What is recorded here

Clonmacnoise holds a broken cross-slab where a ring touches the beam, preserving a shape rather than a name. Davis found the fragment in 1984, and its small dimensions leave little room for pride or explanation. It may have marked an ordinary person, a forgotten child or a servant whose story never entered the great chronicles. The incomplete ring suggests that identity was not the point; remembrance itself was the shape being made.

Clonmacnoise grave-slab inventory (1992) number: CLN00522 Dimensions: H 0.205, W 0.105, T 0.04 Outline cross with median line (?), part of a single line ring (?). No inscription. Evidence of discovery: Davis 1984. Condition: Fragment with part of cross and ring.. The Clonmacnoise inventory was compiled by the Office of Public Works. A copy of the record for this slab is available for inspection in the relevant Archaeological Survey of Ireland (SMR) file. Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien. Date of upload: 23 May 2011

Likely dates to the early medieval period, associated with Christian monastic activity at Clonmacnoise. The cross symbol may have had a funerary or devotional function, common in Irish high crosses of the 7th to 10th centuries.

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