What is recorded here

Breaken fragments of Ardskeagh church still crowd its southeast corner, preserving a graveslab carved with a cross whose diagonal arms end in quatrefoils. That unusual shape echoes thirteenth-century Anglo-Norman funerary work, suggesting a dead person was remembered through proud, elaborate stone rather than plain forgetfulness. The slab now lies broken among other church remains, yet its crossing lines still reach outward like hands released from a body.

In the SE corner of Ardskeagh church (National Monuments no. 314). Among a number of architectural fragments is part of a decorated graveslab (L 0.75m; Wth 025 to 0.52m). It bears the carving of what was likely the shaft of a cross, with two arms placed at a diagonal angle, terminating into quatrefoils. This is a design similar to some 13th-century Anglo-Norman graveslabs found elsewhere (such as in Strade Dominican friary, see MA070-067010-), comprised of a foliated or bottonée cross, where the top, bottom and arms of the cross terminate in trefoils, and with two additional arms placed at a diagonal angle underneath the main arms of the cross, which may have been meant to represent Christ’s arms on the cross. Compiled by: Anne-Julie Lafaye

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