We use cookies to improve your experience, some are essential for the operation of this site.

Inch

Location
(54°20′12″N, 5°43′47″W)
Inch
J 477 455
pre-1973 traditional (Ulster) Down
now Down
medieval not confirmed
  • Hazel Gardiner
10 Aug 1998

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=14575.

Find out how to cite the CRSBI website here.

Feature Sets
Description

The chevron fragment was discovered among later material in the stone store at Inch Abbey. The original find circumstances are unknown.

History

Inis Cumhscraigh, a pre-Norman monastery, slightly north of a Cistercian foundation (Hamlin 1977, 85), appears to have functioned into the 12thc. The Cistercian abbey was founded in the 1180s by John de Courcey as a daughter house of Furness in Cumbria.

The fragment is now stored at the DOENI (Department of the Environment Northern Ireland) stone store at Castlewellan.

Features

Loose Sculpture

Comments/Opinions

The fragment probably came from a doorway. Beaded, lateral centripetal chevron is found at Kilmore (Cavan), Mona Incha (Tipperary) and the Nun’s Church, Clonmacnoise (Offaly).

An image of the jambstone is included in Hamlin's article (pl.8a), and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Ulster Archaeological Society.

Bibliography

DOENI, Historic Monuments of Northern Ireland, Belfast, 1987, 103.

A. Gwynn and R. N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: Ireland, Dublin, 1970, 37, 122.

HMSO Archaeological Survey of County Down, Belfast, 1966, 279–81.

A. Hamlin, ‘A Recently Discovered Enclosure at Inch Abbey, Co. Down’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 40 (1977), 85–88.

J. P. Mallory and T. E. McNeill, The Archaeology of Ulster, Belfast, 1991, 244.