Irish Genius
Some Spared Stones of Ireland

 

Ahenny, North Cross, detail of shaft.
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enigmas of the irish crosses
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These pages are dedicated to the memory of my mother, Martha Weir, with whom I travelled and photographed so much.

 

 

The Baptism of Jesus, Broken Cross, Kells


ENIGMAS OF THE IRISH CROSSES

part two

Muiredeach's Cross at Monaster-boice has more surprises.
There is a strip of heads entwined with very Continental lion- or cat-headed snakes (right), suggesting some strangulation of the soul by evil. Above them, right under the South arm of the cross, are two Pictish-looking lying or fighting lions.
Snakes (never part of the Irish fauna) also form a knot, together with spheres, on one face.

Muiredeach's Cross

 

Interlace has always been a very popular design throughout the world but especially in Romanesque Europe. "Green Men" often sprout or spew interlaces of foliage, and foliage-interlace often symbolises the snares of base or animal desires.

There are plenty of examples on Pictish stones, and on Irish crosses, as at Tihilly (right), where the interlace is of beasts.

 

Tihilly.


Other interlacing beasts can be seen, affronted, at Clonmacnois (below) and, later, at Dysart O'Dea.

Clonmacnois broken cross-shaft.

They are probably as much decorative as symbolic.

Also at Clonmacnois the human interlace on the North cross adopts a rare form in a figure which paganists have identified as a squatting (possibly Satanic) Cernunnos, the Celtic horned god.

 

Dysart O'Dea, South side.

And what are we to make of the wonderfully-carved figure below, on the "Cross of the Scriptures" at Clonmacnois, featuring a shepherd playing pan-pipes, with cats at his feet and a cat licking itself ? Is it David the shepherd with lions prefiguring his ascent from bully-boy war-lord to monarch ?

Clonmacnois Cross of the Scriptures, North side.


On the East face of the South Cross at Monasterboice is a perfectly intelligible scene of the Last Judgment, with St Michael the Archangel weighing the souls below Christ in Majesty (bearing a symbol of Osiris as well as a cross!), on whose right hand the Saved rejoice with a harpist, while on his left the Damned are kicked into Hell by a devil. This is pure Romanesque and scenes like it occur all over Europe.

 

 

South Cross, Monasterboice.


But one figure is uninterpretable: the splay-legged, possibly female figure between Satan and his minion, which has in the past been thought rather far-fetchedly to be a sheela-na-gig. Does it represent the sins of the flesh for which the damned are going to suffer eternally ?


Base of North cross at Castledermot.

 

And what meaning has the frog - or bulldog - at Drumcliffe ?

Even more enigmatic is a sad figure on the North cross at Castledermot which is reminiscent of the bound Loki of Scandinavian myth or the Bound Satan of the Beatus manuscripts. His profile recalls "The Bishop's Stone" at Killadeas in Fermanagh. Does he represent Satan conquered or the sins of the world ? Why is he holding his legs ?

Is it a pit-bull terrier ?

Or this monster or wolf or boar at Donaghmore (Tyrone) ? It closely resembles a boar (or bear with bristles on its back) with a long tail curling between its legs on a Pictish slab at Gask in Perthshire.


If some enigmas are related to curious continental carvings or to Norse myth, others (like the "Cernunnos" figure) seem to be purely Irish or Pictish. For example: the strange processions that appear on cross-bases and, in one striking example, across the East face of one cross.



Here at Dromiskin (with the broken round tower or Irish campanile behind) is a line of animals and men: a horseman, a dog, a ?goat, a donkey carrying a headless corpse, a man carrying the head, and a figure with arms outstretched waiting to receive the head. This may seem to be a pagan ceremony - but is thought to represent the transportation of Goliath's body and severed head to King Saul. In any case, it recalls pre-Christian Celtic cults of the severed head .

 

 

The same theme occurs on the North Cross at Ahenny, though rather more crowded on the cross-base. Crows or ravens peck at the corpse. The dog with a curly tail (like that of mine) is particularly clear.


 

Other processions are less surprising, but nonetheless puzzling - such as this apparent hunting procession on the base of the Tower Cross at Kells.
In mediæval Christianity the hunted stag represented Christ...

Photo by Ian Thompson.

The Kells crosses have strong affinities with Pictish stones.


Horses feature also on the cross-base at Denn Glebe.

 

At Ahenny, on the opposite side to the headless-corpse procession, there is what seems to be almost a zoo scene (below right) which might be the herding of creatures towards Noah's Ark. But is more likely to be Adam (beneath the Tree of Wisdom) amongst the Beasts of the Garden of Eden, a scene which occurs in Romanesque contexts elsewhere, notably the cathedral tapestry at Girona in Catalonia.

On a third side of the Ahenny North Cross is what Peter Harbison interprets as Christ's mission to the Apostles - or an abbot with monks bearing croziers - which are not to be confused with Cain's cudgel, graphically shown (below) on the cross-shaft at Connor. The enigma here is who the third person may be.

Tower Cross, Kells.

...but on the Market Cross at Kells (left) is another procession which includes the centaur-sagittarius with a bird on its back. The centaur symbolised either man above the animal or man brought low by the beastly, but as sagittarius it represented Christ. The bird might represent the Holy Ghost...



 

The weapons shown on the top of the Ardane cross, however, might be the staves used for the Arrest of Christ, a common theme. This panel has also been interpreted as The Second Mocking of Christ, and even the Ascension. The embracing figures on the left are thought to be Judas kissing Jesus, while the scene on the right may be the First Mocking of Christ.


At Clogher there is a cross-shaped sundial (the back of which has a human figure) bearing familiar types of interlace - and a salmon. The salmon is one of the most important of magical beasts in Irish mythology: it symbolised knowledge and wisdom and was associated with the river Boyne. It also occurs on Pictish stones.

The Clogher sundial may be saying that both time and Christianity are wisdom.

 


Roscrea, North side of fragment.

In Ireland and Pictland, as also in Romanesque art in general (especially in far-flung and rustic locations) the iconology (meaning) seems unnecessarily obscure to us. At Roscrea, for example, the stag might represent Christ as sacrificed ruler of Creation, while the eagle-headed lion represents the triumph of Christianity.

Not an elephant, but an eagle-headed lion!

 

This apparently-puzzling scene on the cross at Old Kilcullen recalls the fragments at Moone (previous page), but is not static - it seems to represent a scene. It is David wrestling the lion - underneath which is a sheep!


As enigmatic as the motif with flanking beasts is that of wrestling or embracing figures. These might represent Jacob and the Angel or perhaps David embracing Absalom...either is possible. At Durrow (right) is either the Flight into Egypt (no room for the donkey) or Elizabeth carrying the infant John the Baptist with Zacharias indicating his dumbness, and below it, two wrestling or embracing figures which Peter Harbison suggests may be John the Baptist embracing Jesus in the Desert.

On the base of the South Cross at Castledermot (below), two figures seem to be pulling or holding an object: can it be the Judgment of Solomon without the King...? Peter Harbison, however, suggests The Kiss of Judas (as at Ardane, above).

On the Market Cross at Kells, the two figures are not kissing, though they might be embracing (David and Absalom ?... SS Paul the Hermit and Anthony ? ... Jesus and John the Baptist ?) Or are they wrestling (Jacob and the Angel) ?

...while at Lackagh in Tyrone is a fragment
with similar embracers - locally thought to be
a gravestone
for Siamese Twins.

 

Castledermot, North Cross, West Face

 

The two figures also occur in purely Romanesque contexts, as at Kilteel Church, county Kildare.

photo by Ian Thompson

 


The very worn cross at Downpatrick shows the usual Crucifixion on the E face,


and below it enigmatic groups of three which Peter Harbison suggests are scenes from the early life of the Virgin, the bottom one being an angel bringing bread to her in the Temple.

This cross has now been restored and placed within the Down County Museum, close to the cathedral.

By the time the last crosses in the series were erected, Ireland, like Europe, had left the comparative innocence of the Romanesque Era, with its emphasis on personal sin and redemption. In Europe, the very success of the monastic orders, especially the art-and-symbol-loving Benedictines, led to their decline in favour of cities and their bishops. Catholicism and its obsession with hierarchy, especially bishops, penetrated Ireland, largely due to St Malachy, and, later, to the Norman incursions from Wales which ended up as a hiccuping invasion of the Eastern seaboard of Ireland. This was 'justified' by the curious fact that Ireland was the only country in the history of Christendom to have had no martyrs, no recorded resistance to Christianity - but a plethora of dodgy saints such as Declan who floated from Wales to south-eastern Ireland on his tombstone, and Kevin who allowed a blackbird to build a nest and hatch out chicks in his outstretched hand.

And so the last 'High' Crosses of Ireland portrayed bishops - here, at Kilfenora (right) smugly overseeing the conquering of sin or heresy by two other ecclesiastics (with Tau-cross and crozier) in a strange scene of vengeance which still shows affinities with Pictish carvings, long after Pictland ceased to exist politically.

On the other side of this cross, Christ may be riding side-saddle to interlacing, ribbony glory (depicted on the head) above the rooves of Jerusalem, leaving Ireland (and Pictland) far behind.

Kilfenora.

Kilfenora.


 

With the coming of the English and the "High Middle Ages", the graphic arts of Ireland, with their verve and quirkiness, soon perished - never to be reborn. Erin, like other early-blossoming Christian entities such as Georgia, entered its Dark Age, from which it has even now only partly emerged.

 

Anthony Weir

 

 

<< Back to part One

 

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A wonderfully-composed hunting scene on a cross-shaft at Clonmacnois,
similar to some on Pictish slabs in Eastern Scotland.
This photo was taken in 1972: the carving has all but disappeared now,
and the same is true for all the unprotected crosses, cross-shafts, cross-pillars and cross-slabs
that are part of the heritage that the Irish despise.


click to see a remarkable and almost-unknown cross-shaft in Dublin city


 

Is this Romanesque capital a depiction of beatitude - or of beastliness ?
The doctrines of Judæo-Christianity (and Islam) make them into
violent opposites.


 

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