Tara / Hill of Tara / Lismullen

Described in Roe (1968: 128) as a much damaged medieval baptismal font now [i.e., ca. 1968] inside St. Patrick's (C. of I.) in Tara; this basin is described as "octagonal with chamfered under panels" and so badly battered that "neither the original height nor the thickness of the rim can be determined"; the inner well is reported as round, with narrowing sides towards the bottom, but there is no mention of a drain in Roe, who relates that "on one of the upper panels are some letters or initials roughly scratched in"; these, Roe suggests, appear to be an attempt at representing Christ's monogram, "IHS", the sort that has a raised cross between the vertical bars of the letter H. Roe (ibid.) further informs that, although "this vessel is said to have been brought to the church from the gardens at Lismullen", where there was a pre-Reformation convent of nuns, she does not find it "grounds for the association of this vessel with the nunnery and therefore its place of origin remains unknown".