Cross — Tullaroan

In a private garden which forms a low-walled green area at the E side of the S road of Tullaroan crossroads. The decorated cross (KK018-008001-) is the most northerly of the two limestone crosses, the other (KK018-008002-) is located c. 3m to the S. Mason (1819, vol. 3, 609-10) describes the crosses as being, ‘About a quarter of a mile to the north of the church [Tullaroan medieval church KK018-032001-], at the cross roads in the village or hamlet of Tullaroan, two handsome stone crosses (represented in the annexed engravings), erected by the Grace family, are still to be seen, one having on the centre an alto relievo of our Lord, with a cloth round his waist, and on the shaft the mutilated remains of an inscription from which nothing can now be gathered. The other cross has also an alto relievo figure of the Virgin, or of some female saint, in long drapery. Of this latter cross a tradition prevails, that a French lady of high rank, who followed one of the Grace family from France, on finding he was married, built this cross as well to reproach his inconstancy, as to evince the piety of her resignation to disappointment’. According to the OS Letters (O’Flanagan 1930, vol. 1, 213-14) of 1839, at Lady’s Well, located c. 420m SE of the crossroads, ‘a Patron was held on the 15th of August till within a few years. This (a) patron was previously held at the old cross a little to the north still. This old cross remains, but broken in two parts, each standing (in) a pedestal, the lower part of the shaft measuring two feet eight inches [0.8m] in height and ten inches [[0.26m] in thickness; the top part measuring one foot eight inches [0.5m] in height and same thickness with the other. Part of one arm of the cross only remains. This portion of the cross has a rude and mutilated representation of the Crucifixion engraved in it’. The cross fragments described in the OS Letters appear to be the same as noted by Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 495-6) c. 80 years later, which suggests that the wayside crosses described by Mason where broken between 1819 and 1839. The most northerly cross is possibly the remains of that bearing the figure of a female in relief. Only the cross head (H 0.64m; Wth of centre 0.3) decorated on the present E face with the much worn figure, the long robes and feet of which are clearest, with the much eroded short S arm (H 0.2m; L 0.17m), survives. The cross head has been inserted into a roughly square limestone cross-base (H 0.2m; dims. 0.68m x 0.66m). Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 27 March 2017