What is recorded here

Rathkeale’s lost market cross stood beside Main Street during weekly Thursday trading in the early seventeenth century. John Dowdall received the market grant, while ordinary people gathered beneath its shadow to sell, bargain and remember the town’s name. The cross has vanished, but it still lives in the rhythm of that day and the shape of the street where it once pointed upward.

The Urban Survey of Limerick recorded the following details about a market cross in the historic town (LI029-031001-) of Rathkeale; 'In the early seventeenth century Sir John Dowdall was granted a weekly market on Thursdays at "the high cross of Rathkeale" (Westropp 1906-7, 214). In the absence of a major cross-roads cutting through the town itself it must be assumed that this refers to a freestanding market cross. It is to be presumed that the weekly market occurred in Main Street but the square in front of the Court House may have been used at a later date. There is a Fair Green to the north of the town and the O.S. map notes a market place immediately east of the abbey (LI029-031006-). The latter is now gone and is a roadway leading to a new estate of houses' (Bradley et. al. 1989, 219). The precise location of this market cross within the historic town of Rathkeale has not been identified. The cross-roads annotated 'Holy-Cross' 810m to the NW of the town square on the 1838 ed. OS 6-inch map may mark the general location of this 'high cross'. Compiled by: Denis Power Revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 14 January 2019

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