Dingle

A Lost Cross-Inscribed Stone – Found Again!

An exciting discovery by Robert has led us on yet another journey – this time to the Dingle Peninsula in the Early Medieval period. But the journey started in Adare Manor and I don’t think it’s finished yet. Let me explain…

Our Christmas present to each other was a two night stay in Adare Manor – a favourite place full of history. Robert has written about a previous stay there when he was overwhelmed by the Gothic architecture and I wrote about our falconry experience. This time, we spent much time wandering the extensive and beautiful grounds. There’s a small grove of trees between the house and the golf club and this is where the Adare Manor collection of Ogham stones are located. These fine examples of Ogham, all of which came from Co Kerry originally, have been located at the Manor since the early nineteenth century. In recent years the grove has been cleaned up (older photos show it to have been quite overgrown and brambly) and the stones themselves have been straightened and cleaned. (Read more about Ogham in this post from a few years ago by Robert.)

Robert spotted a flat slab lying in the ground among the stones. He has developed a keen eye for anything resembling a carving (remember his find at Inish Beg?) and called me over to look more closely. We took several photographs, trying to get the best light to show up the carvings – a difficult task underneath the trees. It was obviously something, and vaguely reminiscent of Early Medieval (or Early Christian as it used to be called) carvings we had seen elsewhere, but odd and indistinct.

Noting that there was no record of anything except Ogham stones at this location in the National Monuments inventory, I sent photographs to Chris Corlett, an archaeologist with the National Monuments Service and an authority on the Early Medieval period. He responded that he was pretty certain it was from that period and forwarded the correspondence to Caimin O’Brien, the NM archaeologist with responsibility for Limerick. That’s where we started to get some answers. Caimin immediately recognised the carving from an 1865 book!

The book is Memorials of Adare Manor by Caroline, Countess of Dunraven (it’s available online at that amazing resource, archive.org). Caimin sent me a screen print, from which it was obvious that this was the same stone. The Dunravens, like many educated people in the nineteenth century, were interested in antiquities of all sorts. They are referenced here and there as ‘rescuing’ ancient artefacts and stones from damage, and Lady Dunraven goes to some pains to explain that none of the pieces that ended up in the museum at Adare Manor were in situ when they were acquired.

Four cross-inscribed stones are described in the book, all of which came from the Dingle Peninsula in West Kerry, or Corca Dhuibhne, from the area around Ballyferriter, west of Dingle. It’s an area that is unusually rich in Early Medieval sites – Reask, Gallarus and Kilmalkader are only three of the well known monastic ruins. Of those four stones, three are now back in West Kerry and on display. Until we found it, however, nobody had any idea what had happened to the fourth stone!

Imaged above and below are the cross-inscribed pillar that came from Reask in the early 1800s – and returned there in the 1970s

The late Tom Fanning excavated the Reask site (Riasc, in Irish) in the 70s and it is now a monument in state care, carefully reconstructed to suggest what an early monastic site would have looked like. One of the Adare stones had come from Reask and it was sent back to the reconstructed site “. . .through the kind offices of Lord and Lady Dunraven.” My photographs are below, but if you want to see it in 3D, click here.

A group of Americans were enacted some kind of ritual at the Reask monastic site when I was there. There was a lot of shouting about darkness and light and and dancing in a circle

Two others of the original four also arrived back in West Kerry and are both now at the Músaem Corca Dhuibhne in Ballyferriter, under the knowledgeable care of Isabel Bennett, the curator, pictured below with the second cross-inscribed stone). I am assuming that the stones were returned at the same time as the pillar now at Reask. Isabel has poured over all the available documentation but, like me, she can’t quite figure out when or why the transfers were made.

The more elaborate of the two came from Reask, but may have been considered too worn to be displayed outdoors. I give Lady Dunraven’s drawing below (although I am not sure who actually did the drawings – it may have been our old friend George Victor du Noyer). You can view a 3d rendering here.

The smallest of the stones (below) is triangular in shape and came originally from the townland of Killvickadownig, a few kilometres south of Reask, near Ventry. There’s a faint carving of a cross on the back, but the front bears a lovely four-armed cross with curled ends. The stone appears to have been detached or broken off from something else.

But our piece, the Adare Manor cross-inscribed stone, where did it come from and why is it, alone of the four, still at Adare? Well, it appears from Lady Dunraven’s account that the stone came from Ballydavid (Baile Daith), not too far from the other stones, and ‘close to a ringfort.’ Caimin has now uploaded the record (screenshot below) with a provisional original location near the only ringfort in Ballydavid, but noting of course that the stone is located in Adare Manor.

I can find no explanation as to why this stone was left at Adare Manor when the others were moved. It seems that the Reask pillar was located among the Ogham stones also, while the other two may have been indoors. Perhaps our Ballydavid slab was covered in moss and brambles to the extent that it was simply overlooked. Whatever the reason, I am glad to have been part of the rediscovery of this curious stone. I never cease to be amazed at the variety of forms these early cross slabs take, and this one is certainly unusual. While a cross shape forms the upper core of the carving, the central part reminds me of the monks’ habits that you see on occasional high crosses, such as the ones at Kilfenora. But what about all those squiggles at the bottom? I can make no sense of them.

Nick Hogan of the Dept of Archaeology at University College Cork had graciously taken the images I sent and turned them into a 3D rendering: the image below is a still from that process. My photogrammetry skills need refining but he still managed to create an image that is clearer than any photograph.

A close-up of the carved area. The grid at bottom left is part of a scale-arrow

There are still unanswered questions in this story, but the biggest unanswered question – Where is the fourth stone? – has at least been answered.

Still from a 3D render of the cross-inscribed stone

It’s been a fascinating bit of detective work to piece the story together and many people have contributed their expertise generously, particularly Chris Corlett, Caimin O’Brien, Nick Hogan and Isabel Bennet, while Sarah Ormston of the Adare Manor Hotel facilitated our access to the slab for recording purposes. Our thanks to all of them.

The Nativity – by Harry Clarke and His Studio

Images of the nativity are a special part of Christmas in Ireland – as witness the proliferation of Christmas cribs in every town and in half the shopfronts. In West Cork (and not too far away in Dingle) we are particularly fortunate to have examples of nativity images in stained glass by the famous Harry Clarke, and by the Studios that bore his name, including this one (above and below) in St Barrahane’s Church of Ireland, in Castletownshend.

We have mentioned Harry Clarke, Ireland’s most renowned stained glass artist, in several posts before, and no doubt will come back to him again – his gorgeous windows repay multiple visits. In going through the many photographs I have taken I realised that Harry Clarke, at least in the windows I have visited here in the south west, concentrated on only two representations of the Christmas story – the visit of the Magi (below), and the flight into Egypt.

His focus on the the visitation of the Three Kings, traditionally celebrated on January 6th, is poignant, for it was on that day that Harry Clarke died in 1931, after a long battle with tuberculosis. He was, like the Magi, travelling at the time, in a vain attempt to get home from a sanatorium in Switzerland. He was only 41.

On a visit to Dingle we were lucky to find the Díseart Centre of Irish Spirituality and Culture open and to be able to view the magnificent windows in a tiny church previously only open to the nuns of the enclosed Presentation order. One of the windows (above and below) was devoted to the nativity – once again, the Magi scene.

Clarke scholars will only assign a window as a true ‘Harry Clarke’ if it was designed and executed by him or under his close supervision. His studios carried on after his death and windows made at that time are labelled ‘Harry Clarke Studio’ windows. While the Castletownshend and Dingle windows are undisputedly Harry Clarkes, there is a differences of opinion about the ones in Timoleague. When the Timoleague church celebrated its centenary, the Southern Star ran a story with this entry:

Pride of place in the church must go to the beautiful Harry Clarke windows at the back of the church as you exit. Harry Clarke achieved fame for his unique style, his incredible use of colour, his decorative designs and the beautiful medieval-styled figures that have rarely found an equal in the medium of stained glass. These windows were put in place in 1929/’30 and were among the last to be made by Clarke who died in 1931. The windows were in memory of Rev Fr Timothy O’Hea PP (1912-1929) by the parishioners and by his successor as parish priest, Rev Fr  Jeremiah O’Driscoll (1929-’49).

However, these windows are not identified as Harry Clarkes in Nicola Gordon Bowe‘s authoritative book, implying that these are Harry Clarke Studio windows. They are certainly ‘in the Clarke style’, and very striking. Recent scholarship, in fact, has revealed that these windows were a collaborative effort between Richard King and William Dowling, both stained glass masters in their own right, working at the studios to complete orders while Harry was in the Swiss sanatorium.

The Kilcoe Church of the Most Holy Rosary has a stained glass rose window over the entrance. A sign states that it was made by Harry Clarke Stained Glass Ltd (the Studios), designed by T Clarke and installed in 1943. T Clarke, was Terence Clarke, Harry’s nephew, the son of his brother Walter. Like Timoleague, it is also in the Clarke ‘style,’ and although it certainly does not compare to Harry Clarke’s own work, it is beautiful in its own right and expertly done. One of the small windows of the rose depicts the flight into Egypt.