The High Cross of Clones

The Diamond, a name given to many market places throughout Ulster. It features several distinguished 19th century buildings.

 

 George Knight on The High Cross of Clones

It is also the location of a national treasure, the High Cross of Clones, which is made up of four different parts.

One Gabriel Beranger recorded seeing the cross here in his diary in 1779, though it was probably erected here several decades earlier. However, some of its parts are much older than that. Its base and shaft, which may date as far back as the 9th century, appear to have originally belonged together. The head belonged to a different cross and is believed to have originated from a slightly later period. The capstone on top, which features a cross-bones, is much more recent.

it was common for such crosses to be built near round towers, helping to mark the extent of the monastery, and it is likely that the cross belonged to the monastery founded in Clones by Saint Tighernach in the 6th century. It stands before the Church of Ireland Saint Tiernach's, which was built in the 1820s on the site of an earlier church.