medieval period, associated with Christian symbolism and possibly used as a waymarker or memorial. Such crosses often held spiritual significance and may be linked to local pilgrimage routes or territorial markers.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.

What survives
Recorded monument

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