Seir Kieran Cross-Slab (OF039-003014-)

3D Model

Saighir Chiaráin (Seir Kieran) monastery (OF039-003001-) founded by St. Kieran (Ciarán) the elder in the fifth century. 9th-century sandstone cross-slab lying on the surface of the graveyard a few meters to the east of the base of the high cross (OF039-003002-) & to the north of a second early-Christian cross-slab (OF039-003015-). Cross-slab (dims. 1.68m x 0.66m x 0.1m) described by Henry Crawford in 1913 as ‘a slab of irregular shape, incised with a six-line cross, having the centre a circle, and the ends three-quarter circles. At the sinister sides are the traces of an inscription ‘or do cherball’. Described by Macalister in 1949 as ‘one of sandstone, recumbent west of the church, a Latin seven-line cross with a circular expansion at the centre and fantastically varied expansions at the terminals’ (Macalister 1949, 39). The Goidelic inscription reads O~R~DOCHERBALL which can be expanded to ‘OROIT DO CHERBALL’ or ‘Pray for Cerball’, son of Dúngal & king of Osraige (Ossory) who died in the year 888 AD.