What is recorded here

Half a dozen coffin-shaped slabs lie buried in the Dungarvan graveyard, each marked with crosses and hidden heads. One upright slab still shows a woman’s face in high relief, her hair flowing over her shoulders above a floreate cross. The thirteenth-century stone is worn smooth, yet the chamber cut along its top suggests it once covered a body rather than merely marking a grave.

Within the graveyard associated with the medieval church of Dungarvan (KK024-068002-). Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 418) noted within the graveyard, ‘about half-a-dozen coffin-shaped, uninscribed slabs, all with incised crosses, and some with carvings in relief of human heads’. One of these head-slabs is visible upright in the graveyard, partially embedded in the ground. It is described by Hunt (1974, vol. 1, 166) as, ‘carved in high relief with the head of a woman above a floreate cross. The hair hangs down over the shoulders…The stone is much worn and abraded. The date is thirteenth century’. It is a tapering slab with a chamber along the top. See attached photograph: KK024-068006-_10 Graveslab (Farrelly and O’Reilly, 7 July 1992) Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 29 April 2021

Medieval Christian burial slab, 9th–13th century. Its significance lies in its association with the medieval church and the presence of an incised cross, indicating early Christian funerary practice.

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