Professor Butter Beard and Muiredach’s High Cross
“The Celt, and his cromlechs, and his pillar-stones, these will not change much – indeed, it is doubtful if anybody at all changes at any time. In spite of hosts of deniers, and asserters, and wise-men, and professors, the majority still are adverse to sitting down to dine thirteen at a table, or being helped to salt, or walking under a ladder, of seeing a single magpie flirting his chequered tale. There are, of course, children of light who have set their faces against all this, although even a newspaperman, if you entice him into a cemetery at midnight, will believe in phantoms, for everyone is a visionary, if you scratch him deep enough. But the Celt, unlike any other, is a visionary without scratching.” ― William Butler Yeats, Irish poet, dramatist and writer
My stage managers have learned that if I am missing at pre-curtain or at intermission, they need to send a cast member to stir me from my meditations among the McKim family crosses. Romeo, King Henry or the Shrew knew the path well leading up the hill from the peanut stone church towards the sunset. The four weathered crosses, touched with green algae and softened by the wind and age, stand tall and protective facing away from the ocean and overlooking the resting souls and distant rolling hills. My mind finds peace there, easily transported through memories of Irish monasteries and the smell of the sea.
Founded in 1864, All Saints’ Memorial Church (“The Stone Church”), is located in the Highlands of Navesink, an oceanside township in New Jersey. In May of 1883, Dr. Haslett McKim assumed charge of the growing congregation of local families and in the following September was elected rector, with the understanding that residence in the parish was to be expected of him only in summer. Another rector assumed the position during the winter months. Dr. McKim served twelve years as rector, receiving no salary and contributing personally to the parochial expenses during one of the most challenging financial periods in the parish’s history. Thoughts were heavy for Dr. McKim with serious considerations of closing the church’s wooden doors and walking away from the stone church forever. The community came together and triumphed over their challenges. Now Dr. McKim and his family maintain their watch from one of the most beautiful havens on the campus, memorialized in four cross-marked stones and providing sanctuary and peace for restless minds and souls.
One of the simplest forms of Celtic monument is the cross-marked stone. According to Isabel Henderson (one of my favorite Pictish historians and mentors), the cross stone originated in Irish missionary work in the 6th and 7th centuries. Adomnán, a 7th century abbot of Iona Abbey, wrote a story in his “Life of St. Columba” describing how one of the earliest of these stone crosses was made by the Saint himself when he marked the gates of the hilltop fortress near Loch Ness with “the sign of the Lord’s cross” in order to gain entry and secure his cooperation with the native pagan tribes. Christianity began to stake its claim on the Northern Isles.
Muiredach's High Cross, my featured artwork this week, is a cross-marked stone dating from the 10th or possibly 9th century, located at the ruined monastic site of Monasterboice, in County Louth, Ireland. The monastic site is said to be founded in the 6th century, by St Buithe and is quite possibly the most beautiful and memorable site of mine during my journeys through Ireland (to date). The sandstone cross is commonly known as Muiredach's cross because of an inscription on the bottom of the west-face. The inscription reads ÓR DO MUIREDACH LAS NDERNAD IN CHROS, which translates from Gaeilge as “a prayer for Muiredach who had this cross made.” As you approach and stand in front of the nineteen foot tall monument, the highly decorated surface of the ringed cross comes alive with the crucifixion of Christ on its west face as the centerpiece of a Christian narrative program interspersed with bits and pieces of interlace and other whimsical designs.
Scholars have long considered the possible iconographic “sources” of Irish High Crosses, like Muiredach’s Cross, to be early Christian Roman sarcophagi and Coptic (Egyptian) textiles witnessed by the earliest Irish pilgrims. Gigi Leung writes, “The footsteps of Irish pilgrims may indeed be the invisible thread drawing all of these disparate dots on the map together.” She continues: “No matter if it was Rome at the center, or Ireland or Egypt at the far end of the earth, pilgrimage has a way of bringing peoples, arts, and ideas together. Just as meanings are not set in stone on Muiredach’s Cross, the constant movements of these different parties are always crisscrossing one another’s paths, never settling down.”
These constant movements may never settle, but meditation among my local cross stones does calm the waves and storms in my own thoughts and breath and leads me back into myself. The carved crosses, and the arrive of St. Paddy’s Day, inspired me to look into my plethora of Irish Soda Bread recipes and update the carved-cross loaves with sliced dates, orange zest and freshly grated ginger root. Slice it while still warm and don’t you dare be stingy with the slathering of butter. May this inspire your visions, hopefully without Yeats having to scratch too hard!
Irish Soda Bread with Dates, Ginger and Orange
One 8” round loaf
6 cups all-purpose flour
4 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp fine sea salt
2 cups dates, cut into 1/4” rounds with scissors
Zest and juice of one orange
2 Tbsp freshly grated ginger
2 ½ cups buttermilk
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1) Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cut a 12” circle of parchment paper and fit it into an 8” springform pan.
2) In a small bowl, cut the dates into ¼” rounds with kitchen scissors and toss together with the zest and juice of one orange and the freshly grated ginger. The dates will absorb the juice and become even more delicious.
3) In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Fold in the fruit mixture.
4) Whisk together the melted butter and buttermilk and pour over the dry mixture. Stir until the mixture is uniformly moistened and then gather together into a ball with your hands. Make sure to press out any air bubble. Press the dough ball into the parchment-lined springform pan.
5) Sift one additional Tbsp flour over the dough then score a shallow “X” on the top of the dough with a serrated knife.
6) Bake the loaf for 45-50 minutes and then let cool on a wire rack ten minutes before releasing the springform removing the loaf. Let the loaf cool on the wire rack for another 20 minutes before slicing.
