Celtic High Cross (photo by Tourism Ireland)Celtic High Crosses are one of the most distinctive features of Celtic Christianity. You can see impressive examples of them scattered throughout Ireland and Scotland.
The pagan Celts greatly valued stones. They used them to create countless monuments—dolmens, passage graves, standing stones, and circles of monolithic slabs. And after Christianity came to Ireland, the Celts created High Crosses, tall monuments with symbolic carvings.
These High Crosses illustrate the genius of Celtic Christianity in blending the ancient traditions with the new. Credit for this goes in part to missionaries like St. Patrick, who had great respect for the older ways. He encouraged Druid priests to become Christian priests, for example, and often re-christened pagan holy sites as Christian ones. He constantly looked for ways to use native images and ideas to explain the features of the new religion.
The High Crosses are a wonderful visual symbol of this blending. Standing as high as twenty feet, these tall sentinels can be seen from long distances. They were often erected by monasteries, which became centers of learning and spirituality for the surrounding region. The sides of the crosses were often elaborately decorated with Biblical scenes, illustrations that helped tell the story of the new faith. These crosses announced, as the standing stones had done for pagan Ireland, that this was a holy place.
The design of the High Crosses revealed something as well. They feature the familiar vertical and horizontal bars of the cross, but they also include a circle. Scholars don’t know for certain why the Celts adopted this form, but they speculate that it perhaps incorporates earlier sacred imagery linked to the sun.
The circle may represent creation, the unity of all life, and the world of nature that the ancient Celts loved with such passion. The cross represents redemption and the power of Christ to overcome death. The Celtic Cross links these two powerful symbols into one.
In Ireland, the towns of Monasterboice, Clonmacnoise, and Kells have particularly fine examples of high crosses. Stand in front of these massive landmarks of stone, weathered now by many centuries of rain and sun and wind. I think you’ll sense that they still mark holy ground.
Main page for Celtic Christian Sites
Lori Erickson is one of America’s top travel writers specializing in spiritual journeys. She’s the author of the Near the Exit: Travels With the Not-So-Grim Reaper and Holy Rover: Journeys in Search of Mystery, Miracles, and God. Her website Spiritual Travels features holy sites around the world.
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