What is recorded here

No church in Ireland has a finer cross than this: a red-painted Latin mark cut into a slab that swells like a shoulder, then pinches to a knife-edge beneath. The lighthousemen brightened it, perhaps to help sailors find the coast or to make the divine visible through fog. Whatever they intended, they gave the cross a voice. It still speaks.

Described by Herity (1995, 97, No. 01) as follows: ‘Slab, over 72cm tall, 36.5cm in maximum width and 5cm in thickness, with rounded outline at head, bulging particularly on the right side, narrowing to a slender butt, the narrowing particularly dramatic on the right side beneath the markedly convex outline of the head. Placed slightly to left of centre within the expanded head on the broad south-east face is a Latin cross, 42cm tall and 28.5cm across the arms. The carving is in deeply cut, broad grooves which widen slightly where shaft and transom intersect to create a lozenge-shaped expansion at the centre of the head. The terminals at head and arms are simply rounded but that at the foot is given a triangular expansion, the lines of the stem converging slightly immediately above the expansion, as if to represent a small pedestal. The cross has been dramatically highlighted by the red paint applied by the lighthousemen. The slab stands within the oratory [DG089-018005-], set upright, oriented 240 west (30 degrees south of west), at the west end of the stone structure built against the north wall of the building.’ (Walsh 1983, 61 (E), Fig. 21, g, left) Compiled by: Paul Walsh Date of upload: 2 February 2014 Image DG089-018014-_01 (taken 21 July 1983): the cross-slab is on the left.

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