What is recorded here

A small, pocked fragment from Clonmacnoise still shows part of a cross arm and a looped terminal, the rest lost to time. It carries the letters BAI, perhaps the beginning of a name or prayer now broken beyond reading. The stone is thin, barely thirty centimetres tall, yet it preserves the kind of careful fret work and expanding shape that made these grave markers feel like doors rather than slabs.

Clonmacnoise grave-slab inventory (1992) number: CLN00408 Dimensions: H 0.315, W 0.244, T 0.04 Fragment of a triple outline expansional cross. Only part of an arm and semicircular terminal with looped ends and a fret pattern survive. Inscription: Part of an inscription 'BAI' Evidence of discovery: Macalister 1898-1905 Condition: Fragment, pock marking on the slab. National Monuments Service, Photo number: 81-227, 246. 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

A 9th- to 10th-century Christian cross-slab fragment, likely associated with the monastic site of Clonmacnoise; its decorative cross and fret patterns may symbolize spiritual protection or serve as a funerary marker.

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