A carving of a medieval lady's head at Templechally Church and Graveyard in Ballina, Co. Tipperary

 

I visited the graveyard of Templechally on the edge of Ballina in Co. Tipperary and came across this carved stone head that had been revealed where the ivy on the Church appears to have died back. 

The carving looks very clean and in great condition and looks to be the head of a woman in a horned headress. This style of dress was in fashion among high-status ladies from the 13th to the 16th century in Ireland and across Europe. It is most probably a reproduction of a previous carved stone head that existed here. 

Antiquarian Maurice Lenihan drew this sketch in the 1860s of the same window and recorded that head was a "Sphynx". (Thanks to James Heenan for deciphering the handwriting). 

It states "on the exterior, is a head said to be that of the Sphynx". A Sphinx and a Horned Headress do look very similar, especially when eroded. 

See this link for a scan of the original here.

So it is likely that the current carved head is a reproduction of this carving that was in place, at least in the 1860s.

That leaves two questions to be resolved. 

One - who and when was this new reproduction installed and what happened to the old head that was there? 

Two - perhaps if we can answer one, we might be able to figure out or at least speculate as to who this carving was meant to be a likeness of? 

Directional axis of Wedge Tombs in the Lower Shannon area

 

The convention is that the opening of wedge-tombs are to the west. However is this always the case? 

I came across this interesting quote in a report on Garranbane wedge tomb in Co. Limerick by Elizabeth Shee Twohig in the North Munster Antiquarian Journal 1988.

"It is not clear which end of the gallery was the entrance way. Most wedge-tombs seem to have been open to the west but here the stone closing the western end of the gallery is one of the highest and most substantial stones in the tomb (1.10 m, high, 0.40 m thick). The eastern end-stone is lower and only 0.17 m. thick and could more easily have been used to allow access to the tomb. Several other wedge-tombs in this area of the lower Shannon estuary (in east Limerick, east Clare and west Tipperary) have a similar arrangement, often with the eastern end open, the best known examples being at Baurnadomeeney, Co. Tipperary and Lough Gur, Co. Limerick".

http://www.limerickcity.ie/Library/LocalStudies/BooksJournals/NorthMunsterAntiquarianJournal/

There is also some evidence of a notch being constructed in wedge tombs to allow access to remains (I need to pull up some more info to back this up).