Ahenny sits close to the border between counties Tipperary and Kilkenny, on the slopes of Carrigadoon Hill above the valley of the River Lingaun. The village was once part of the ancient Kingdom of Ossory, and close to it lay an early Christian foundation called Kilclispeen, the remains of which still stand. In the graveyard of that lost monastery, two Irish High Crosses still rise: the Ahenny High Crosses, designated National Monument number 124. Around the village a thriving 19th- and 20th-century slate industry once carved the hillsides on both sides of the county line; the abandoned quarries and tip-piles are still part of the landscape, the slate now ghostly under the grass.

Look at the crosses and you see craftsmen translating one material into another. The intricate Celtic knotwork interlace and the prominent bosses that punctuate the panels both imitate something earlier: the appearance of carved wooden crosses bound with metal fittings, a form that has not survived elsewhere because wood does not last in Irish weather the way stone does. One of the Ahenny crosses bears a fine carved image of an Irish chariot, which has been used as a primary visual source for modern reconstructions of the Iron Age vehicle. The crosses belong to the Ossory group, considered the earliest of the great Irish stone crosses, with the western Ossory examples generally taken to be the oldest of all.

Eight kilometres south of Ahenny is Tibberaghny, with its own early high cross. Eight kilometres north stands the Killamery High Cross, completing the closest geographic cluster. Sixteen miles northeast lies the Kilree High Cross, often grouped with this set despite the distance. And in County Kilkenny just across the river the Kilkieran High Crosses tell a related story in stone. Together these form the Ossory group, the oldest crystallisation of Christian sculptural ambition in Ireland. They were the experiments. The more familiar crosses at Monasterboice and Clonmacnoise came generations later, with their figural scenes from the Old and New Testaments -- but the Ahenny carvers had not yet committed to those subjects. They were still translating wood into stone, working out the grammar.

The country around Ahenny is older still. Two kilometres east on Killmacoliver Hill sits the Baunfree megalithic tomb. Two kilometres north on a hilltop is the Knockroe passage tomb, locally known as the Coshel, which is one of the most decorated tombs outside the Boyne Valley group -- ranking alongside Newgrange, Knowth, and Loughcrew in the elaboration of its carved stones. Ten kilometres west, the holy mountain of Slievenamon carries a Neolithic summit cairn. The River Lingaun rises on Slievenamon and bends south through the valley between Carrigadoon and Kilmacoliver hills, and that bend, six kilometres north of Ahenny, marks the boundary between Leinster and Munster and the meeting place of three ecclesiastic dioceses: Ossory, Waterford, and Cashel. Few square kilometres in Ireland hold more layered memory.