A number of our most popular tourist attractions have recently been embellished with informative plaques outlining the significance of each. We believe the information contained is of interest not just to tourists in situ but might indeed help to attract visitors from abroad.
(Newry Journal readers may be interested to note the extent to which the views of your author diverge from that expressed in the final phrase below!)
This is the legend reproduced from that beside Kilnasaggart Stone.
‘This tall granite pillar in the Edenappa townland marks the site of an early cemetery located on one of Ireland’s five great roads, the Slighe Midhlachra which ran from near Drogheda through the Moyry Pass into West Down and perhaps as far as Dunseverick in north Antrim.
Standing more than two metres high it is believed to be the earliest historically-dated inscribed stone in Ireland. A long inscription on the south-east face between two large crosses records the dedication of the place to ‘Ternoc son of Ceran Bic (the Little) under the patronage of Peter the Apostle. Ternoc’s death is recorded in the Annals at 714 or 716 and the pillar can therefore be dated to about 700 A.D.’
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