Slane

INFORMATION

FontID: 09256SLA
Church/Chapel: Parish Church of St. Patrick (R.C.) [originally from the medieval church on the hill]
Country Name: Republic of Ireland
Location: Meath / An Mhí, Leinster
Directions to Site: Located on the N51, 13 km NE of Navan, 15 km W of Drogheda
Font Location in Church: Reported ca. 1968 outside the new [18th-century] R.C. church
Century and Period: 12th - 16th century, Medieval
Listed in Wilde (1949: 159). Described in Roe (1968: 127) as the bowl of the original baptismal font from the medieval church of Slane, "a nicely finished octagonal vessel, chamfered gently below with a circular basin and a central drain, now blocked". Roe (ibid.) [after Wilde?] informs that the old medieval curch on the hill was abandoned ca. 1712 when a new parish church was built at a more convenient location in the village, and that the font must have remained there "until it was presented in the 19th century by the Marquess of Conyngham to the then new Catholic Church" [i.e., St. Parick's]. At the time of Roe's visit [ca. 1968] the font was placed "outside the church on a modern pedestal and has been provided with a cover".

MEDIUM AND MEASUREMENTS

Material: stone
Number of Pieces: two
Font Shape: octagonal (mounted)
Basin Interior Shape: round
Basin Exterior Shape: octagonal
Drainage Notes: [blocked]
Rim Thickness: 10 cm
Diameter (inside rim): 53.5 cm
Diameter (includes rim): 73.5 cm [calculated]
Basin Depth: 19.5 cm
Height of Basin Side: 24.2 cm
Basin Upper Panel Dimensions: 24.2 cm (high) x 28.5 (wide)
Basin Lower Panel Dimensions: 9 cm (high) x 27 tapering to 26 cm (wide)
Notes on Measurements: Roe (1968: 127)

LID INFORMATION

Date: modern
Notes: [cf. FontNotes]

REFERENCES

Wilde, W., Beauties of Boyne and Blackwater, [s.l.]: [s.n.], 1949