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Easter is the most important date in the Christian calendar, with Good Friday marking the Crucifixion and death of Jesus, while Easter Sunday celebrates his resurrection. For this reason, the cross is the main symbol of the Christian religion. When Christianity came to Ireland in the 5th century, the Celtic cross, featuring a circular ring around the arms and stem of a Latin cross, became a prominent symbol of Irish Christianity.
Richly carved high crosses began to appear in Ireland in the 9th century. One local example can be found in the graveyard of Donaghmore Parish Church, outside Newry. The name Donaghmore comes from the Irish “Domnach Mór”, meaning “great Sunday”. Place names incorporating Domnach are traditionally associated with St. Patrick and denote an important ecclesiastical site. St. Mac Erc is said to have founded the first church, becoming the first bishop of Donaghmore in the middle of the 5th century. Carved from Newry granite, the high cross is known as St. Mac Erc’s cross. Dating from the late 9th century, it is a composite of two crosses, pointing to the possibility that there may have been more than one cross on the site. According to tradition it was toppled in the 17th century, possibly by Cromwellian or Williamite forces, and the shaft broken into two pieces. Although the original site is unknown, it was re-erected in 1891 by the Rev. Joseph Davison Cowan, with the help of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club.
The cross is known as a scriptural cross and contains carvings of Biblical characters and scenes. Around a third of high crosses in Ireland are scriptural crosses and they were thought to be a means of teaching the Bible. The Donaghmore cross is notable for the number of carvings, especially of Old Testament images, of which there are believed to be seven, plus two New Testament images, which both appear at the head of the cross. Centuries of weathering have made it difficult to interpret and identify the images. However, scenes from the Book of Genesis can be found on the west face of the shaft, with Adam and Eve clearly identifiable, along with the Tree of Life. Above the tree are four fishes and Noah’s Ark.
The central theme of nearly all scriptural crosses is the Crucifixion, which is found on the west face of the head of the cross, where in good light, the figures of Christ and the two thieves can be seen. The ring of the cross surrounds this scene, leading to the theory that it represents the universe, with the Crucifixion seen as the most important event in history. On the east side, which is badly weathered and more difficult to see, is The Last Judgement.
While high crosses were sculpted out of stone, Celtic crosses were also inscribed onto stone. The Promise Stone, a stone slab featuring a carved cross was built into the wall of Campbell’s shop on Castle Street in Newry. When the shop was demolished in the 1960s, the stone was moved to its current location in the former premises of McCann’s Bakery, which is now Newry and Mourne Museum.
The stone was originally a grave slab dating from the 12th century and stones of this type frequently marked the graves of local dignitaries and important officials. The estimated age of this particular example suggests that it may have originally stood in the cemetery adjoining an earlier monastery at Newry prior to the foundation of the Cistercian abbey in 1153.
First mentioned in the Irish Annals in the year 957, the era of high cross production came to a close in the 12th century. The Gaelic revival in the late 19th and early 20th centuries saw the Celtic cross regain prominence as a symbol of Irish identity.
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