The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1913-10-25
LOURDEs IRISH CROSS
HOW 1T CAME TO BE CARVED
DESCRIPTION OF IRELAND'S
BEAUTIFUL MEMORIAL.

A beautiful standing memorial of
Irish devotion to the Blessed Virgin
is the Irish cross which has just been
unveiled near her hallowed shrine at
Lourdes.
The distinguished honor of being
commissioned to supply an Irish cross
for Lourdes fell to a Waterford stone
mason, Mr.. William Gaffney, says
"The Irish Catholic" of Dublin Some
years ago Mr.. Gaffney conceived the
idea of making a cross after the model
of the Great Cross at Monasterboice.
It was work of labor involving
thought and taste as we'll as time, and
some who are competent to judge
have pronounced this new Irish cross
as great as it's model, and as one
that has no equal in modern times.
Near the sacred shrine it will stand
for centuries to come as testimony
of Irish Catholic faith and the Irish
love for the Blessed Mother of God
The cross was not made for profit
or for human praise. For some years
of his life, as he humbly confesses,
the artist and maker of this Lourdes
cross was addicted to the vice of in
temperance vice that has de-
stroyed many gifted Irish mind and
body and soul-but having once taken
pledge he promised, if Mary would
help him to keep it, he would put
forth the best effort of his intellect
and his hands on work that should
live to show his gratitude to God and
to Mary. Since he made this promise
twelve years ago he is proud to pro-
claim, in humble thanksgiving to God
and to Mary, not a drop of intoxicat-
ing drink has ever passed his lips
Mr.. Gaffney has told the writer of this
notice that it was always during the
round of the Stations that he received
guidance when difficulties cropped UP
in depicting the numerous subjects
treated with such skill and Scriptural
correctness on the twenty-one panels
and crown of the cross.
No description of the work can con.
vey the impression it makes on one
who sees it. Sufficient to say here it
stands seventeen feet high from base
to cap. 1t was carved out of huge
block of Kilkenny limestone The
Fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary are
depicted in wonderful and harmonious
order on the panels, which are divided
and adorned by the distinctive Irish
interlacing, coils and spirals
the crushed head of the serpent
symbolic of the struggles of the
human race against it's Internal enemy
and the victory of the woman who
should triumph over him and of the
redeeming power of the Cross The
central object which first strikes the
eye of the beholder is the sad suffer.
ing figure of Our Redeemer crucified
Altogether the work is triumph OF
Irish genius and Irish industry and
skill. Mr.. Gaffney takes a great in.
terest in Irish monumental work and
has proved himself by this work a
worthy inheritor of the genius of the
great stone-artists of the centuries
when Ireland was renowned through.
out the civilized Christian world for
its high crosses and carving in stone
AS is fitting, the inscription on the
front panel of the base is in the Irish
language-the same wording is on the
back panel in French.
In English the inscription would
read:
An Humble Offering
From the Irish People
To Our Blessed Lady of Lourdes,
Irish Pilgrimage,
1913.