Graveslab, Carnew, Co. Wicklow
Co. Wicklow |
Tombs & Memorials
In the southern corner of a Church of Ireland graveyard in Carnew, County Wicklow, a granite slab stands upright that was almost certainly never meant to stand at all.
Originally recumbent, meaning it would have lain flat across or beside a grave, the stone has at some point been raised to a vertical position, changing its relationship with the ground and with the dead it once marked.
The slab is substantial: 1.2 metres tall, gently tapering from a base width of just under 40 centimetres to roughly half a metre at the top, and 24 centimetres thick. One face, the east-facing side, has been carefully dressed and carries a cross carved in relief, its arms splayed outward in a style associated with early medieval stonework in Ireland. The cross itself measures 44 centimetres high and just over 27 centimetres wide, occupying a considered portion of the face without overwhelming it. The west-facing side, by contrast, is left entirely undressed, raw granite with no ornament, as though the carver saw no reason to finish what no one was expected to see. That asymmetry is a small puzzle. Whether the stone was always intended to rest face-up above a burial, or whether its decorated side once faced a path or a church wall, is no longer possible to say with certainty. What remains is the cross itself, still legible after however many centuries, on a stone that has quietly outlasted whatever arrangement first gave it meaning.
