What is recorded here

A broken mica-schist cross-slab, only thirty-two centimetres across, lies dormant in an Athenry depot after emerging from a High Island trench beside a holy well. Its surviving head displays a band-cross with forked terminals, a central Greek cross, and four bosses marking the quadrants. The stone likely marked a sacred threshold before human care displaced it, preserving a fragment of older devotion now removed from the living landscape.

Found to the W of the holy well (GA021-026006-) on High Island during the course of digging a trench (Scally 2014, 51). Described by Fisher (2014, 217, no. 38, Fig. 7.6) as a broken cruciform cross-slab (H 0.32m; Wth 0.32m; T 0.06m) of mica-schist. Only the cross-head survives. One face is decorated and it bears a band-cross in low relief with a central roundel and forked terminals. There is a Greek cross within the roundel. Four bosses are visible, one in each quadrant. This cross-slab is now in the care of the OPW depot (Athenry depot, Co. Galway, see GA084-151024-). (White Marshall and Rourke 2000, 142, no. 3) Compiled by: Olive Alcock Date of upload: 20 November 2015

Likely dating to the early medieval period, the cross-slab may have been associated with Christian worship or memorial activity near the holy well. Its location and form suggest a connection to ecclesiastical or pilgrimage practices on High Island.

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