What is recorded here

Inchcleraun Island once held four cross-slabs, including this rough sandstone slab bearing a Celtic cross and the worn prayer “A Prayer For Laithb[er]tach.” It stood near The Women's Church, marking a place where devotion, memory and identity became visible in stone. The slab has since left the island and is kept at the OPW Athenry depot, yet the prayer still points back to the women, monks and forgotten lives who gave the island its shape.

Formerly located outside the ecclesiastical enclosure (LF021-048001-) on Inchcleraun Island, this cross-slab is one of four (see also LF021-048005-, LF021-048010- and LF021-048011-) now in the care of the OPW (Athenry depot, county Galway; see GA084-151002-). Bigger (1900, 80-81) recorded that it stood close to 'The Women's Church' (LF021-048007-) and described it as a rough slab of sandstone grit 'bearing incised on its surface a Celtic interlaced cross with remains of an Irish inscription.' It is an irregularly shaped slab (H 0.69m; Wth 0.55m; T 0.15m) decorated with a triple-lined, incised, double Latin cross with a central incised circle, containing a geometric pattern, and expanded D-shaped terminals, which also contain geometric patterns. Running parallel along both sides of the cross are the remains of an Irish inscription. Crawford (1913, 326) recorded one of these, which was in half uncial script and is now very worn and no longer decipherable, as 'OR DO LAITHB[ER]TACH'. This translates as 'A Prayer For Laithb[er]tach'. The second inscription reads 'B, ?, A, C, H', the second letter being too worn to decipher. (English 1971, 148; Ciuchini 2010, Stone B, 91, 102, fig. 5) Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 6 June 2013

Probably dating to the early medieval period (7th–10th centuries), this cross-slab likely served a Christian commemorative or liturgical function, associated with an early monastic or ecclesiastical site on the island. Such stones often carried religious symbols or inscriptions, reflecting the spread of Christianity in the region.

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