School: Dromiskin (B.), Dundalk (roll number 837)

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1. Ancient Celtic Cross

   

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   Erected over the grave of the Lawless family of Darver is an ancient scultured cross of great antiquity. Only portion of the original cross remains - the two arms and centre-piece are complete but half of the head and the base are missing. Rev. Fr Lawless P. P. Kilcurry, Dundalk, erected it on a concrete base and has thus helped to preserve it for future generations - it had lain half buried for years previously and would probably have been completely lost were it not for his action.
   The history of this granite cross is naturally obsuce there being no inscription on it. General Stubbs a local archaeologist of fifty years ago wrote:-

   " - only the arms remain. It is said to have been brought from the seaside from a place known as Baltray (now Whitehouse in the townland of Dromiskin) where a monastery once stood. I cannot but think that the figures carved upoin it represent war or one arm and the chase of a deer on the other and that it was set up to mark the spot where King Aodh Finnliath was laid to rest. The cross was certainly not put up for an abbot and Hugh of the Fair Beard is the only very eminent warrior of whose death here we are told. What we know of him shows that his character was a devout one and a cross was the appropriate monument for him. I offered a reward for the other portions of the cross but unsuccessfully. It has for three or four generations been used as a headstone for a family named Lawless of Killencode, Darver. The Public Work's Department offered to set it up but nothing more than this fragment

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

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