Graveslab in Gardens (kilkenny City By., St. Mary’s Par.)

Half of a limestone grave slab still stands in the gardens of St Francis' Abbey, its edge cut with a steep chamfer and a thin strip of cross-shaft barely visible. The missing half may have fallen into soil or been carried away during changes at the abbey, but the surviving piece keeps the shape of a burial marker that once stood complete. A person may have laid hands on that cross before the stone broke, and the gardens may have hidden the rest for centuries. What remains is small, sharp-edged and quiet, yet it still points to the lost half and the life marked beneath it.