What is recorded here

You can still see the chisel marks on the crucifixion carved into a thin slab that once stood over a western doorway. The scene is small, barely larger than a person’s outstretched arms, yet it carries the whole weight of the church beside it. A craftsman worked that stone when Dunshaughlin was young, shaping sorrow and witness into something people could touch. The present building keeps the old slab safe, but the darker purpose belongs to the doorway it once guarded.

Within the present Church of Ireland church of St Seachnall or Secundus, on the site of the original church and its medieval successor (ME044-033002-). A Crucifixion scene (Wth 0.34m; H 0.32m) is carved in false relief over the lintel (dims 1.5m x 0.5-0.7m; T 0.15m) of a doorway (Wth 0.74m). This stone is a thin slab that would have been set upright over the outer face of the W doorway of a 10th or 11th century, pre-Romanesque church. It is not mentioned by Butler (1892, 16) writing c. 1749, and the circumstances of its discovery are not known. It is now kept in the present church for safe-keeping. Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 7 April, 2015

Likely dating to the early Christian period (5th–9th century), the stone sculpture may have had a liturgical or devotional function, reflecting the influence of Christian symbolism in a region with a long prehistoric and monastic tradition. No specific folklore is recorded for the site.

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