What is recorded here

Castlekeeran still holds a broken sandstone slab where a sharp-crossed altar may have stood before the church fell. Its double-lined frame and expanded arms survive, but one end has vanished, leaving the design incomplete and the purpose uncertain. The graveyard keeps that much of Chiaran's place: a cross, a loss, and the shape of what is no longer there.

Within the graveyard (ME016-006007-) of Diseart Chiaran churhc site (ME016-006----). A large sandstone cross-slab has a cross with expanded terminals defined by two incised double-lines within an incised frame (O'Connell 1957, 25). One end of the slab is missing (max. surviving H 1.27m; Wth 0.55-0.61m; T 6-7cm), and it may have been an altar-front rather than a cross-slab. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 6 June 2014 Updated: 03 November 2025

Dated to the early medieval period, likely 8th to 10th century AD, the cross-slab may have served a Christian commemorative or liturgical function, associated with the nearby Diseart Chiaran monastic site. Such cross-slabs often carried symbolic Christian iconography and may have been linked to local saints or important figures.

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