What is recorded here

Graveslab in Baile Chláir is a broken tapering stone set in the chancel floor at Claregalway, joining two sibling slabs in the northwest corner. It belongs to the thirteenth or fourteenth century friary, where uninscribed cross-slabs marked buried lives beneath prayer. The stone is not decorative; it is a death edge, thin at the base and broader at the top, as if shaping the forgotten person into a place the living could still walk around.

Bradley and Dunne (1992, 58) noted 'at least five uninscribed cross-slabs of thirteenth/fourteenth century date' at the friary (GA070-035001-) in Claregalway. It is possibly that they are referring to a number of tapering graveslabs: see also GA070-035004- to GA070-035007-. This example is one of three set in the floor of the NW corner of the chancel (see also GA070-035004- and GA070-035005-). It consists of a tapering bevelled slab (L 1.44m; Wth 0.5m top; 0.38m bottom) that is set in the ground and is broken in two pieces. The following image has been uploaded: GA070-035003-_01.jpg Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 17 July 2018

Medieval Christian cross slab, 13th–14th century. Likely associated with a friary, reflecting the spread of monastic Christianity in medieval Ireland.

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