What is recorded here

Unknown Townland in County Dublin holds a broken sandstone cross recovered from Lemanaghan, where Manchán founded a monastery in the 7th century. Its stepped base and false-relief cross suggest worship, marking, or mourning rather than ordinary decoration. The fragment left the place and entered a museum, but the townland keeps the loss: a Christian life once shaped stone there, and the stone still points back.

A monastery at Lemanaghan (Liath Manchán) was founded in the 7th century by Manchán whose feastday is celebrated on the 24th of January (Ó Riain 2011, 429). Fragment of an early Christian sandstone cross-slab with rounded edge bearing the lower part or base of a cross carved in false relief with what appears to be a stepped base. Recovered from Lemanaghan by Con Manning and now housed in the National Museum of Ireland. Cross-reference with OF015-004034- See attached photograph courtesy of Ed Bourke Compiled by: Caimin O’Brien Date of upload: 29 March 2023

Likely dating to the early Christian period (7th–9th century), this cross-slab may have originated from the monastery at Lemanaghan associated with Saint Manchán. Such slabs were often used as grave markers or commemorative monuments, and their cross designs reflect both Christian symbolism and Insular artistic traditions.

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