What is recorded here

Cross-slab stands in Raheen, County Galway, having travelled from a High Island graveyard where it marked the oldest buried body known there. Carved from dark garnet mica-schist, it shows an expansional cross whose notched roundel hides a smaller linear cross, suggesting one faith layered upon another. The stone may have been reused, yet it still points toward the dead beneath the island and the hands that shaped it before memory faded.

Originally located in the graveyard (GA021-026026-) on High Island (see GA021-026042-). Recorded by Fisher (2014, 206, no. 11, Fig. 7.2), this tapering garnet mica-schist cross-slab (H 0.62m; Wth 0.39m; T 0.06m) formed the footstone of Grave 5, which contained the earliest skeletal remains on site, dating from the late 9th to the late 10th century. The slab was found in situ but is probably reused. Only its E face is decorated. It bears an expansional cross in relief with a raised central roundel and roughly D-shaped terminals. Incised grooves in the upper and lower terminals and horizontal bars in the side terminals are suggestive of an anthropomorphic figure. The roundel is notched at the angles to form an equal-armed cross with expanded arms and a linear cross is superimposed on this. A replica cross-slab has been placed on site. (White Marshall and Rourke 2000, 152-3, no. 20) Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 19 November 2015

This cross-slab likely dates to the early medieval period, associated with Christian burial practices. It may have originally marked a grave or served as a memorial within a monastic or ecclesiastical context.

The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.