The Sign of the Cross: Irish High Crosses as Cultural Emblems

In 1853, a spectacular exhibition of arts and industry was held in a newly constructed glass and timber pavilion in the heart of Dublin, Ireland. Alongside galleries filled with the latest developments in machine technology and magnificent imported works of art was a hall devoted to Irish antiquities in which several massive stone crosses were on display. Known as "high crosses," these enormous artifacts-some of which were nearly twenty feet high-were transported to the capital from the places in the landscape that they, had inhabited for almost a millennium. Characterized by a ring encircling the intersection of their shafts and arms, they were also adorned with relief sculptures-including elaborately carved geometric designs as well as sophisticated figural compositions. The colossal effort of moving the crosses to Dublin proved to be worthwhile, for a flurry of scholarly and popular interest in their origins and significance ensued. In fact, the ringed cross was rapidly appropriated as a symbol of the country's venerable artistic heritage and cultural identity. In this dissertation, I have examined the roles of Irish high crosses within their cultural surroundings. My investigation of the history of scholarship on the topic as well as modern replicas of the objects frames a discussion of the crosses within their medieval contexts. Using an inter-disciplinary approach that combines evidence from archaeological excavations, written sources, and visual objects, I have demonstrated that the crosses at Clonmacnois, County Offaly and Tuam, County Galway include formal and iconographical elements that participate in the construction of their surrounding communities' collective identities. The work of anthropologists like Victor Turner and historians like Benedict Anderson has enriched my study of these unusual monuments' functions in the ritual and ideological lives of the people who created, used, and experienced them.