About:

Moone Celtic Cross in Co. Kildare is the site of the early Columban foundation – “Moin Cholum Cille.” You can see the tall slender Celtic Crosses at Monasterboice standing where the monks placed them.

The Cross of Moone was lost for centuries, buried and in pieces. In the middle of the 19th century, just after the Great Famine, a local mason, Michael O’Shaughnessy, was moving slabs of stone from the ruins of the abbey when he unearthed the base and head of the cross. Thankfully he recognized their importance, and they were set up near the place they were found at the south east of the ruined Abbey Church.

Years later when workmen were digging a grave in the grounds of the ruin, the shaft of the cross was uncovered. Later still, in 1893, the pieces were skillfully put together by three O’Shaughnessy brothers, sons of Michael O’Shaughnessy who first found parts of the cross forty years before and lived to see the cross erected.

The Cross of Moone probably dates from the early 9th Century. It appears to be in the tradition of the midland crosses, the prototypes of the great crosses carved and erected in the Northern Province in the latter part of the 9th century and the early 10th century. It has the ringed head which we all associate with Celtic Crosses.

In the Crucifixion scene on the base, the figure is draped but, unusually, the spear is shown piercing Out Lord’s right side. The cross, which is made of granite, probably from Castledermot, also has intricate Celtic curvilinear and geometric designs, as well as rough-hewn and stylized human figures. Scholars say that it is the first cross on which scenes from the Old Testament occur in a regular program, an important development in the history of Irish High Crosses.

The exquisite overall proportions of the Cross of Moone proclaim its maker a man of outstanding visual artistry.