Lismore, St Moluags Cathedral

The probable site of the monastery founded by St Moluag (d.592) is marked by the medieval cathedral of Argyll, whose choir remains in use as the parish church. The possible outline of a curvilinear enclosure is indicated by surviving or recorded field-boundaries, but the principal early relic is the Bachall Mor or crosier of St Moluag, preserved by its hereditary keeper at Bachuil House.(i) The churchyard contains several late medieval graveslabs. Two fragments were identified in 1975 as belonging to that period or a later one, but re-examination in 1997 of these and a third unrecorded fragment indicated that they belonged to an early medieval cross-slab or cross-shaft.(ii)

All three fragments are of dark green chlorite-schist. The largest one (A), measures 1.89m by 0.60m and about 0.15m thick. One end is broken irregularly and the other appears to have been trimmed straight for its present use as a graveslab in the churchyard. The two smaller fragments (B, C), which had been trimmed for re-use in an 18th-century burial-aisle(iii) and are now in the church, measure respectively 0.40m by 0.24m and 0.40m by 0.22m. They are evidently adjacent surface-flakes from the large slab, and the key-ornament of their edges can be aligned with that of the latter.

Both faces of the slab are much damaged, but more ornament is visible on the surface-flakes of face (a), which had a 75mm interlaced margin (RA 504 and 601) with beaded edges. A transverse strip of the same width, with slight traces of interlace, defines two panels, one of which had a slightly-sunk inner frame bearing diagonal fluting. This encloses the remains of low-relief spiral-ornament with voluted trumpets and a large pelta. The other panel, which is even more fragmentary, may have included foliage-ornament. Most of the surface of face (c) is lost, but towards one end there is a length of diagonally-fluted moulding(iv) rising within a plain margin, and an adjacent tapering curved stem of uncertain character.

Both edges of the slab bear key-ornament, with a sunken central field. On one edge (d) this contains diagonal squares having vertical central bars. The raised margins bear an unusual crenellated motif with cruciform incisions, which changes to a pattern of alternate Ts (variant of RA 899). The centre of the other edge bears a simple fret of interlocking Ls springing from continuous bands (variant of RA 892), which at one end changes to a diagonal key-pattern (RA 927). The surviving margin bears a continuous small fret.

This incomplete monument has several unusual features, including the recessed edges, and it is uncertain whether it was a narrow cross-slab or a slab-like cross, although the latter is more likely. The division into panels, one of which has an inner margin, resembles the shaft of the Kilnave Cross, and the spiral-ornament is also consistent with an 8th-century date.

Footnotes:

(i) RCAHMS 1975, No.267; A Macdonald 1974, 47-57; OPS 1854, 163.

(ii) RCAHMS 1975, No.267 (13 and 14). The Commissioners are indebted to Mr N Robertson for indicating the probable date of the published fragments, and to Mr D Black for drawing attention to the third fragment (C).

(iii) Fragment (C) was built into the entrance jamb of 'the Ministers' Aisle', SW of the church, and (B), first recorded in the church, bears similar mortar and had been broken to the same length.

(iv) Cf. the cable-moulding on the W face of the Kildalton Cross, and the edge-ornament of the Nigg cross-slab.

I Fisher 2001.

For cathedral, see NM84SE 5.01.