What is recorded here

Inchbofin is a small island in a large lake, yet it carried enough life to need a marked church and a cross tall enough to be seen from a distance. The cross is gone except for a narrow strip of stone about the width of a palm, saved from ordinary disposal and carried to Athenry. That much smaller fragment is not a failure of memory; it is the part that resisted forgetting.

Only a fragment survives of this cross-slab, which was found during ground-clearance works in the vicinity of the church (WM015-001----) on Inchbofin island on Lough Ree, Co. Westmeath. An illustration shows that it bears part of a D-shaped looped terminal of a three-line cross (Commissioners for Public Works 1913, Appendix E, Slab H). Crawford (1913, 329, 1. (g)) recorded that it was ‘1 ft. by 7 in [c. 0.3m by 0.17m]’ in size. It is currently kept in the OPW depot in Athenry. See WM015-001014- for its original location. Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 2 March 2023 Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland 1913 Eighty-first annual report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland with appendices for the year ending 31st March 1913. London. HMSO.

This fragment of a cross-slab likely dates to the early medieval period (7th–10th century) and may have originally served as a Christian memorial or ecclesiastical marker. Its association with a church site suggests a liturgical or commemorative function, though specific folklore or inscribed meaning is not recorded.

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