The OS map marks this sites as a Cross Pillar, but it's really a cross base. It isn't a very inspiring one at that. It is slender, about 1.2m tall and undecorated. Just down the road there are the remains of an abbey, but these too are very poor.
The reason I stopped by here was to take a look at the location. It was near to this cross base that the only piece of recorded rock-art from County Waterford was found. It now rests in a corridor in University College Cork. The decorated stone was found in the wall a few yards from the cross. The wall does look as if it was built from the nearby church ruins and it's interesting to think that the carved stone was once incorporated into one of the older church buildings.
As for the location, it's got quite a lot going for it. To roughly the southwest is a huge V-shaped notch in the Comeragh Mountains. Did the decorated stone originally mark this alignment?
This is an explanation of (and a bit of a disclaimer for) the coordinates I provide. Where a GPS figure is given this is the master for all other coordinates. According to my Garmin these are quite accurate. Where there is no GPS figure the 6 figure grid reference is master for the others. This may not be very accurate as it could have come from the OS maps and could have been read by eye. Consequently, all other cordinates are going to have inaccuracies. The calculation of Longitude and Latitude uses an algorithm that is not 100% accurate. The long/lat figures are used as a basis for calculating the UTM & ITM coordinates. Consequently, UTM & ITM coordinates are slightly out. UTM is a global coordinate system - Universal Transverse Mercator - that is at the core of the GPS system. ITM is the new coordinate system - Irish Transverse Mercator - that is more accurate and more GPS friendly than the Irish Grid Reference system. This will be used on the next generation of Irish OS maps. |