What is recorded here
Graveslab stands inside the doorway of Clonfert Cathedral, a long tapering stone bearing a four-line cross with foliated extremities and a stepped base. It travelled from a nearby nunnery to this threshold, carrying an undecipherable inscription that still resists reading. The slab is not a display object but a displaced participant in the cathedral’s life, its unknown words preserved rather than solved.
Inside the doorway of Clonfert Cathedral (GA101-017001-). Described by Crawford (1913, 153 (d)) as a long tapering slab (L c. 1.67m; Wth c. 0.37-0.52m) bearing a four-line cross with an ‘expanded centre, foliated extremities, and stepped base.’ An inscription running in two lines on each side of the slab was undecipherable. It was originally located c. 250m to the SSW (see GA101-023001- for details) and was associated with a nunnery (GA101-023----). (O'Donovan 1927, 40)
Compiled by: Olive Alcock
Date of upload: 31 January 2023
Crawford, H.S. 1913 A descriptive list of early cross-slabs and pillars. (cont.) Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 43, 151-69, 261-5, 326-34.
O'Flanagan, Rev. M. (Compiler) 1927 Letters containing information relative to the antiquities of the county of Galway collected during the progress of the Ordnance Survey in 1839. Typescript in 3 vols. Bray.
Early Christian gravestone, 6th–8th century; associated with the monastic site of Clonfert. Its carved cross reflects Insular artistic traditions and the spread of Christianity in early medieval Ireland.
The monument record does not grant public access. Check the route and ask the landowner before entering private land.
- What survives
- Recorded monument
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