What is recorded here

No Aharla story completes without the lost cross-slab. O'Donovan measured it in 1839, a short throw from St. Kieran's chapel, and drew its forked terminals on a rectangular stone. It may have marked children's graves, but the mound and slab have slipped from the land, leaving only the danger of inventing what witnessing refused to keep.

Possibly located within the children’s burial ground (GA111-003001-) known locally as Aharla graveyard. This cross-slab was recorded by O'Donovan in 1839 as a 'Stone on a small mound, a musket shot to the north-east of St. Kieran’s chapel [GA111-002001-]' (O’Flanagan 1927, Vol. 3, 367 and facing p. 198). The accompanying sketch drawing indicates it was a roughly rectangular cross-slab bearing a two-line Latin cross with forked terminals. Crawford (1913, 155 (f)) incorrectly identified the slab as the broken upper fragment of the cross-inscribed pillar (GA111-003002-). Higgins (1987 vol. 2, 297, no. 26) suggests that the cross-slab was probably located in the children’s burial ground as there are similar cross-slabs (see GA111-003004- to GA111-003006- and GA110-003009-) here. However, despite a search of it and the children’ burial ground (GA111-002005-) c. 275m to the NW, the cross-slab remains unlocated. Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 3 May 2016

Probably dating to the early medieval period, this cross-slab may have had a Christian funerary or commemorative function, possibly associated with the nearby children’s burial ground. Local tradition and the presence of a cross suggest it could be linked to early monastic or cemetery practices in the area.

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