County: Offaly Site name: CLONMACNOISE
Sites and Monuments Record No.: N/A Licence number: 93E0086
Author: Heather A. King
Site type: Cross - High cross
Period/Dating: Undetermined
ITM: E 601050m, N 730827m
Latitude, Longitude (decimal degrees): 53.327700, -7.984228
Deteriorating environmental conditions influenced the Office of Public Works into taking the three High Crosses at Clonmacnoise into the New Visitors' Centre. The Cross of the Scriptures and the South Cross were moved in 1991 and 1992 (Archaeology Ireland 1992, No. 4, 22-23) and the North Cross was moved in the Summer of 1993. As part of this programme of relocation and conservation it was decided that the sites of the three crosses should be investigated. Preliminary work was carried out at the site of the North Cross by Con Manning in 1990 and published in Archaeology Ireland 1992, No. 2, 8-9.
The work in 1990, in a small cutting 2.5m sq., had revealed that the base of the North Cross was a mill-stone and that it lay 0.16-0.2m below the present ground surface. Continuing the excavation in 1993 the cross was lifted out of the cutting and immediately under the centre of the base two stones were found lying on top of one another in a sandy/gravel matrix. Both were undecorated although one was pillow shaped (plano-convex) and had a small man-made depression cut into the centre of the flat side.
The cutting was dug to a depth of 2.2m and revealed extensive evidence of burial both around and under the cross. The natural sands/gravels of the esker were located at just over 1m while burials had been inserted to a maximum depth of 2.15m. It was clear that relatively modern burials had been inserted on all sides of the cross to a depth of 1.2m but there may be some evidence for pre-17th-century burials below this. Two burials (B.9 and B.14) were recovered from underneath the cross base. An examination of the human bone was undertaken by Laureen Buckley who recorded a minimum number of 23 individuals. Her findings, despite the small sample, suggest that the in situ burials are probably post-medieval while some of the disarticulated remains may be medieval or earlier. Interestingly she was able to suggest that B.9 and B.14 were probably of the same family as they both had a congenital fusion of two cervical vertebrae.
The North Cross is unenclosed today but was located at the east end of a rectangular structure labelled 'Two buryal places of the family of the Malones' on a drawing in Harris' edition of Ware dated 1738. The foundations of this burial chapel were located by Liam de Paor in the 1950s and again this year. They lie c. 0.2m under the present ground surface and c. 1.1m east of the North Cross.
Pending C14 dates it is the contention at present that the North Cross was moved to its present position some time after the interment of Burials 9 and 14 and before 1738. It is possible that the Malone family placed the cross over two of their members where it would have stood with its undecorated side against the east wall of their burial chapel.
The finds were mainly coffin and burial furnishings although four fragments of Early Christian cross slabs were recovered.
Skidoo, Ballyboughal, Co. Dublin
