16. SVT Cross of Cong

Apr 06, 2022, 04:36 PM

According to Irish annals, supported by the inscriptions on the cross itself (which refer to known historical personages), the cross was made in County Roscommon. In the annals, the cross is sometimes called in the Irish language "an Bacall Buidhe", which translates as "the yellow staff" — a reference to its golden colour. The cross was commissioned by King Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair.

In A.D. 1123, according to the Irish annals, a small piece of the purported True Cross arrived in Ireland and was enshrined at Roscommon.[n 2] The cross then appears to have moved to Tuam. At an early date, probably in the mid-12th century, the cross was moved from Tuam to Cong Abbey, an abbey founded by the Augustinians on a much earlier Christian site. In later centuries, the exact location of the cross in the Cong area is uncertain but it appears to have been hidden by locals and ecclesiastics in their homes because of religious persecution against Catholics, which reached its peak in Ireland under the penal laws.