crosses historical ireland

The heads of two High Crosses have been mounted on modern shafts in a hill-top graveyard. Neither bears figure sculpture, but one bears a decorated boss at the centre of one face and encircled bossed ornament on the other....

It is noteworthy, not simply for its early Irish High Crosses, but for the manner of a masterpiece of restoration. The major beauty, the great High Cross, had been smashed and spread over the ground in an outrage of iconocilasm but the remnants were collected, chip by chip, splinter by splinter, and restored to today's stature by a blind man....

Standing in the pretty village of Tynan is a High Cross which, like so many of its kind in Ulster, consists of two fragments, originally separate, mounted on top of one another. The head-fragment, with a prominent boss at its centre, was cleverly restored in the 19th century. The lower fragment bears a panel of Adam and Eve on one face and what is possibly a representation of David among the Israelites on the other....

A focal point of the northern midlands where the provinces of Leinster, Ulster and Connaught all converge, Longford, where history and literature, tragedy and triumph are all woven together, takes its name from the ancient stronghold of the O'Farrell family (Long Fort - Fort of the O'Farrells). Bordered to the West by the majestic River Shannon, Longford is a county of rolling plains and picturesque stretches of water. The highest pint of the county, Cairn Hill, is only 279 m high, but from a...

The Churches:
The modern road runs through the area comprising the old monastery founded by the King of Leinster for St. Meadhog in the 6th century, and which was plundered by the Vikings in 930. In 1152 the ill-starred Dermot MacMurrough Kavanagh founded an Abbey, but it was burned down two years later. He rebuilt it in 1160 and handed it over to the Augustinians. Portions of this church still survive; they are the ruins furthermost from the road and can be recognised by the cha...

Lough Neagh has been described as a huge fish factory. It is the biggest lake in the British Isles, and it covers 153 square miles (400 km). Its uncanny similarity in size and shape to the Isle of Man gave rise to the legend that the mythical giant Fiann McCool scooped out a huge lump of earth and threw it into the Irish Sea - the lump of earth formed the Isle of Man, and the hole filled with water became Lough Neagh.

For the tout angler its main interest is the dollaghan, a unique...

West from Christ Church runs the ancient High Street of Dublin.

Here was situated the High Cross of the old Norman city from which government decrees, papal bulls and decrees of excommunication were read....

At Clones, the Presbyterian church (1854) is on left. The Church of Ireland church (1822) dominates the Diamond, the centrepiece of which is an excellent example of an early High Cross (9th or 10th century). Old Testament scenes are depicted on one side of the cross, while the reverse side illustrates New Testament stories....

In the cemetery is a late medieval church. the round-headed south window may have come from an earlier church on the same site. The trunk of a cross with a coat of arms and an inscription, put up in 1622 in memory of Florence Fitzpatrick and his wife, has been re-erected near the National School nearby....

The modern road cuts through a monastery founded by St Cronan who died between 600 and 620....