Overview
The reason to stop in Moone is a single slab of granite. The high cross stands over five metres tall in the ruins of an old monastery about a kilometre west of the village, and it’s carved in a flat, blocky style unlike the dense interlace on most Irish high crosses – stick-limbed figures you can actually read, panel by panel, a thousand years on. County Kildare has no shortage of ruins you have to squint at; the point of this one is that you don’t.
The village itself is small: a shop, a national school, and the Moone High Cross Inn on the main street. Most people come, see the cross, and move on, and that’s a fair use of an hour.
The high cross
Carved from a single block of granite, probably in the 8th century, the cross stands about 5.3 metres (17 ft) tall, among the tallest and best-preserved in Ireland. It spent centuries buried in the graveyard: two sections were dug up in 1835 and re-erected at the expense of Charles FitzGerald, Duke of Leinster, and a missing middle section turned up in 1893 and was fitted back into place. A glass roof was added in recent years to keep the weather off the carving, which is why the panels are still sharp.
And the panels are the whole point. The shaft carries Daniel in the lions’ den, the three youths in the fiery furnace, the loaves and fishes, and Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac, worked in a pared-down, almost cartoonish hand. Older symbols sit alongside them – a spiral sun, a lozenge pattern – left over from pre-Christian carving. The base is the best bit: twelve stubby apostles lined up in three rows of four beneath a crucifixion, each one a blunt little figure. In a time when almost nobody could read, this was scripture you could see. Fragments of a second, unfinished cross lie nearby in the enclosure.
History
The ground here has been religious for a very long time. The name Maen Colmcille means ‘Colmcille’s property’, and tradition puts an early Christian foundation on the site, later tied to St Colmcille. Franciscan friars were here by the early 1300s, rebuilding the church, until the Reformation closed the monastery and left it to fall quiet.
The village and around
Moone is a stop on the Kildare Monastic Trail, a self-guided run of the county’s round towers, high crosses and monasteries – pick up the leaflet locally to string a few together in a day. Around the village, the farmland and the River Greese give quiet walking, and the Cistercian ruins of Bolton Abbey lie out among the fields nearby.
Getting there
- By car: Moone is off the old N9, about 45 km south of Dublin, signposted to the cross.
- By bus: Kildare Local Link route 880 serves Moone, with several buses a day linking Castledermot, Carlow, Naas and nearby villages.
- Parking: This is the catch. There’s room for only two or three cars near the Moone High Cross Inn, so come early or take the bus.
- Access: The cross is a kilometre west of the village down a minor road; look for the plain wooden door in a stone wall – it’s easy to drive past. Entry is free, any time of year, and description boards explain each panel.
Park by the inn, find the door in the wall, and give the cross a proper twenty minutes with the boards – you’ll come away able to read the carvings rather than just photograph them. Pair it with Kildare town or the Irish National Stud if you want a fuller day.