Lesser Spotted Slabs

My search to find out what was unique about the Fassaroe Crosses on the Dublin-Wicklow border led me to the ‘Rathdown Slabs’ which share the same area and many of their unusual characteristics.

The fact that they are close together in the beautiful hilly area north of the Sugarloaf Mountain added to the outdoor experience. But the most memorable section was to Killegar.  I still feel I deserve a Boy Scouts medal for finding my way there on a scorching June day.

I spent an hour circling the locality looking for people who knew what and where Killegar is. Finally I was advised to ‘find a gap in the fence beyond the petrol station, follow the path inside, cross the stile, take a left, then a right, then a left and keep on straight up the hill’.  

When I did get there I was not surprise to find it deserted. It was surrounded by trees and a high wall and looked as though I was its first visitor in 2025.  I had to find a gap in the wall and navigate my way through half buried grave stones to get to the ruins of a church.    

At first I could not understand why the site was so highly regarded.  The weathered stones around me could have been crosses but they didn’t seem to be in any way special.  

Finally it dawned on me. The ‘Rathdown Slabs’ (as they are called) were hung on the shadowy walls of the church, for safety rather than display. Originally they would have laid over graves rather than stand on their own.

What struck me first was the number of holes gouged into them. Later I was to discover that these were the ’cup marks’ I had read about but had expected to see protruding cup-like from the stone rather than dug into it. Experts, with their specialised equipment, were able to detect more details: ‘concentric circles, centre band, herringbone band, radiator lines, vestigial crosses, semi-spiral, semi-circular loops’.

What was the origin and meaning of this assembly of symbols? There are two theories.  One sees a Viking influence. When the Vikings moved out of Dublin in the 10^th century more of them became Christians which led to a coming together of Irish Celtic and Viking Urnes designs in decorations and memorials. This happened not just in the Dublin-Wicklow area but eventually as far apart as Armagh, Lismore, Cork and the Cross of Cong.

The other theory is a survival of pre-Christian Celtic art. A few weeks after Killegar I visited some of the less-known megalithic tombs in Meath and encountered ‘cup marks’ again.  Why did they still have meaning for people living 4000 years apart?

There are as many questions as there is beautiful scenery on the Dublin/Wicklow border.