What is recorded here

Inishkeel Island holds five cross-slabs, yet a sixth vanished after Henry Wheeler photographed it in 1932. That lost stone measured thirty centimetres across and carried an incised cross on one face, while three parallel grooves expanded into a possible interlaced cross on the other. It joined St Mary’s, St. Connell’s and a broken high cross inside a small graveyard reachable only when the tide pulled back. The slab is gone, but its shape remains preserved in Wheeler’s picture and the memory of the island’s crowded stone chamber.

Located within a graveyard (DG064-003001-) which encloses two medieval churches, St Mary’s (DG064-003002-) and St. Connell’s (DG064-003006-), a fragment of a high cross (DG064-003008-), four cross slabs (DG064-003004-; DG064-003005-; DG064-0030009-; DG064-003010-) and a graveslab (DG064-003007-). Another cross-slab (DG064-003003-) is now missing. This complex of monuments, a National Monument in state ownership (No. 658), is located on the E side of Inishkeel Island in good pasture land. This small island which lies in a sheltered spot c. 500m offshore is accessible on foot at low tide. This record refers to a cross-slab known to have been on Inishkeel in 1932, when it was photographed by Henry Wheeler. Its current whereabouts are unknown. It consisted of a broken slab, roughly square in shape (c. 0.3m by c. 0.3m; T c. 0.07m) with an incised cross with decorative expanded terminals on one face, and on the opposing face, a possible cross consisting of an interlace design expanding from three parallel grooves (Lacy et al. 1983, 271, plates 45 & 46). Compiled by: Jane O'Shaughnessy Date of upload: 6 March 2019

Likely dating to the early medieval period (7th–10th century), the Lost Inishkeel cross-slab is associated with a Christian burial site and may have served as a grave marker or commemorative monument, reflecting the spread of Christianity in western Ireland. Its cross design suggests a connection to monastic or ecclesiastical traditions, possibly linked to the nearby medieval churches.

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