Ardboe High Cross
Ardboe High Cross (Irish: Seanchrois Ard Bó) is a high cross and national monument located in Ardboe, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was the first high cross built in Ulster.
The cross stands at the entrance to a cemetery and a monastery and a church from the seventeenth century which was founded in 590 by Saint Colman. The monastery was destroyed by fire in the twelfth century. It is believed to have been erected in either the ninth or the tenth century. The name "Ard Boe" means "hill of the cow" it comes from a legend that the monastery of Ardboe was built from the milk of a magic cow out of Lough Neagh. and forms the only remaining part of an early monastery on the site. At around 18.5 feet (5.6 m), Ardboe High Cross is Northern Ireland's tallest cross. Although the head of the cross is damaged, it seems to be the only such cross in Northern Ireland to remain largely complete and original.
History of the cross
Around 590 AD, St Colman founded an abbey or monastery at Ardboe, on an elevated site overlooking Lough Neagh.
High cross
A high cross or standing cross (Irish: cros ard / ardchros,Scottish Gaelic: crois àrd / àrd-chrois, Welsh: croes uchel / croes eglwysig) is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors. These probably developed from earlier traditions using wood, perhaps with metalwork attachments, and earlier pagan Celtic memorial stones; the Pictish stones of Scotland may also have influenced the form. The earliest surviving examples seem to come from the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, which had been converted to Christianity by Irish missionaries; it remains unclear whether the form first developed in Ireland or Britain.
Their relief decoration is a mixture of religious figures and sections of decoration such as knotwork, interlace and in Britain vine-scrolls, all in the styles also found in Insular art in other media such as illuminated manuscripts and metalwork. They were probably normally painted, perhaps over a modelled layer of plaster; with the loss of paint and the effects of weathering the reliefs, in particular scenes crowded with small figures, are often now rather indistinct and hard to read.
High Cross
High Cross is the name of a number of locations in the United Kingdom:
Other
Ardboe
Coordinates: 54°37′23″N 6°30′50″W / 54.623°N 6.514°W / 54.623; -6.514
Ardboe (from Irish Ard Bó, meaning "height of the cows") is a small village and civil parish in the north east of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is near the western shore of Lough Neagh and lies within the Cookstown District Council area. It is also the name of the local civil parish, which is spelt as Arboe, which also incorporates Moortown.
Ardboe Development Association, which developed a small business park, and Ardboe Community Group are based in the village.
History
During the Second World War, in 1941, a RAF station was built in the townland of Kinrush in Ardboe. RAF Cluntoe was initially used by the Royal Air Force, but quickly handed over as a training station for the United States Army Air Forces, and by 1943, over 3,500 troops were stationed there. By 1946 the war was over and the Americans had left. The RAF kept the airfield ticking over and it was reopened in 1952 as a training station for pilots going to the Korean War. By 1955 it closed for good. Remains of the Cluntoe Airfield around Ardboe can still be seen.
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