What is recorded here

Inishcaltra is a small Clare island where a broken twelfth-century cross-slab still stands in the eastern half of the Saint’s graveyard. Its incomplete name, OR DO CHELLACH, points upward on the cross stem, while the loss of its lower part and the crude reuse of the stone as a mortar table suggest that even sacred things have been handled like ordinary material. The slab does not explain itself completely, but it keeps the island’s older certainty of death, memory and making visible.

Situated in the E half of the ‘Saint’s graveyard’ (CL029-009030-) on Inis Cealtra (8.93m from the N wall and 6.16m from the E wall). A cross-slab (L c. 1.93m; Wth 0.8m; T c. 0.07m) now in three pieces with some missing. Noted by Macalister (1916-17, 155, no. 41) as of ‘twelfth-century type’ with a Latin cross with rectangular expanding base, open at the bottom where it met the end of the slab. An incomplete inscription on the stem of the cross reading upwards reads ‘OR DO CHELLACH’. The slab was defaced previous to Macalister’s visit by being used as a table to mix mortar. (Okasha and Forsyth 2001, 65-7) Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 7 October 2015

Probably dating to the early medieval period (5th–11th century), the cross-slab likely served a Christian commemorative or liturgical function, associated with the monastic site of Inis Cealtra. Its fragmented state may reflect later iconoclastic damage or erosion.

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