A Touch of Art

In case you don’t know Ossory, it was a buffer province on the Nore valley between Leinster and Munster from around the 1st century until the Norman Invasion. It covered most of modern Kilkenny county and half of Laois.

The reason I got to know this was because on my interest in Irish High Crosses, I found that the earliest examples are known as the ‘Ossory Group’. 

Five specific locations are mentioned and as I had been to Ahenny and Kilkiernan my next visit was to Killamery.

Its Irish name, Cill Lamri, means the Cell of Lamri but I could find no saint of that name.  The person who founded a monastery there in 639 was St Goban and in its time it housed a thousand monks.  That might be hard to believe today but it is still an impressive place with a ruined COI on the hill above the original community. It has a holy well and bullaun stones on the site but there is no trace of the original church or cell within the encircling walls.

The high crosses, of course, are the main attraction. The West Cross stands at 3.65 metres and its east face is decorated with three marigolds on the shaft. The central boss is surrounded by intertwining serpents with an open mouthed dragon above them. So it is known as the Snake-Dragon cross.

At the end of the southern arm of the cross there is a panel depicting Noah in the Ark and on the northern arm are four scenes centred on John the Baptist.  A worn inscription on the base reads 'OR DO MAELSECHNAILL' a prayer for Maelsechnaill, High King of Ireland from 846 to 862.

The western face has a sun swastika at the centre and a figure sculpture around the whorl. To the left is a hunting scene and to the right a chariot. How do they fit in?  

Obviously the Killamery crosses are more developed that those at Ahenny or Kilkieran. Human figures are beginning to creep in but they still dont have the pictorial detail of later ‘scriptural crosses’. Yet they remain the preferred model for the ‘typical Irish High Cross’ you see in tourist shops and graveyards.  Maybe their austere simplicity is seen as best representing the original Irish spirit. However I am beginning to suspect that these crosses are not as simple as they seem and it’s going to take me a while to uncover their secrets.