What is recorded here

Graveslab in Athenry buries Thomas Tanian and his posterity beneath the Dominican crossing tower, marking a smith’s bloodline with bellows, pincers, an anvil, a horseshoe and a hook beside a long-stemmed cross. Dated 1682, the broken stone still smells of hot iron and breathes like a furnace chamber, inviting people to imagine Tanian striking jars, ploughs or church fittings while children watched sparks fly. Its tools turn death into craft, as if making things could continue even after the maker stopped.

Under the crossing tower of the Dominican church (GA084-001014-), close to its SW pier. This broken rectangular graveslab (surviving L 1.39m; Wth 0.89m; T 0.12m) bears ‘a cross pattée, with long stem, and a number of smith’s tools’ (Macalister 1913, 214, XIII, 219, Pl. IX, No. 13). Two bellows are visible on the dexter side, and on the sinister side there is an augur, pincers, anvil, horseshoe, and a hook-shaped object’. It is dated 1682 and an inscription at the top of the slab and sinister edge reads: ‘FOR THE VSE OF THOMAS TANIAN AND HIS (POSTERITY)’ (ibid.). (Bradley and Dunne 1992, 37) The following images have been uploaded: GA084-001051-_01.jpg GA084-001051-_02.jpg Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 12 November 2018

Medieval Christian graveslab, 13th–15th century. Its location within a Dominican church and the presence of a cross pattée indicate its ecclesiastical and funerary significance, reflecting the religious practices of the period.

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