death, burial and commemoration in ireland, 1550-1650

1550-1650

Clodagh Tait

Death, Burial and

Commemoration in

Ireland,

Early Modern History: Society and Culture

General Editors: Rab Houston, Professor of Early Modern History, University of St Andrews, Scotland and Edward Muir, Professor of History, Northwestern University, Illinois

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Craig M. Koslofsky THE REFORMATION OF THE DEAD Death and Ritual in Early Modern Germany, 1450–1700

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Niall Ó Ciosáin PRINT AND POPULAR CULTURE IN IRELAND, 1750–1850

Thomas Max Safley MATHEUS MILLER’S MEMOIR A Merchant’s Life in the Seventeenth Century

Clodagh Tait DEATH, BURIAL AND COMMEMORATION IN IRELAND, 1550–1650

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Death, Burial and Commemoration in Ireland, 1550–1650

Clodagh Tait

© Clodagh Tait 2002

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tait, Clodagh, 1974–

Death, burial and commemoration in Ireland, 1550-1650 / Clodagh Tait.

p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–333–99741–7 1. Funeral rites and ceremonies––Ireland––History––16th century. 2. Funeral rites and ceremonies–– Ireland–– History––17th century. 3. Ireland––Social life and customs––16th century. 4. Ireland––Social life and customs––17th century. I. Title.

GT3247.5.A2 T35 2002 393'.9––dc21 2002066322

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne

Contents

List of Maps and Figures vi

List of Abbreviations vii

Acknowledgements ix

1 Introduction 1

2 Dying Well: Experiences of Death 7

3 From Death to Burial 30

4 Burial Location and Society 59

5 The Politics of Disinterment 85

6 The Nature and Uses of Funerary Monuments 97

7 Funerary Monuments and Society: Family, Honour and Death 113

8 Afterlives 135

9 Conclusion 156

Notes 163

Select Bibliography 212

Index 219

v

List of Maps and Figures

Map 1 Map of Ireland c.1550–1650 x

Map 2 Irish dioceses xi

Figure 1 Transi slab, early sixteenth century, St Peter’s churchyard, Drogheda. 32

Figure 2 White chapel, St Mary’s church, Clonmel. 89

Figure 3 Dillon tomb, Trim, Co. Meath – ‘The Jealous Man and His Wife’. 111

Figure 4 St Leger monument, Christchurch cathedral, Dublin (detail). 117

Figure 5 Jones Monument, St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin (Courtesy of Dúchas, the Heritage Service). 125

Figure 6 Wayside cross with crucifixion, Dunsany, Co. Meath. 141

Figure 7 Agard monument, Christchurch cathedral, Dublin. 157

vi

List of Abbreviations

AFM Annals of the Four Masters Anal. Hib. Analecta Hibernica Arch. Hib. Archivium Hibernicum CE The Catholic Encyclopaedia (1907 edition) Cal. Carew Mss Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts Cal. S. P. Dom Calendar of State Papers Domestic Cal. S. P. Ire Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland Funeral Entries W. Fitzgerald, Some Funeral Entries of Ireland from a

Manuscript Version in the British Museum (1909) GO Genealogical Office, National Library of Ireland IER Irish Ecclesiastical Record IHS Irish Historical Studies Ir. Econ. Soc. Hist Irish Economic and Social History JCHAS Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society JCLAHS Journal of the Co. Louth Archaeological and Historical

Society JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History JGAHS Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society JKAHS Journal of the Kerry Archaeological and Historical Society JKAS Journal of the Kildare Archaeological Society JRSAI Journals of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland JWSEAS Journal of the Waterford and South-East of Ireland

Archaeological Society Lismore Papers A. B. Grosart (ed.), The Lismore Papers (1886–8) Mems Dead Journals of the Association for the Preservation of the

Memorials of the Dead in Ireland Ms. Manuscript NAI National Archives of Ireland, Dublin NAI, RC National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, Record

Commissioners transcripts NLI National Library of Ireland, Dublin NMAJ North Munster Antiquarian Journal PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy TCD Trinity College, Dublin TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society UCC University College, Cork UCD University College, Dublin UJA Ulster Journal of Archaeology

vii

viii List of Abbreviations

A note on quotations

Quotations are given in their original form and spelling, though in some cases abbreviations have been eliminated and slight changes have been necessary in the interest of clarity. Latin quotations, especially those from funerary monuments, have been silently translated – most of these translations are not my own.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to David Edwards of University College, Cork, for his support, encouragement and assistance throughout the researching and writing of this book. Thanks also to Rab Houston, Edward Muir and the anonymous reader of the manuscript for their comments and assistance during the publication process, and to Luciana O’Flaherty of Palgrave Macmillan for her practical support.

I also wish to thank Colm Lennon, Nicholas Canny, Alan Ford and Raymond Gillespie, who offered valuable suggestions on earlier drafts of the manuscript, and other help and support. Thanks also to Éamon Lankford, Bronagh Allison, Amy Harris, Stefanie Knoell, Sophie Oosterwijk, Paul Cockerham, Salvador Ryan, Marie-Louise Coolahan, Brian MacCucuta, Conleth Manning, Vincent Comerford, Alan Burke, Nigel Llewellyn, Jane Ohlmeyer and Allan MacInnes. William Roulston kindly drew the maps. Thanks to the National Library of Ireland for permission to cite material and to use the jacket illustration and to the Board of Trinity College Dublin, also for permission to cite manuscripts. Thanks also to Dúchas, the Heritage Service, for photographs.

This book was researched and revised under the auspices of a postgraduate studentship and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of History, University College, Cork, and a Government of Ireland Fellowship in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. I wish to thank my colleagues at both institutions. I also wish to thank my friends and family for their support, especially John and Eunice Tait, Lilian Tait and Bill Frazer. This book is dedicated to them.

ix

Derry

LONDONDERRY

DONEGAL ANTRIM

Carrickfergus

TYRONE

FERMANAGH ARMAGH DOWN

SLIGO MONAGHAN

CAVAN LEITRIM

MAYO LOUTH Dundalk

ROSCOMMON LONGFORD

Drogheda MEATH

WESTMEATH GALWAY

Dublin Galway DUBLIN

OFFALY KILDARE Clanricard

Upper LEIX

CLARE Ossory WICKLOW

Thomond TIPPERARY KILKENNY

CARLOW

Limerick Kilkenny

Ormond LIMERICK WEXFORD

Wexford

Desmond WATERFORD Waterford

Desmond Irish Lordships (Selected) KERRY CORK Cork

Youghal

Areas of English influence c,1550

Kinsale

Leix-Offaly plantation, 1556

Desmond plantation, 1584

Ulster plantation, 1610

Map 1 Map of Ireland c. 1550–1650

RAPHOE

DERRY DOWN &

CONNOR

ARMAGH

CLOGHER

KILLALA

ACHONRY KILMORE

MAYO ELPHIN ARDAGH

DROMORE

MEATH ANNAGHADOWN TUAM

CLONFORT

CLONMACNOISE

KILDARE KILMACDUAGH

KILFENORA DUBLIN

KILLALOE

LEIGHLIN

OSSORY

LIMERICK EMLY CASHEL

FERNS

ARDFERT &

AGHADOE CORK

&

WATERFORD & LISMORE

CLOYNE

0 50 miles ROSS

Map 2 Irish dioceses

1 Introduction

Ann Munro died on 3 March 1648, aged twenty-five. Married to Col. John Munro for the previous eight years, she had given birth to seven children, only two of whom survived her. The unusual mural funerary monument erected to her memory in Coleraine, Co. Derry, from which this information can be gleaned and which may be the only surviving reference to her life, also describes her declining moments. ‘She made her a preparation for death and Dying shewed testimonies of her Approaching joyes beyond her Age and sex, whereby she laboured to comfort her parents and husband, Leaving her acquaintance the memory Of a good christian, a loving daughter A carefull mother and dutiful wife’.1 The account that follows focuses on a number of points, many of which reflect the concerns of Ann Munro’s monument. It considers how people died and dealt with the deaths of others in Ireland over a period of just over one hundred years. It is also a study of personal and public manipulations of the reputations and corpses of the dying and the dead. But there is another layer of investigation which is inex-tricably linked with this topic, since the study of death inevitably draws other human concerns – with religion, human relationships, social and political structures – into its net.

The history of death is a relatively new field, stemming largely from the work of French social and cultural historians in the later twentieth century, the most notable being Philippe Ariès. Their interest in reconstructing the ‘mentalities’ of historical populations led them to combine insights drawn from art history, historical demography, anthropology and sociology, exploiting formerly neglected sources to great effect.2 Ariès’ famous, though problematic, chronological scheme sought to follow the development of ‘attitudes’ to death over a millennium, dividing the period into five sections beginning with ‘The Tame Death’, and ending with ‘The Invisible Death’ of the twentieth century.3 Subsequent historians have both narrowed and broadened his view of the topic. Unlike Ariès, who sought to look at death on a European level, although his main concern was with France, those who take up the ‘history of death’ have tended to take more manageable regional

1

2 Death, Burial and Commemoration in Ireland 1550–1650

or local perspectives. In England (Ireland’s near and influential neighbour), for example, a number of histories of death in the early modern period have recently been produced that draw heavily on more local and specialist research carried out by social and cultural historians.4 Long time-periods are still tackled, but as yet no one has attempted to replicate the thousand-year-long Hour.

The development of ‘death studies’ has influenced, and has been influ-enced by, other disciplines such as archaeology and sociology as well as all branches of history, and there is an increasing realisation of the value of interdisciplinary approaches to such topics.5 In history, a move from Ariès’ concentration on ‘attitudes’ has occurred, broadening the field under investigation. Some major interconnected themes can be disentangled. One is the investigation (at local or regional level) of the nature of customs and rituals surrounding death and the preparation and disposal of the dead, and how these changed over time and in response to intellectual and religious developments (Reformation, Counter-Reformation, Enlightenment).6 Study of the religious significance of death incorporates aspects such as people’s expectations of the afterlife and questions of the relationship of reactions to and rituals of death to issues such as popular belief and sectarianism. In certain cases, analysis of funeral and burial symbolism has been employed to probe the concerns of various religious, social and political groups. A related concern has been with the nature and changing meaning of the material culture of death – funerary sculpture, mourning jewellery and other tangible remnants of the funeral and of mourning – and its role in representing and even influencing social interactions.

However, the history of death has made little impact in Ireland. This is perhaps unsurprising, given the general under-representation of social and cultural topics in Irish historiography, which has long been dominated by the great issues of politics and the politics of religion.7 Concentration on such topics stems in part from limitations on resources. The relatively uncentralised administration of early modern Ireland, along with extensive disorganisation at parochial level, meant that documents routinely created elsewhere in Europe (such as church court records, baptism, marriage and burial records) were either intermittently produced or rarely preserved. The destruction of a significant section of the extant records in the early 1920s, most notably in the Public Records Office fire of 1922, has slowed the development of pre-nineteenth-century historiography in general and social and cultural history in particular. Despite such losses there has been reluctance to address the potential of some of the types of less orthodox source-material that historians of death, in particular, have often used to great effect. It will become clear in this book that less-used sources such as wills, archaeological excavation data, funerary sculpture and other remnants of material culture are valuable sources of information about the past. However, even when these sources are imaginatively used, gaps remain.

Introduction 3

There are many questions that cannot be fully answered, especially those which relate to the inhabitants of the more gaelicised sections of the country (particularly in the north and west) for whom little documentary information survives other than their very formalised histories (annals) and poetry, and the often less than complimentary or accurate assessments of outsiders. Also, as in the case with any history, men and the upper social orders are disproportionately represented. However, an effort has been made to point up the experiences of less visible sections of communities, such as women and children, not by separating them from the generality, but by demonstrating the variety of experiences of death.

For Ireland, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of massive activity and change on the political, social and religious fronts. The often violent and violently contested expansion of the English Crown’s control into areas previously governed as semi-autonomous lordships was accompanied by widespread redistribution of lands, offices and wealth into the hands of English, Welsh and Scots soldiers, governors and settlers. Gradually a shaky power-base, centred largely on the towns (most of which were comparatively small in size) and the eastern counties around Dublin, was expanded. The power of local Old English and Gaelic lords was simu-ltaneously eroded as they submitted or surrendered to policies and military campaigns aimed at the parallel extension of English law and landholding systems.8 Other social and economic factors were also at work. The gentry and landholding class changed in character as members of the upper levels of town society (Catholic and Protestant) acquired landed estates, along with newcomers from abroad. Meanwhile, town corporations, previously dominated by limited endogamous elite groups, slowly came to include Protestants and newcomers, and a series of conflicts resulted from gov-ernment attempts to ensure that officeholders took the Oath of Supremacy. In the early seventeenth century, migration and immigration to plantations and settlements, particularly in previously less inhabited areas such as Ulster, led to an increase in, and a redistribution of, population, despite the ravages of wars and the departure of many disillusioned or dispossessed natives for careers in European armies.9 This increased labour supply, combined with more peaceful conditions after the ‘Elizabethan reconquest’ contributed to an increase in agricultural output and trade. The expansion of a market economy ensured a modest trade boom that saw the corresponding expansion of the larger towns, though the growth of many newly created boroughs was much slower.10

Religious considerations also came into play. Plans for the extension of the Protestant Reformation to Ireland were only ever half-heartedly imple-mented, making Ireland unique in Europe in its failure to adhere to the principle of cuius regio eius religio. However, Protestants were increasingly occupying high office and gaining from the redistribution of lands, and wealthy and ambitious Catholics became progressively more frustrated by


the restrictions applied to them. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the momentum of the Catholic Counter-Reformation was stepped up by clerics educated in continental colleges, who, despite limitations on property and resources, began the business of reconstructing the Irish church on Tridentine lines and educating their flock in basic doctrine. Gradually any initial willingness to compromise with or ignore the state religion was eroded among the leaders of the Gaelic Irish and Old English. Catholicism became a unifying factor for these two groups, who also increasingly found common cause in the face of their exclusion from power and threats to their property. Ethnic and political divisions came to be drawn along religious lines. The result was that disputes over power, land and economics took on a religious character, and when conflict ensued, as it did, for example, in the 1640s, an added viciousness on all sides resulted from opposing claims to divine favour and assistance.

This unique set of circumstances means that study of Irish death during this period is particularly revealing. Such a discussion cannot stop at a conventional portrayal of the early modern Irish ‘Way of Death’ (though this must necessarily form the basis of this work), not just because elements of the Irish death ritual differed from elsewhere, but because viewing the period ‘from the grave’, so to speak, allows us to penetrate the mindsets of diverse groups in this time of change. Familiar themes could take surprising and often contentious directions. Throughout all of these transformations, as this book will demonstrate, the dead played a significant symbolic role. As well as serving the practical functions of disposing of the corpse and representing the reordering of communities fractured by a death, funerals could become exercises in propaganda – advertising status (often newly acquired) and justifying ambition. The arrangement of burials, and their rearrangement through disinterment, reconstituted society in hierarchical and notional order, and as territory and property were lost or gained the interred dead could serve as advance parties of colonists, or as Fifth Columns of partisans awaiting the return of allies momentarily in strategic retreat. In a country where upward social mobility could be rapid, the establishment of new places of burial was as revealing as the continued use of ancestral burial sites, a microcosm of the effects of the major transition of power and property that occurred in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ireland.

The funerary monuments erected over these graves did not merely com-memorate achievements but continued arguments for the greatness of indi-viduals and families, selectively concealing and highlighting certain types of information. Furthermore, the creation of memorials involved a large degree of input from those who financed their construction, and thus they can be shown to reflect something of the values of these groups in a number of spheres. Aspects of people’s experience of family life and other human relationships, their concern for their reputations and the elements which went into the construction of an honourable identity, their attitudes to

Introduction 5

death, and their religious beliefs and expectations of the afterlife are celebrated and elucidated in these documents. Death was not final. It was believed that, even when long forgotten, each person would be enjoying or enduring the rewards or penalties for their behaviour in life. But while both Protestants and Catholics mused on the conquest of death, the nature of the afterlife and ideas about Hell, Heaven and Purgatory, their expressions on the topic, on monuments and elsewhere, were very different, and often very revealing.

Given such circumstances, it is obvious that death, an event imbued with highly potent Christian symbolism and a time when the practicalities of religious observance became prominent, could become a point at which religious positions were renegotiated and asserted. Therefore, an important theme that runs through these chapters regards religious belief, the practi-calities of worship and the interaction of different religious groups. Until late in the twentieth century, the historiography of ‘religion’ in Ireland tended to take the form of monographs detailing the fortunes of various denominational groupings.11 More recently, in line with European trends towards studying the causes, nature, speed and location of religious change, the question of ‘why (and when) the Reformation failed in Ireland’ has become the standard vantage-point from which historians have considered denominational interaction during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.12 However, Raymond Gillespie’s Devoted People, which tackles the question of religious belief and its expressions, investigating what it meant to be a Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, at this time of massive social transformation, has changed the emphasis of debate somewhat.13

Concern with belief is also reflected in this book, along with a con-sideration of aspects of the reality of ‘living with religion’ in a country where, as already mentioned, the ruler’s religion was most emphatically not that of the majority of the population. In their provisions for the dying and the dead, for the comfort of their souls after death, and for their com-memoration, a lively picture emerges of religious groups displaying their beliefs and accommodating themselves to contemporary circumstances. As this book will demonstrate, a significant degree of ingenuity was expended in sidestepping the implications of religious change, and there is evidence of a considerable degree of tacit practical tolerance of religious difference. For example, cordial relations based on realistic assessments of the con-temporary situation are revealed in the previously unremarked fact of continued Catholic burial in sacred space that was technically Protestant. Similarly, despite periodic drives against Catholic clergy and remaining property, evidence from wills and other sources indicates that there were ways and means of ensuring that, for example, traditional prayers and masses for the dead, and other ceremonies, continued to be available. Moreover, as will also be seen, in instances where campaigns were initiated against what were perceived as unorthodox practices at funerals (such as


wake games and keening), these were as likely to come from the Catholic as the Protestant authorities.

But debate and conflict also occurred, often as much intra- as inter-denominational. In Ireland, as in Europe, the very public drama of the deathbed was seen as a crucial indicator of the state of a person’s soul. To die well was to provide the onlookers with a reasonable hope that the deceased was destined for Heaven; dying badly was a taste of the torments that might be expected in Purgatory or even in Hell. It is thus not surprising that the final moments and disposal of certain individuals could become the focus of religious jostling and controversy. The propaganda value of the appropriate death of one of the members of one’s own group, or the inappropriate death of someone from the opposing party, were immensely important in attempts to establish the righteousness of one’s own position and the corres-ponding iniquity of detractors. Control of the deaths and funerals of the righteous will be seen to have been important to the Catholic clergy in par-ticular, with dramatic sanctions such as refusal of burial on consecrated ground and the exhumation, degradation and destruction of corpses some-times being resorted to.

The historian of death is often accused of possessing an unnatural degree of morbid curiosity, and it can be difficult to convince accusers that, in a sense, death is merely a starting point for the investigation of the social and cultural life of communities. It is to be hoped that these chapters, in allowing their subjects to tell their own stories, will prove some justification for my curiosity, morbid or otherwise.

2 Dying Well: Experiences of Death

In modern Western society, death is usually depicted as a failure. It is the failure of our bodies to fight against age, disease and injury, the failure of our doctors to cure us, the failure of our organs as we die.1 Medieval and early modern populations had a far less medicalised view of such matters. Disease and death were the will of God and, to those who believed in the teachings of the churches, the moment of death itself was merely a stepping stone from this life to another. What might be measured at death, however, was one’s success or failure in dying. There was a commonplace perception that people could ‘learn to die’, and manuals of the ‘art of dying’ (ars moriendi) expounded at length the requirements necessary for a ‘good’ death.2 Those who could not read did not necessarily miss out on this instruction. They could find edification and examples in sermons and through observation of the behaviour of those who, in their declining moments, displayed the faith, resignation and calm so necessary to the performance of the good death.3 On the other side of the coin were ‘bad’ deaths, sudden, difficult, or uncontrollable departures that inspired fears for the soul of the deceased and that were often seized upon for didactic purposes. This opposition became more important in the period in question as the agents of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation harnessed the didactic imperative of deathbed narratives to their own uses.

While the annalists and poets of medieval Ireland were diligent in record-ing the deaths of those they considered to be important, these sources pro-vide little detail on deathbed experiences or rituals. Likewise, while archaeological excavations have added to our understanding of the diseases and other calamities from which medieval populations suffered and died, and while legal and ecclesiastical texts provide some indication about the customary treatment of the dead, little can be known about their attitudes to death and dying, and their personal thoughts about the regretted dead.4

There are some indications that aspects of the ars moriendi were known in Ireland as evidenced, for example, by the mural of the ‘three living and three dead kings’ motif of c. 1400 found in Abbeyknockmoy, Co. Galway.5

7


Related themes, such as meditations on the vanity of life and the corruption of the body, are found in Irish poetry as early as the thirteenth century, and some of these earlier poems continued to be transcribed into poem collections and newly produced until the seventeenth century.6 One later example by Bonaventura Ó Heodhasa, for instance, is a meditation ‘On the Uncertainty of Life’. In it he calls on a man planting an apple tree to consider that he may not be alive to see it grow: ‘It is not prudent of thee, thou owner of the sweet wood, to watch the growth of the frail appletrees, and not to care for thy soul.’7 In a discussion of a poem in which Death warns a woman of her end, Cathal Ó Háinle has ascribed the re-emergence of such themes in seventeenth-century Irish poetry and literature (see Séathrún Céitinn’s Trí bior-ghaoithe an bháis in particular) to Irish contacts with continental Europe during this period.8 The representation of related themes in funerary sculpture will be dealt with later in this book. Sources recounting deathbed scenes and bereavement experiences are more plenti-ful for the early modern period, but historians are still handicapped by the fact that few personal documents (letters, diaries and so on) survive in comparison to other countries.

Good deaths

Occasionally, some details about the deathbed can be supplied indirectly. For example, once a person had declined into his or her final illness they might express a wish to make a will, had this not already been done. The will set in train the process of social death. It was a mark of preparation for death, and formalised many of the elements of this preparation. Almost invariably the document began with the dedication ‘In the name of God, Amen’ and with a description of the testator’s physical and mental state, usually something like ‘weak and sick in body, but in perfect wit and memory’. The first bequest was of the soul, which was surrendered to God, and then the body was consigned to the earth, a specific burial location generally being requested. The business of providing for the smooth transfer of goods and lands to their new owners was then dealt with, debts owed and owing were listed, and the executors who would oversee the process were named. Wills were made increasingly often during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the religious and civil authorities being especially anxious to formalise the proceedings in order to minimise the disruption attendant on transfers of title and property. Few significant collections of Irish wills survive, however, most having been destroyed or scattered, which makes the type of satisfying statistical or localised study often employed elsewhere almost impossible.9

Other methodological problems noted by researchers elsewhere also apply to Ireland, for example the overrepresentation in such documents of men and the richer sections of society, and questions regarding the extent of scribal interference in the form and content of the will.10 These difficulties aside, it

Dying Well: Experiences of Death 9

will be seen in the following chapters that the body of wills which can be assembled do form a valuable source for the history of death, burial and reli-gious faith in Ireland.

To return to the topic at hand, however, what can testamentary evidence tell us about the concerns of the dying and of the deathbed scene? Wills sometimes shed light on the progress of the final illness of the dying person, on the identity of those who visited them, and on the issues that may have concerned them as they visualised their departure from the world. So, for example, when David fitzRichard Barry wrote or dictated his last will and testament on 3 December 1627, he described himself as being ‘sick of body, but of good and perfect witt and memorie’. Then he commended his soul ‘unto Almighty God, my Maker and my Redeemer’ and his body to burial in Cor Abbey (Midleton, Co. Cork). As well as making various bequests to members of his family, he asked that his debts be paid. He named two execu-tors and appointed his father-in-law, Morris Hurley, as ‘tutor and warden over my wife and children’. Seven witnesses, who must have been visitors to the deathbed, also signed the document. Others present probably included family members such as the dying man’s wife and his heir. David Barry died at some unrecorded stage before 7 December.11 The will of Hugh McClanchy was made on 15 October 1622 ‘before my parish prieste Donnell Mc Enestor & many other menn’. Mc Enestor or Nestor was probably the scribe of the will, given the fact that he was the only one able to sign the document, the other five witnesses and the testator all signing by marks. Having set out his place of burial and bequeathed his property, McClanchy added a sworn statement that he had never given land to Nicholas or Flann O Nellane, or to his brother Donnell McClanchy, presumably in an attempt to prevent future disputes. The testator died soon after his will had been made, as it was proved a month later.12

Even when wills were not written when the testator was on the point of death, the visualisation of death and its aftermath were still the overriding concerns. Many testators referred to the uncertainty of life and the certainty but unpredictability of death. Some attempted to use their wills as instruments that would allow their control of affairs to extend beyond the grave.13 Garret FitzRedmond Rochford’s assertion in 1583 while ‘veary sick of body and membres’ that his half-brother, Piers Rochford FitzRedmond, ‘was a bastard born because me said father Redmond kept a woman called Margaret ny Lyncheac as his concubine before he married my mother’, was doubtless an attempt to ensure that lands assigned to Piers during life reverted to the legitimate branch following his death. Garret was also concerned to record that he and his brother, John, had mortgaged certain lands for £4 8s. 11d. only ‘and that I tak upon the salvacon of me soule’.14

Prescriptions in wills for the behaviour of the living allowed some notional postmortem influence, as in cases where disinheritance was threatened against daughters or widows who married without the consent of other


family members.15 In one such case, Margaret Coppinger, daughter of John Coppinger, a Cork alderman, was left £400 in her father’s will, on condition that this passage be void ‘if shee should misbehave or miscarry herselfe or commite any Act that may discredite herselfe’.16 One Protestant testator, Henry Stanes of Kilkenny, threatened his Catholic daughter with dis-inheritance should she not convert.17

The will could also be a means of avenging insults, as in the case of Robert Dillon of Riverston, Co. Meath, who excluded his brother, Matthew, from his will of 1593 ‘because he marryed contrary to my consent’. However, he later changed his mind and revoked this passage.18 The aforementioned John Coppinger used the opportunity to record his imprisonment in Dublin castle as a result of a suit brought against him by his son and heir.19 Sir John Fitzgerald, Senechal of Imokilly, wrote his will in 1640. Wracked with guilt about a lifetime of underhand and downright illegal activities that had gained him a large estate, he spoke of his fear of damnation and attempted to use the document, rather belatedly, to make amends in order to save his soul.20

Further to the main bequests, testators often provided small mementoes in order to encourage friends to remember them. One convention was the provision of money to be expended on the purchase of mourning jewellery, usually in the form of rings.21In 1640 Michael McMahon, a Limerick mer-chant, wrote: ‘I ordain that my executors shall send for twenty rings of Gould, each thereof to have Deaths Heads’. He asked that Sir Hardus Waller be given one worth fifteen or sixteen shillings (reflecting his superior rank), and the others, worth twelve or thirteen shillings, were to be distributed amongst other named individuals, twenty-two people in total, from the White and Clanchy families, and members of other prominent Limerick dynasties.22 Lisagh O’Connor of Leixlip (will 1626) asked that his sisters, Margaret and Rose, his nephews, Robert Proctor and Henry Fitzgerald, and his cousins Edmond and John Birmingham, be given 20s. apiece for ‘Rings with death his head, or some such motto’.23 Henry Shee of Kilkenny (will 1612) asked for eight ‘deathes head’ rings with ‘my name upon every ring of them’ to be made for named individuals, thereby associating himself firmly with his gifts.24 John Rochford of Killine, Co. Kilkenny, left 20s. to David Roth fitzRobert ‘to make him a ring for a remembrance and a token of my love unto him’.25 George Bourke of Limerick may have been passing on one such gift or, in a sense, recycling the sentiment, when he bequeathed ‘my small goulde ring that hath the deathes head upon it unto Thomas Comerford’.26 The rings did not necessarily exhibit a macabre motif – Richard Shee in 1604 specified only that signet and posy rings should be made for various male relatives27 – but even those without an outright memento mori message still would have served to keep the deceased in the thoughts and prayers of others.

Rings were not the only items bequeathed. Sir Edmund Wingfield made various bequests to female relations of rings, while to men he left money for


swords.28 Edward Dowdall of Athlumney, Co. Meath left his son[-in-law?] Sir Richard Barnewall forty pounds sterling ‘to make him a bason and Euer with the words “Memento mei” [remember me] upon it’.29 Of course, personal items of clothing and jewellery would also have reminded those who inherited them of their former owner, and recent articles suggest that personal bequests of all kinds were ‘acts of memory’, which served to perpetuate the web of social relations to which the deceased individual would have been central.30

That all sections of society did not necessarily hold the same view of the desirability of will-making or any other preparation for death was illustrated by Fynes Moryson, who claimed that the Gaelic Irish neglected to put their affairs in order. Will-making was not mentioned to the dying, since the cus-tomary division of goods between the wife and children was practised, and the land was ‘commonly possessed by the most actiue and powerfull of the Sept and kindred’, often to the exclusion of the deceased’s sons. Preparation of the soul was also neglected since desire by the patient for the adminis-tration of the sacraments was considered to be ‘a desperate sign of death’. Instead ‘all their speeches tend to mirth and hope of recovery, and the sicke person hath about him many lights and great stoore of Company, as if thereby they could keep him from death’. In his declining moments, the sick person would be entreated not to die, with all present ‘reproching him with vnkyndnes in forsaking them, and asking whether and to whome he will goe to be in better case then he is with them’.31 Moryson’s account may be exaggerated.32 Even so, it perhaps indicates the dangers of imposing European models, no matter how widely practised, on an Irish reality: many people may not have considered the importance of the art of dying.

Some direct accounts of actual deathbed scenes survive. The final moments of dying individuals might be watched carefully, especially by those of a religious disposition, since the progress of the illness and the demeanour of the patient could be interpreted as signs of the destination of the soul. The scribe of the Annals of Loch Cé described his view of the ideal death, which he claimed were manifested in the decease in 1568 of Ruaidhrí MacDiarmada:

He obtained . . . prodigious bounty and gifts from the elect Trinity, viz., illness without pain, without oppression, without anguish, without horror, and the command of his own sense, memory, reason and understanding, until he experienced pure penance, and great penitence for his faults.33

Death was a public drama, a forum for the reassertion of social norms and the demonstration of personal convictions. Given the circumstances pre-vailing in Ireland at this time, it was perhaps inevitable that the dying should become a focus for religious controversy. The propaganda value of the ‘good’ deaths of those who died accepting or affirming the tenets of a


particular religious grouping was immense. Medieval writers had often described the deathbed scene in terms of a supernatural battle for the soul of the dying individual in which the heavenly and infernal hosts vied for possession of the prize.34 From the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation this battle could even be viewed in terms of a Catholic/Protestant combat.

Three accounts from the Annals of the Four Masters perhaps between them encapsulate many of the elements of the ‘good’ death as it was envisaged by the clerics of the Irish Counter-Reformation. Manus O’Donnell, injured in 1600, was brought to Barnis (Barnismore, Co. Donegal) where his wounds were found to be incurable. Franciscan monks from the local monastery

were wont to visit him, to hear his confession, to preach to him, and to confirm his friendship with the Lord. He made his confession without concealment, wept for his sins against God, repented his evil thoughts and pride during life, and forgave him who had wounded him, declaring that he himself was the cause, as he had made the first attack. Thus he remained for a week, prepared for death every day, and a select father of the said order constantly attending him, to fortify him against the snares of the devil. He received then the body of the Lord, and afterwards died on the 22nd of October, having gained the victory over the devil and the world.35

The account of the death in the same year of Joan Maguire, mother of Hugh O’Neill, also stressed the importance of the sacraments of penance, com-munion and unction, praising the lady’s ‘many donations to the orders of the Church of God’, and especially to the monastery of Donegal, where she was buried.36 The following year Ulick Burke died ‘after making his will, and bidding farewell to his earthly friends, and settling his worldly affairs’.37 An addition to the Annals of Loch Cé, describing the death of Brian Óg MacDermot on 28 January 1636, demonstrates a similar sacramental con-cern. Having enumerated the deceased’s virtues, the scribe continued:

it is likely that he obtained the reward of his humanity, and of his good heart, from the Tri-personal Trinity; for every doctor and divine says that when the life is pure, so is the death; and if the death is good and pure, that one will obtain a suitable life beyond.

MacDermot died ‘after the triumph of unction and penitence, and after obtaining victory over the world and the devil, and from the hands of very many orders and ecclesiastics; and after assuming the habit of St. Dominic’.38

The fact that most such accounts of Catholic ‘good’ deaths came from the pens of clerics indicates the anxiety on the part of this group to assert


control over the dying moments of the members of their flock. At the risk of overstating the avarice of the clergy, it must be recognised that the advan-tage was in part pecuniary. By placing themselves at the deathbed, the Catholic clergy could reap the financial benefits of any last twinges of con-science. Control over the deathbed drama was also central to the purposes of the reforming priesthood. It was essential that Catholic orthodoxy be maintained and proclaimed at such a moment.39 Hence the ever-increasing emphasis on the centrality of the sacraments of penance, communion and unction to the process of dying. For each, the presence of the priest was indispensable. This was underlined by the synodal enactments, for example, that of 1614 in Drogheda, where, along with provisions for proper conduct of communion and absolution, ‘Parish priests are warned not to allow any persons die without the last rites of the church; and any neglect in this regard is to be visited with severe punishment’.40 The importance of these sacraments was even alleged to have been underlined by miracles. One dying woman who had lost the power of speech had her voice restored on the arrival of a priest at her bedside, enabling her to make her confession ‘and after she had received the Holy Eucharist she became dumb again until her death’.41 In fact, in many Catholic deathbed accounts the dying indi-vidual almost takes a supporting role in a drama starring one or more priests. Often we are presented with ‘types’ rather than individuals in their final moments. They are in fact exempla to be used to edify, and this purpose is seen in the frequent neglect of the names of the deceased person involved and the substitution of actions and emotions for their words.

The Catholic clergy stressed the importance of preparation for death. Meditation on the transience and uncertainty of life was not merely a con-vention. James White, commenting on events following the death of Queen Elizabeth I, claimed that her death compelled many in Ireland:

to confess their own mortality and to think of their fate, and conse-quently to make diligent provision of all things necessary to obtain salvation in the other life, lest, if cut short by death, they should unhap-pily rush from the miseries of this world into the irreparable woes of a world that can never end.42

One salutary example of individual preparation for death was set out by the East Munster Jesuits in 1617:

A gentleman who had removed from one province to another was asked by one of us why he did so; and he answered, because his first dwelling would revert to another owner after six years. Then said our Father: ‘Why then, since you cannot live long here, do you not prepare yourself a dwelling-place in heaven?’ These words made such an impression on him that he could never forget them, as he himself afterwards when he was


dying, told the Father. The good man died unexpectedly in the flower of his age; yet he left his domestic affairs so carefully settled that people were astonished. This preparation was a proof of the intentness with which he thought of death and of the life to come.43

All of the elements are here, preparation, practical and spiritual, leading in turn to a good death, despite its sudden arrival.

The impression given in the surviving evidence of Protestant deathbeds differs in certain ways from Catholic descriptions. While each account is still a testament to religious orthodoxy and an example to others, they are more personal in character. The individuality of each dying person is stressed, despite the conventional ways in which they die.44 Of course, this picture has a lot to do with the nature of the sources used; the stories of Protestant deaths are more likely to come from the deceased’s friends and relatives than from clerics. While the Anglican church stressed the importance of the pres-ence of clergy at the bedsides of the dying, in order to ensure their religious orthodoxy, and advised some element of sacramental assistance, faith was above all expressed through prayer and articulation of resignation to the will of God. Lawrence Parsons described the death of Thomas Moore, husband of Sarah Boyle, to her father, the Earl of Cork, in 1623:

Sir Thomas gaue his frends great chardg vpon his deathbedd to be lovinge and Carefull of [his wife] . . . he died strong in the true faith, prayed con-tinually, repented heartily, assured himself of salvacon constantly; and departed meekely and Christianly, and had good memory at his end.

Parsons also gives other incidental information of this deathbed scene. He had arrived after the dying man had lost speech, but remained until the end ‘praying with others for him’. Moore’s mother ‘did teare her self with violence of passion, and the Lady Sara tooke on bitterly’. Parsons had stayed the afternoon to comfort the latter, and then left his sister with her.45 In this lively picture we are impressed by the communal aspect of the deathbed, the solicitude displayed towards the deceased’s mother and widow, the anxiety that others be informed of the death and its circumstances as soon as possible, and the trouble taken to describe the deceased’s final moments. In a detailed account of the death of her father, Lord Deputy Wandesford, in 1640, Alice Thornton likewise described the visitors to the deathbed, the family’s presence and the dying man’s concerns for their welfare, his undiminished faculties and pious expressions which ‘strooke a most deepe impression upon all that knew him’.46 That people might travel some distance to attend the deaths of those close to them is suggested by Edmund Sexton’s descriptions of the death of his son, Stephen, a lawyer, in Dublin in 1628. Stephen’s mother, a sister and two brothers had travelled from Limerick to be with him, reporting back that he had been lucid, ‘sittinge uppe untill ye instant of his death’.47


Another Protestant death, that of William Bedell, Bishop of Kilmore, in 1642, was later described by his son. Having fallen ill of ‘Irish-ague’, prob-ably typhus, Bedell endured his sufferings calmly. Deprived at intervals of the power of speech, his actions indicated his participation in the prayers of those at his bedside. Having given his sons his blessing, and seeing their distress, his last words were: ‘Be of good chear; Be of good chear: whether we live or die we are the Lord’s’.48 Ann Munro’s monument in Coleraine, described earlier in this book, is a tribute to a similarly Protestant death, detailing its subject’s calm and happy preparation for the event.49

According to Houlbrooke, the tendency to concentrate on the dying performance of women was particularly strong amongst English Protestants, as was interest in the deaths of children.50 One New English cleric, Devereux Spratt, describing the deaths of his mother and young brother in 1642 continued: ‘This was a sad affliction; yet I was comforted by the good end Joseph made, being but eight years old, yet begged of me to pray for him, and gave good assurance of dying in the Lord’.51

A document describing the lives and deaths of several immigrant Scottish Presbyterians in the 1630s demonstrates its protagonists using their last moments to provide an example to onlookers of faith, fortitude and resig-nation to the will of God. Robert Cunningham, dying in exile in Irvine, Scotland, in 1637, exhorted onlookers to prayer, faith and defiance of ‘the Bishops’. His wife being at his bedside holding his hand, he ended his prayers with the words: ‘“O Lord, I recommend unto the this gentell woman who is no More my Wife”, and with that Saying he softly loosed his hand from hers, and gently thrust her hand a little from him’.52 Those groups of more nonconformist hue stressed even more strongly than Anglicans the individuality of the dying person, rejecting all idea of sacramental assistance since, in their view, such rituals would serve them nothing if the fate of their souls was already decided.53

Certain Catholic accounts allude to clashes over the bodies of the dying. Fr Eugene Bernard, writing from Galway in 1607, described a Protestant minister’s attempt to officiate at the deathbed of one of the aldermen of the city, ‘a person of estimation, and a thorough Catholic, who had lost large property for conscientiously opposing the heretics’. The minister forced his way into the house

thinking that the Catholics, though they refused to go to his church, would communicate with him in a private house; but not one would go near him, so that he got into a great rage, and rushed out, cursing their perversity, and threatening them with all kinds of punishment.54

This type of demonstration would have been considered particularly import-ant in strengthening the resolve of religious waverers in the city. Bernard had claimed in a previous letter that ‘the stupid ignorance of some priests’ and the


efforts of three Protestant preachers, whom he described as ‘infernal wolves’, had led some people into error; he had undertaken to rectify the situation.55

Those who had during their lifetimes actually toyed with Protestantism were a priority for clerical deathbed care. Here the ‘victory over the world, death, and the devil’ was all the sweeter for the spectre that it might not have been.56 The death of Sir Richard Shee of Kilkenny in 1608 was described in the following year’s ‘Annual Letter’ of the Irish Jesuits. Shee, whose activities as a government agent had necessitated a certain element of compromise with the Protestant church, is described euphemistically in the letter as having led ‘a long and stormy life’. Having ‘submitted himself to the spiritual direction of one of our Fathers’, he was encouraged to consider his faults, reconcile himself with those he had wronged, and make ‘reparation’ to demonstrate his repentance. ‘The result was most glorious. Become disgusted with his life, he was borne heavenward by every effort of his soul’. He repeat-edly made his confession and in his will bequeathed large sums to charitable causes. The Jesuits, however, missed out as, despite Shee’s good intentions towards them: he died unexpectedly while their local representative had been ‘called away to attend to the spiritual wants of others’. Two fathers were present to preach at the funeral where their words were alleged to have had very positive effects on the inhabitants of Kilkenny.57 For all that they missed Shee’s dying moments, the Jesuits here placed themselves central to the creation of the circumstances favourable to his model death. The Society of Jesus also targeted other important individuals such as the tenth Earl of Ormond, who converted to Catholicism before his death in 1614.58

The Jesuits’ enthusiasm for deathbed conversion and awareness of its propaganda value is also demonstrated by the reports sent from Ireland by Father Christopher Hollywood. In 1605 he described how an ‘apostate’ priest, William Prendergast, who ‘enjoyed many church livings and had per-secuted the Catholics very much’ had been converted, done penance and then had ‘received the Viaticum and died’. In 1617 he reported that an octo-genarian minister had become a convert. Even the most unlikely cases could provide salutary examples. A pirate who had embraced Catholicism after his capture had allegedly refused to conform, despite the promises of the Protestants that his sentence might be commuted. Similarly, a condemned robber ‘who had previously gone to confession to our Father’ refused the ministrations of a parson on the gallows, and delighted the crowd by verbally abusing the unfortunate Protestant.59

The anxiety that those with a record of Protestant sympathies should die as Catholics was often shared by their friends and relatives. Fynes Moryson, for example, reported that those who converted to Protestantism during their lives were discriminated against by their countrymen who:

vpon their death bedds and in the hower of death, denyed them releefe or rest, keeping meate and all thinges they desyred from them, and the


wemen and Children continually pinching them and disquieting them when they would take rest, that they might thereby force them to turne Papists agayne. So as I haue knowne a Governor forced to appointe men to keepe a sicke Protestant, from these tormentors, and Priests, and to see all necessaryes ministred to him.60

In 1627 it was claimed that 120 priests and friars attended the funeral of Sir Turlough O’Brien, four years before:

and although the said Sir Turlough all his life time professed himselfe to be a protestant, neverthelesse that in his weake languishing condicon his neare friends and papist kindred would not suffer him to have any protestant Minister to come neare him, and after his death they hurried and buryed him in a ffryers habitt in a Supersticious Iland neere the River Shannon.61

Sir Nicholas Walsh, Justice of the King’s Common Pleas, a Protestant throughout his career, though the sincerity of this Protestantism was often suspected,62 died a Catholic and was buried in the Franciscan church in Waterford ‘amid a great demonstration’ in 1615. Afterwards the mayor and sheriffs of the town were summoned to appear before the Bishop of Waterford and the Lord President of Munster.63 The subsequent proceedings in this case are unrecorded. The conversion of Walsh’s nephew, Gerald Comerford, was also celebrated as a victory for Catholicism.64

However, one document of 1639 from the Court of Castle Chamber indi-cates how seriously the authorities could regard such deathbed conversions. Catherine Lysaght of Limerick was found guilty of having attempted to con-vert her husband, Nicholas, from his lifelong Protestantism on his deathbed. Having failed in this, she and others falsely claimed that Lysaght had died ‘a perfect popish recusant’ and dressed his body in a friar’s habit. Edmund Sexton junior, Joan Sexton and Mary Sexton were found guilty of ‘high impiety and inhumanity’ for their parts in obstructing several Protestant ministers, including the Bishop of Limerick, intent on attending the sickbed of Lysaght’s friend, Edmund Sexton senior, a Protestant and former mayor of Limerick. The punishment handed down was severe. The Sextons were to be put in the pillory for three days, they were also to ‘acknowledge their offenses upon theire knees’ before the courts in Dublin, and to ask pardon of the ministers ‘whome they disobliged’. Edmund and Joan were fined £5000 apiece, Mary £1000, and all were imprisoned. The fines were still hanging over them in 1641 when Joan Sexton petitioned the king asking that the punishment be discharged. Catherine Lysaght’s case was dis-missed.65 If nothing else, the cases of Nicholas Walsh, Turlough O’Brien, Nicholas Lysaght and Edmund Sexton are a fascinating testament to the difficulties faced by those who, for whatever reason, chose to embrace


Protestantism when they were continually surrounded by Catholic friends and family solicitous of their spiritual well-being.

A final type of Catholic ‘good’ death that especially concerned the clergy was the demise of others of their own profession. Many of the letters sent between clerics in Ireland and Europe included descriptions of the deaths of former colleagues, teachers and friends. For contemporary readers of such accounts, personal interest in the fates of friends and colleagues had a cor-responding spiritual level, for, as experts on the subject of the good death, it might be expected that clerics would put their own teaching into practice. The death of a Cistercian, Thomas Madan, in 1645, was described by Malachy Hartry. Having received the sacraments, said the Rosary, and been absolved ‘he expired in very great peace of soul, as if he was in a calm sleep, and with the same cheerfulness which he had throughout life’.66 In the case of those priests who had led particularly holy lives, a record of their deaths might have been compiled with one eye on the possible later pursuit of their beatification or canonisation. William Furlong, alias Fr Candidus of St Bernard, was described as having lived ‘a life worthy of an angel and of an apostle in word and deed’. He allegedly resisted the torments of demons, converted ‘an almost infinite number from error and heresy’, and exhibited miraculous healing powers and a gift of prophecy. During his final illness in 1616 he predicted the time of the deaths of his father and himself, and fol-lowing his demise his face retained a lifelike colour and his body performed miracles, phenomena which clearly indicated sanctity.67

A large number of clerics and laypeople executed, killed or dying in prison in Ireland from the 1570s onwards were hailed as martyrs for Catholicism. The most famous included Archbishop Dermot O’Hurley of Cashel, exe-cuted in Dublin in 1584, Archbishop Creagh of Armagh, who died in prison in London in 1586, and Bishop O’Devany of Down and Connor and Patrick O’Loughran, a secular priest, whose executions in 1612 turned into a riot when the gallows was stormed by relic-hunters. In such cases, the cause for which the martyrs were perceived to have died meant that their violent and shameful deaths were glorified as holy and edifying occasions. Their graves might become places of pilgrimage, and their relics were alleged to have per-formed miracles.68 Outbreaks of plague, especially that of 1650, provided new opportunities for the Counter-Reformation clergy to prove their dedi-cation to their calling, a number of them being noted as dying due to their persistence in the spiritual care of the infected. Rev. Patrick Lea (Ley), one of these ‘martyrs of charity’, who, it was claimed, had even dug graves and carried the bodies of the abandoned to them, died in Kilkenny in 1650.69

The perception of such deaths as martyrdoms is indicative of a new spirit in the Irish Counter-Reformation of the mid-seventeenth century: no longer merely a missionary church whose casualties were political, it was now also fully functioning under ‘normal’ conditions, and thus casualties also resulted from more mundane pastoral duties.70


Bad deaths

For most of those who died in times of plague, war or famine, for those exe-cuted and not celebrated as martyrs, for those murdered or who committed suicide, and for those struck down unexpectedly, death was miserable, lonely, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, attended by fear and possible danger which was perceived to extend beyond the grave.71 The task of adequately dis-cussing these unfortunate or, at worst, ‘bad’ deaths is more problematic than usual in that the individuals involved were less likely to have left personal documentation and alternative accounts are often incomplete or hostile.

Arrival of and reactions to plague can be seen most clearly in the records of the towns.72 The return of plague to Dublin is recorded in the corporation records of 1575–6, 1604 and 1650. The 1604–5 visitation was particularly severe throughout the country, and special measures introduced in Dublin included the provision of a ‘pest-house’ for the isolation of those infected, and the payment of four ‘callidors’ to bury the dead and to guard the pest-house to ‘stop the infected from running abrode’.73 In the same year the corporation of the Irishtown of Kilkenny was also attempting to isolate the sick ‘hoping therby that Gods indignacion might spare some’.74 Nicholas Langton of Kilkenny recorded the deaths of his mother and wife in August and September 1604. His mother was ‘buried in our Ladies Quire in St. John’s Abby, by reason she could not be buried in the great Tombe where my father was buried’.75 This may have been due to a prohibition against bury-ing plague victims in public buildings and, if so, such provisions must have caused much distress amongst the dying and their families. The fact that plague victims were often buried by strangers, rather than by their own kin, must have heightened these anxieties.76 Nicholas Langton’s son Michael, who continued his memoir, was to die of plague in September 1651; the sickness also claimed the lives of his daughter, Anstace, and son, Richard.77

The register of the parish of St John in Dublin illustrates the stark effect that plague could have on families, with a number of multiple burials recorded for the year ending Easter 1651, including ‘William Boys father & mother’, and ‘Anthony Robinson & wife’.78 Those who could usually fled from the towns in times of infection: ‘most of the natives’ left Galway in 1649.79 The Annals of the Four Masters in a poetic description of the consequences of the plague of 1575 demonstrates the wider impact of such visitations:

This malady raged virulently among the Irish and English in Dublin, in Naas of Leinster, Ardee, Mullingar, and Athboy. Between these places many a castle was left without a guard, many a flock without a shepherd, and many a noble corpse without a burial, in consequence of this distemper.80

The attribution of the arrival of plague to the workings of God’s provi-dence as expressed by the corporation of Irishtown, Kilkenny, is common to


reports from all of the religious groupings in Ireland during this period.81

Through such scourges God displayed his anger at the actions of His people, and the afflicted sought to derive meaning from the reported casualty rates. A pamphlet published in Cork in 1650 was entitled ‘A Declaration and Proclamation of the Deputy-General of Ireland concerning the present hand of God in the Visitation of the Plague: And for the Exercise of Fasting and Prayer in relation thereunto’.82 In 1651, the Catholic Bishop of Waterford wrote that ‘this dire scourge is a chastisement for our sins’.83 Other messages could also be derived from such misfortune. In 1625 David Rothe, Catholic Bishop of Ossory, in a letter to the Archbishop of Armagh reported that while plague was ravaging England ‘few or no Catholics die amongst so many that are on every side of them carried to their graves’. The Puritans, he continued, believed that the plague had come from God ‘to punish the nation for their remissness and toleration with Catholics’.84 John Lynch claimed similarly that thousands of English and Scots soldiers sent to Ireland in the 1640s were

carried off by unknown and horrible distempers, in such heaps, that the cemeteries of Dublin, Drogheda and Cork could not contain them, and pits were dug in the fields, outside the walls, to bury them. This was the just punishment for those torrents of innocent blood, so savagely shed.85

Of course, the major interpretative problem was in deciding who was in the wrong when those perceived to be innocent were carried off as fast as the guilty.86

Irish executions, while frequently mentioned, are extremely poorly docu-mented during this period. The most vivid account described the ‘penitent death’ of the ‘woeful sinner’ Bishop John Atherton of Waterford, who appears to have made a good end, despite the shadow of the sexual crimes which he was alleged to have committed.87 Most of the other surviving accounts incorporating any detail are of the executions of Catholic martyrs, in which the ‘spectacle of suffering’ generally failed in its aim to impress upon onlookers the power and justice of the state.88 In fact, Irish executions were frequently contentious. For long periods, especially in the mid- to later sixteenth century, the widespread use of martial law meant that large num-bers of people were summarily executed in response to local exigencies (and for monetary gain) on the orders of licensed but largely independent gov-ernment officials.89 Often even the names of the victims or the exact means of their deaths went unrecorded. Because of the destruction of the court records in the Public Records Office fire, accounts of the deaths of those exe-cuted for ordinary crimes rarely survive, except as passing comments.

Hanging was the usual method of dispatch for men, while women might be burned.90 An unusual note amongst the funeral entries records one tragic incident: Mary Babington, Lady Dowager Dunsany is described as having


been ‘murthered at Clonny by Honora ny Caffery (nurse to one of her chil-dren) the 19 of March 1609’. However, a later comment added that ‘A knave not longe after executed for another crime, cleered this wretched woman (who had suffred beinge burnte) & tooke the murther uppon himselfe’.91

Other mentions of executions are often frustratingly short, such as the com-ment by Lord Justice Drury and Sir Edward Fitton who arrived in Kilkenny in November 1578: ‘The jail being full we caused sessions immediately to begin. Thirty-six persons were executed, among which some good ones, two for treason, a blackamoor and two witches by natural law, for that we found no law to try them by in this realm’.92 Hanging seems to have been hedged about by superstition. Some attempted to cheat death on the gallows by magico-religious means, as in the case of David Henesy of Kylycrehan, Co. Tipperary, who placed three silver pennies in his mouth while on his way to be hanged for theft as an offering and appeal for aid to the Holy Cross. As result, we are told, he was miraculously preserved from death and revived at his own wake, declaring the miracle. Unfortunately, when word reached the judge who had sentenced him, he was apprehended and rehanged properly. Another Irish man who showed similar devotion when he was being exe-cuted in Poland allegedly had a happier fate, being pardoned following his miraculous preservation from death.93 However, such ‘miracles’ are likely to have had much to do with the primitive techniques used by executioners, by which victims slowly suffocated to death. The nineteenth-century inven-tion of the ‘long drop’ which broke the hanged man’s neck greatly reduced such instances.

The victims of murder were also seen to have suffered ‘bad’ deaths. Much could be written on the issue of murder in early modern Ireland, especially given the blurred lines which often existed between ‘ordinary’ murders, and those occurring in the context of civil unrest or feuding. The Earl of Cork recorded a number of murders and manslaughters in his diary, for example, which resulted from varied circumstances such as horseplay amongst his ser-vants, local quarrels and rebellion.94 Domestic violence was another situ-ation that might result in murder. Christopher St Laurence, Baron of Howth, was convicted in 1579 of beating his thirteen-year-old daughter so severely that she died of her injuries two days later. He had also beaten his wife twice; after the second beating ‘for many days she could not abide any clothes to touch her’. His servant was likewise injured. Lord Howth was imprisoned for nineteen weeks for the offence, and fined £1000. The fine was later reduced to £500.95 Another Castle Chamber case concerned rumours that Grace Bushin had been beaten to death by her husband.96

The ‘1641 depositions’ provide a large number of graphic accounts of mur-ders that occurred during the 1640s.97 A variety of methods are cited includ-ing hanging, stabbing, drowning and burial alive.98 Corpses might be mutilated and otherwise insulted, a fact that will be returned to later. Tales, of questionable veracity, of other ‘cruel and unusual’ murders also circulated. For


example, allegations of cannibalism tended to resurface at times of unrest, and were a useful propaganda weapon. In 1643 Peter Hill reported that:

since the Rebellion began, but especially for a year and above now last past, it hath been a very common and ordinary thing for the Irish to mur-ther and devoure and eate the persons of such English as they could light upon, and when they could light upon none of them, then to kill, devoure and eat one another.

He had himself condemned an Irishwoman, accused of intent to eat a child, to death when it was reported to him ‘that such a like fatt woman had killed and devoured divers others’.99

As in other countries, suicides were very poorly regarded by their con-temporaries and by the law. Suicide was a crime against both God and the monarch since no one had the right to deprive either of the service due to them. It was a profoundly unChristian act, firstly in that it testified to the work of the devil, and secondly since the suicide was seen to take upon him or herself God’s role of ordaining the lifespan of each of his creatures.100

Again glimpses are scattered. In areas where English law could be imple-mented, the practice of confiscating the goods of suicides may have been enforced to some degree. In theory these goods were forfeit to the Crown, in practice it seems that this privilege was delegated to local lords. For example, in his diary the Earl of Cork mentions a few occasions when he received the goods of suicides. In July 1614 he refers to the marriage of two of the fam-ily servants ‘on whome I bestowed all the cowes & goods of John Kytchingham that hanged himself & his gelding’. In September 1623 he mentions a gift to George Wood ‘whose father drowned himself within the mannor of Innishkeen’; this gift probably consisted of the possessions of the latter which had fallen into the hands of the Earl. Finally in October 1635 the distribution of the goods of ‘a tennant which hanged himself within my seiginory of Kynalmeaky, & therby forfiected all his goods and cattle unto me’ is set out.101 Indeed, Boyle owed some of the basis of his great fortune to the suicide of Edward Apsley who drowned himself in the river Nore in 1596. Boyle’s wife, Joan Apsley, was subsequently granted part of the deceased’s forfeited lands.102 A royal letter of 1617 mentions the uses to which such ‘forfeitures of suicides’ were to be put.103 Other remarks on the topic are, however, rare. The social stigma associated with suicide is reflected in the desperate letter from John Shearman, the Protestant schoolmaster of Waterford to John Long, Archbishop of Armagh, regarding his treatment at the hands of the inhabitants of the city. They had, he claimed, reviled him ‘most devilishly, in reporting that I went and hanged myself’.104 Clearly this was slander of the highest order.

Sudden death was greatly feared in early modern society for, even if the individual who had been struck down was of good character, it always raised


the spectre of possible insufficient preparation; sins unrepented, wrongs not redressed, affairs not settled, prayers not said and faith not proved. Thus in 1626 Geoffrey Baron wrote to Luke Wadding, telling his uncle of the vex-ations which had fallen upon him, as heir, since his father’s ‘suddaine’ and ‘untimely’ death, leaving a wife and five children, of whom the writer, aged fifteen, was the eldest.105 Edmund Sexton was clearly uncomfortable that his father, Stephen, having suffered a ‘dead palsie . . . of a suddyn & untestat [intestate]’ died some months later without having regained his faculties. The disorder in which Stephen’s affairs had been left caused further trouble, and it took Edmund some years to sort everything out.106 The possibility of unexpected death seems especially to have concerned those about to set out on journeys, in particular those travelling by sea who were vulnerable to the elements and to the menace of piracy.107 Given such uncertainties, it is unsurprising that wills were occasionally made before the testator set out to ensure that one would not meet death totally unprepared. A feature of such wills is that a precise location for burial is rarely mentioned. The most those dying in transit could hope for was Christian burial. Richard Butler of Lissnatubride, Co. Tipperary, ‘being bound to England’ in 1635, merely bequeathed his ‘soule to my maker and redeemer’, and does not mention his body.108 Walter Cottell of New Ross, Co. Wexford, in 1631 described the dangers of a similar journey:

considering the Transitorines of mens life and the perilles incident as well by sea and land [I] beinge att the present with gods blessed assistance to pase the seas into England doe on the knees of my hearte humbly besech the almighty God to grant that whensoever I shall make an end of my pilgrimage in this sinfull world that my boddy may have a restinge place where it shall seeme beste to his heavenly Majestie.109

Similarly, Barachiah Baker of Carrigrohane, Cork:

having occation to travell into England [in 1635] Knoweing certainly that deth is due Yett the uncertainty therof . . . I bequeath my soule to the Almighty God my maker and Redeemer and my body to Christian bur-iall, Wheresoever it shall fall out.110

In some areas it seems that the ancient custom whereby the local lord took as a ‘deodand’ any animal or object found to have caused the death of a person, was still exacted.111 In 1619, the Earl of Cork wrote in his diary ‘I had from William Lyne of Tallaghbridge a fair young black gelding that the Jury fownd guilty of the death of a man, as due to me for a Deodand, which I bestowed on my servant Roots’. In 1623, he mentioned receiving ‘the hackney Mr peercie rod over the ford of Lismoor, when he was drowned’, while in 1627 he returned ‘Smith of Tallagh’s boat, out of which


a man was drowned’, to its owner.112 A letter of 1634 amongst the State Papers described the annoyance caused to the owner of a horse involved in the death of a coachman that entailed a payment of £5 10s. to the Primate, on whose behalf the animal had been seized as a ‘Deodate’.113

In certain sudden deaths the hand of God could easily be discerned. Both Catholic and Protestant accounts of this period give examples of the un-expected vengeance which might be visited upon blasphemers and persecu-tors. Those who profaned Catholic holy objects and places were frequently struck down while engaged in their blasphemy, or soon afterwards, leaving onlookers in no doubt as to the reason for their demise.114 One of the servants of a ‘heretic’ who had misappropriated ecclesiastical utensils had had a pair of breeches made out of a velvet chasuble, and bragged while wearing them that ‘he was dressed in the spoils of the papists’. The breeches, we are told, spontaneously combusted, and the man ‘died there suddenly in his master’s presence’.115 After the death of Father Eugene O’Ternon in c.1649, one of the soldiers put on the Franciscan’s habit, to the jeers of his companions: ‘he was not long unpunished, for a flash of lightening struck him, killing him on the spot. His Calvinist companions learned from this sudden mishap that it is not lawful to mock at holy things’.116 This didactic element is central to such accounts, for the wickedness of such crimes must be revealed to the ungodly as well as the godly. The ridiculing of religious vestments and habits is one of the most common motifs of such stories, but other items might also suffer abuse. At the sack of Cashel in 1647 a man who had mocked a statue of the Virgin Mary was killed when a stone fell on his head, breaking his skull. We are expressly reminded in the account that this mockery was the cause of his death.117

More elaborate tales of the deaths of habitual persecutors of Catholics were also in circulation. In 1607 Bruncard, President of Munster, ‘as fer-ocious in his hatred of the Catholics as Antiochus was against the Jews’, supposedly suffered ‘the fate of Antiochus. Worms swarmed out from his whole body; he was devoured piecemeal by vermin, and expired omitting a most horrid stench’.118 The Catholic martyr-bishop, Terence Albert O’Brien, allegedly prophesied the death of ‘the tyrant’ Ireton in 1651 and ‘eight days after the bishop’s death, Ireton was seized with he plague and died, exclaim-ing that the prelate’s blood hastened his death’.119

Protestant accounts also described the horrific deaths of persecutors, particularly during the 1640s, seeing them as signs of God’s displeasure at the actions of the Irish, and as proof of their iniquitous lives. Roche MacGeoghegan, Catholic Bishop of Kildare, whose activities in the Carlow/Kildare area during the rebellion made him a hate figure for Protestants, died in 1644, after being paralysed by a stroke.120 While he was celebrated amongst Catholics for his piety, and included in lists of Dominicans who had died for their faith, others saw him differently.121 One witness reported that ‘when the said ffrier fell sicke his mouth was drawne


upp to his eare on one side his tongue hung out and his eies were still open after his death’, which was ‘the just doome of God uppon soe wicked a man’.122 Likewise, Anne Sherring who deposed to the massacre of about thirty-five Protestants at the Silver Works, Co. Tipperary, alleged that:

such was God’s judgment on . . . Hugh Kennedy for that bloody act, that he fell into a most desperate madness and distraction and could not rest day and night, yet coveting to do more mischief on the English, but being prevented and denied to do it, he . . . drowned himself.123

There would have been no doubt in the deponent’s mind that justice had been done in this case. Suicide was a fitting end to a man who, it seemed, was already damned. MacDonald and Murphy comment on the tendency in England to exploit deaths by suicide ‘to gain a propaganda advantage’ in sectarian controversy. Suicides could be cited to prove the moral weakness of opponents and the working of the devil in their cause.124

To contemporaries, the importance of such stories lay in their exposition of moral rather than literal truths.125 In a just world, under the eye of a just, and therefore partisan, God, such was the fate of blasphemers and persecu-tors. God’s judgement might be swift and unmistakable, or slow and painful, with internal corruption becoming accusingly visible. The use of such accounts of ‘bad’ deaths, whether actual or exaggerated, was twofold. By illustrating the fate awaiting the ungodly, they both prescribed the behaviour befitting the godly, and underlined the morality of their actions, despite the oppression under which they perceived themselves to labour. They were thus an effective means of maintaining religious orthodoxy in times of disruption. When perceived in this light, these tales become an important aid to attempts to understand the mentalities of the inhabitants of early modern Ireland, in a way that more orthodox sources, however detailed, are frequently at a loss to imitate.126

Grief

The death of an individual was the beginning of a new reality for those surrounding the deceased. Measuring the mental or emotional impact on society of the loss of one of its members is, understandably, problematic. As Joachim Whaley points out:

That men are more or less sad when faced with death is not something which historians can hope to measure. But the ways in which it is gener-ally permissible for men to express grief are . . . constantly changing.127

In Ireland, investigation even of the latter phenomenon is almost impos-sible. It is here that the paucity of surviving private records such as letters,


diaries and memoirs is most regretted. Thus the remarks which follow must be recognised as being even more incomplete than has been the case thus far, failing to do justice to the totality of the experience of loss in Ireland during this period.

Grief for the dead is only rarely mentioned in the surviving sources. It is clear, however, that while people were expected to feel a strong sense of loss, it did not do to succumb to excessive display of sadness, hopelessness or despair, since such feelings indicted an unwillingness to trust in God’s mercy and his plans for the salvation of the righteous. Tears for the ungodly and the damned were, of course, a waste of time and an insult to the redeemer.128 Patrick Comerford, the Catholic Bishop of Waterford, writing to Luke Wadding in 1629, included the news of the death of the father of one Fr. Martin ‘God reste his soule in heaven and geve us patience in such occasions. I know Father Martin according his maturitie will temper his griefe, converting it to prayers and masses for his fathers soule.’129 In his diary, the Protestant Earl of Cork displayed considerable restraint in his recording of the deaths of those close to him. He frequently invoked the Lord’s assistance in patiently bearing such troubles, and envisaged the heav-enly destination of the dead. His most impassioned outburst regarded the death of his daughter, Sarah, in July 1633: ‘A moste lamentable daye to me: This day. . . it pleased god in his great mercie to translate owt of this sinfful world into his heavenly kingdom my second and moste deer daughter the Lady Sarah digby.’130 The letters which came from England informing him of his eldest son’s death in 1615 expressed condolence, but also sought to reassure Boyle, and to remind him of the need for resignation to God’s will which would ‘much asswage the extremitie of that greefe which otherwise might seem insupportable’.131 Sir Philip Perceval writing to warn his cousin, Courtenay, of the possibility of the death of Morris Purdon, in 1638, urged similar resignation: ‘If you suffer this loss you must bear it as you have done greater. God’s will must be done in all things.’132 Clearly people saw it as their duty to urge others to accept their losses gracefully, and indeed grate-fully. It was also necessary to offer both emotional and practical support to those close to the deceased – Courtney was advised by Perceval to comfort Purdon’s wife and friends. Similarly, Sir Arthur Chichester, writing to his English relations on the death of his sister, asked them to care for ‘the house and the posteritie which shee hath left behinde her, which is the only means now left unto us wherby to declare the love wee bore unto her when shee lyved’.133

Though such resignation was the ideal, extravagant expressions of grief seem to have held a certain fascination. One could even die of an excess of grief, as was reportedly the case when the four sons of Roche were killed in 1582. When Gráinne, the wife of Theobald Roche, ‘saw her husband, man-gled and disfigured, carried towards her, she shrieked extremely and dread-fully, so that she died on that night alongside the body of her husband, and


both were buried together’.134 Una O’Toole, wife of Phelim MacFeagh O’Byrne, allegedly died as a result of a similar attack in the 1620s when her sons and husband were on trial. Seeing their ‘professed and knowne enemies were the pryme and leading men of the . . . jury, shee was soe overwhelmed with greefe as her heartstrings brake, and shee died within some two days after’.135 Given that grief could have such disastrous effects, it is no wonder that people were urged to control their emotions.136 Prolonged mourning was also frowned upon. Katherine Simms has recently highlighted the grow-ing number of poems of consolation in Irish addressed to women in the seventeenth century. These poems often appealed to the woman not to spoil her beauty by crying, and to cast grief aside, and may occasionally have been commissioned by family or friends concerned or exasperated by exces-sive grief on the part of the subject.137

It must be remembered that reactions to deaths might also be far more complex, and it might be necessary to reconcile consolatory formulae with the negative as well as the positive aspects of a deceased person’s character. Dudley Norton, writing to the Earl of Cork in 1624, expressed his sorrow and grief at the recent demise of the Earl of Thomond, acknowledging that the latter ‘was not without some frailties, but his vertues did so much sur-mount his Errors, as I Consider, and Lament him as a most brave gent’.138

In 1634, Cork was rather harsher in his private diary entry concerning the death of a ‘perfiddeows servant’, Richard Blacknoll, whose ‘high deceipts and unexpressible wrongs . . . to my selfe in my reputacon and estate’, he hoped God would forgive, being obviously unable to do so himself.139

Apart from gestures and letters, grief might be expressed in commemora-tive poetry which celebrated the life, deeds and virtues of a deceased person. However, the conventional nature of such poetry makes it problematic as a measure of sorrow. Perhaps the most obvious examples of this genre are the praise poems written by Gaelic poets about deceased nobles. While these poems have been widely analysed as sources which give a glimpse of ‘the Gaelic mind’, their highly formulaic character, and their role in the solicita-tion of patronage and reward, make them unreliable as a measure of the true feelings of the poet.140 Thus, for example, when Tadhg Mac Bruaideadha lamented the death of the above-mentioned Protestant Fourth Earl of Thomond, claiming that ‘his death is a cause of sorrow to Irishmen . . . Because of his death the noble ones of the Gaeil and Gaill [Irish and foreigner] . . . have raised up a lament throughout every land’, he was not telling the literal truth.141 However, such poems did serve to keep the memory of their subjects alive in some form, by acknowledging their loss, and providing a memorial to them.

English writers in Ireland also produced praise-poetry in both Latin and English about their deceased patrons, though such poetry, generally of poor literary standard, tends to be ignored as a measure of attitudes and ideals. Different levels of sophistication and of personal involvement on the part of


the poet may be discerned. So, for example, following the death of Hugh, Viscount Montgomery, in 1636, the students of Newtown school and others ‘as was their grateful duty’, composed ‘Divers elegant elegys and epitaphs . . . as encomiums of his life’.142 In 1629, the students of Trinity College, Dublin, marked the death of the Countess of Cork in similar fash-ion.143 The ‘Elegie on the untimely death of Ms A. P. daughter to Sir Thomas Pelham’, written by Payne Fisher, an amateur soldier-poet, is full of florid praise for that lady’s beauty which suggests the writer knew little about his subject, but much about seizing opportunities for his own advancement. It resorts to familiar images of flowers ‘gatherd before growne’, of the thread of life being severed, of death as sleep, and of the shedding of copious tears, ending with the comfort ‘shee is not gone, but stept aside’.144 Again, these were poems that acknowledged grief and loss and harnessed this to personal gain, in part by reminding those left behind of their obligation as patrons of scholars and others.

However, more personal poetry was also produced, such as the long piece written in 1628 after the death of Cecilia, Countess of Londonderry, ‘by no Poet (as may well appear) nor for Publique view, but for ye better venting of some little part of ye writers great Greife and love, who knew her best and longest, & loved her Best and Longest’ (her husband). The poem rehearses episodes from Lady Cecilia’s life, and praises her virtues, especially her piety, expressing great grief at her loss, but thanksgiving for a life well lived and confidence that she had gone to heaven.145 This is a far more genuine work than the others mentioned, though Lady Cecilia is presented as far too much of a paragon to be entirely true to life.146 Also into the category of elegiac poetry come the inscriptions on the grander funerary monuments of the period, which will be dealt with later. These are, however, subtly differ-ent, in that they were usually written before the deaths of their subjects, and were governed by different conventions.

In the early modern period, the manner of one’s dying was important both to the deceased and to his or her community. The traditions of the deathbed performance may have been of comfort to the dying individual, who found that this most difficult of transitions was structured and mapped. Death was a communal activity, and the stream of visitors, as well as activities such as the planning and writing of a will, and participation in prayer and the sacraments advocated by the different churches, would have provided many with a framework for their declining days and hours. There was an added advantage in that those facing bereavement were made aware of the communal and religious support available to them, while also hav-ing time to adjust to forthcoming realities. Their expressions of grief were also, to an extent, socially prescribed, though loss might formally be


acknowledged in poetry. For their part, the dying knew that their perfor-mance mattered to the way they would be perceived after death, and that this would reflect also on those left behind. The judgement of a good or bad death worked on a number of levels. Most importantly, it provided an element of comfort to the bereaved, since the good death of a loved one or the bad death of an enemy was perceived to reflect the deceased’s spiritual state, and thus their heavenly or infernal destination. Furthermore, it could be harnessed to the purpose of religious or political agendas, and was a powerful propaganda tool for clerics who hoped to promote the righteous-ness of their cause. But how much of the material regarding Irish deathbeds considered in this chapter gets to the heart of real experiences of death in early modern Ireland? The problem with the didactic nature and intent of most of the stories told here is that they often put forward ideals rather than reality. Thus this is far from being the full story of the Irish deathbed. It is strange how a universal experience can be so difficult to recapture.

3 From Death to Burial

The moment of death does not correspond with ‘social death’. The dead leave themselves in the hands of the living, who have to deal with dis-posing of the corpse (before it begins to decay), while acknowledging (or denying) the personal and social identities of the deceased person through the provision of appropriate ritual activity. This chapter thus deals both with the practicalities of the disposal of the dead in early modern Ireland, in so far as this is recoverable from surviving sources, and the rituals accom-panying this disposal, particularly the funeral. What is most striking about accounts of funerals from this period is that, despite the fact that a corpse was the focal point of such occasions, these accounts are often vague on the subject of the deceased, yet vocal about social structures and interactions. From the lowest levels to the elaborate heraldic funerals of the wealthy and important, these rituals sought to reinforce bonds of community and structures of hierarchy in the face of disruption caused by death.1 For the middle and upper classes, new and established, the flexibility of funeral ritual might work to familial and personal advantage, with some novel elements and a degree of state control being tolerated by those who felt they had something to gain from their cooperation. However, some of the moves by civil and religious authorities to encourage new standards of suitable behaviour met with only partial success. Furthermore, not all tensions could be successfully disguised, with conflict occasionally occur-ring when groups with different political and religious agendas clashed at this most sensitive of times.

Packaging corpses

The period of time between a person’s physical demise and the disposal of their corpse is worth close examination, for in the glimpses of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century people addressing the fact of the corpse in their midst we can also see them dealing with some of those rather more complicated questions raised by that corpse’s presence amongst them. The

30

From Death to Burial 31

rituals and processes involved are difficult to reconstruct. At this stage the corpse usually was in the hands of family and friends, the focus of procedures which, because they were to contemporaries too ordinary to be documented or remarked upon, let alone explained, become all but invisible when the historian attempts to look at them in any depth.

In certain areas it seems that bells may have been rung on death and again at the burial. The custom did not end with the Reformation, and so, in a rare reference, we find that Sir Matthew de Renzy’s executors paid £1 for the tolling of the bells of St Patrick’s cathedral in 1634.2 Meanwhile the body was washed and ‘sheeted’ (wrapped in a shroud, usually of linen).3 This type of work was the preserve of women, as it remained until the twentieth century.4 In 1608, for example, the Merchant-Tailor’s guild of Dublin recorded that amongst the expenditure on the burial of Thomas the button maker, was a fee paid to ‘the three or four women that helped to sheet him’.5

In the 1633 Castle Chamber investigation of the circumstances surrounding the death of one Grace Bushin, allegedly killed by her husband, mention is made of the woman sent ‘to wind her’. This woman, Dorothy Byrne, gave evidence to the effect that when she ‘sheeted Mrs. Bushin [she] found her shoulders, neck, and breasts black’. Clearly this woman was a specialist, called in when circumstances demanded.6 In the same year Dorothy Billings was examined during an enquiry into the death of a Captain Todd. She deposed that he had sustained seven wounds, ‘The Deponents cause of knowledge is that she was servant to the said Captain Todd, and for that she laid him in his winding sheet before he was buried’.7

Illustrations of shrouded corpses indicate that the shroud was knotted or tied at head and feet,8 and archaeological evidence suggests that pins were used to fasten loose pieces together.9 Shroud pins of a type used in England from the mid-sixteenth century onwards are also found in Ireland, though they are difficult to date as their form remained reasonably constant until the nineteenth century.10 Small children may have been buried in their swaddling bands, as suggested by the memorial to the sons of Lord Grey de Wilton, one of whom is depicted swaddled and lying in a coffin-like box (this might also be construed as a cradle).11 However, it is impossible to attempt a discussion of the grave-clothing of Irish children along the lines of that applied to England.12 Corpses were usually laid out and placed in the grave with hands lying on the pelvis or at the sides, rather than on the chest in the modern fashion, and again this is borne out by iconography and archaeology (see Figure 1).13 Finally, incidental evidence suggests that flow-ers and herbs were placed in the shroud with the body.14

For only a small minority of people was the preparation of the corpse in any way more elaborate. For the rich, embalming as a means of preserving the body during preparation for the heraldic funeral held some attraction. Again it is impossible to trace those involved in the embalming business, or to answer the questions regarding their numbers, identity and the


Figure 1 Transi slab, early sixteenth century, St Peter’s churchyard, Drogheda.

number of corpses which they prepared. It might be surmised that, except perhaps in Dublin, their business was slow. But embalmers were readily available after the deaths of Sir Peter Carew in New Ross in 1575, Lord President Norris in Mallow, Co. Cork, in 1597, Nicholas Langton near


Kilkenny in 1632, Sir Hugh Montgomery in Newtownards, Co. Down, in 1636, and Lord Deputy Wandesford in Dublin in 1640.15 Embalmers were not necessarily professionals; a local surgeon might perform the operation reasonably satisfactorily. Indeed, a degree of medical involvement is suggested in the latter case, since the internal organs were inspected and the heart found to be ‘decaied of one side’, a fact attributed to the stresses of the Lord Deputy’s ‘study and businesse’.16 Doctors were also present when the corpse of Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, was ‘bowelled’ follow-ing his death in Dublin in 1576, but it is unclear whether this was for the purposes of embalming or a postmortem ordered because of suspicion of poisoning.17

There is also some Irish evidence to suggest a certain element of resistance to embalming. For example, when the Countess of Cork died in 1631 she was ‘privately buried’ in St Patrick’s on the night after her demise.18 The reluctance to preserve the Countess’s body until her official funeral a month later seems to reflect an increasing distaste in certain quarters for dis-embowelling and embalming, a distaste possibly related to beliefs about the resurrection of the body.19 In his will of 1642, the Earl of Cork himself asked for his body to be buried ‘whole without any Bowelling or Dividing’. His stated expectation that ‘my Mortal Body and Immortal Soul’ would ‘be both Glorified in Heaven’, probably indicates an expectation of both a spiritual and a physical resurrection and possibly explains his reluctance that his body be interfered with.20

It is difficult to tell whether the corpse was placed naked in the shroud or whether, as was the case in England, he or she was first dressed in a shirt or smock.21 In the case of Catholics a religious habit might be requested. Maurice Uniack of Youghal, who made his will in 1646, declared his intention to ‘dye with the habite of the Seraphicall order of St. Ffrancis, which I desire may be wrapt on my boddy after my decease out of this transitory world’, asking that five pounds be given to the Franciscans of the town.22 The habits of certain religious orders were widely believed to have salvic properties: dying in the habit of a particular saint ensured that saint’s intercession for one’s soul. Thus in 1649 Hugh Roe O’Neill died in the Dominican habit, but was buried in the Franciscan Abbey of Cavan, in order to ‘secure the intercession of saints Francis and Dominic’.23 The use of the habits of religious orders on the deathbed and in burials seems to have become increasingly common during this period, and could become the focus for controversy and contention, particularly between the religious orders and the secular clergy, as will be seen later in this chapter.

Most people would have been buried in just the shroud, although the use of coffins was becoming increasingly common. Archaeological evidence from Waterford also suggests that a change in the construction of some graves had occurred by the early seventeenth century, with a number of large rectangular grave cuts pointing to an increased use of coffins.24


Similarly, in Limerick and Ardfert it was the later graves that showed evidence of coffin burials.25 The Earl of Cork’s account of the removal of the remains of his wife, her father and grandfather from their original grave to the vault he had constructed in St Patrick’s cathedral may indicate that Geoffrey Fenton and Dr Weston (who died in 1608 and 1575 respectively) may not have been buried in coffins, since it was their ‘boanes’ which were being moved, while the Countess’s own coffin was explicitly mentioned.26

Amongst the wealthier elements of society coffins either made of lead or lined with it may occasionally have been used, as was the case for a number of the individuals buried in the Chichester monument in Carrickfergus.27

This question of the ‘packaging’ of corpses brings with it another regarding their movement and transport. The idea that the majority of people were brought to the grave merely covered by a shroud presupposes the use of a bier on which they could be carried, though no examples of such equipment survive.28 A drawing at the beginning of one of the volumes of Funeral Entries seems to represent a seventeenth-century bier (see cover illustration).29 The vestry book of the parish of St John the Evangelist, Dublin, indicates that two biers were kept by the church for public use, and entries record the making and mending of these biers.30

Here and there we find glimpses of bodies being conveyed around the country by various other means. Nicholas Langton died in Grenan, near Thomastown, in 1632 and his body was carried to Kilkenny by boat; likewise his son, James, when he died at an unspecified time.31 When Sir Tibbott Roche, the son of Lord Fermoy, died of smallpox in Youghal in 1624, the Earl of Cork recorded that ‘I sent his dead boddy home in my coach’.32 In December 1597, the corpse of Father Thaddeus O’Sullivan was brought to the monastery of Kilcrea on a horse.33 Most people would, however, have died near to their own homes and burial places, making complicated transport arrangements unnecessary.

Prior to interment the corpse was laid out for a period of time, probably usually in his or her own home. Again this is the private sphere, and consequently any information that can be acquired generally comes from outsiders whose assessments of the scene were not necessarily com-plimentary. Family and friends continually watched the body, with a substantial company often gathering at this ‘wake’. It would perhaps be dangerous to assume continuity, though it is probable that these occasions differed little, in spirit at least, from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century wakes chronicled most famously in O’Súlleabháin’s Irish Wake Amusements.34 That sixteenth- and seventeenth-century wakes were as rowdy as their later counterparts is indicated in a number of sources. In 1618 the Catholic Synod of Armagh issued a condemnation of how

through the wickedness of some fools and gamesters . . . improper songs and gesticulations are allowed at wakes, which would even be unlawful


in festive rejoicings – works of darkness are united with darkness, and all fear of death is banished from the mind, although the image of death itself, in the body of the deceased, is present before them.35

Such activities had already had a long history, only coming under scrutiny when Irish clerics attempted to promote Counter-Reformation standards of pious behaviour. From 1660 onwards injunctions against wake abuses became increasingly regular, indicating the extent to which people chose to ignore certain aspects of religious reform.36 The clergy were not entirely alone in their opposition to such occasions. Christopher Hollywood, in 1617, claimed that the tradition in ‘a certain city’ whereby each tradesman left a large amount of money ‘to be spent in drink at his wake by the leading men of his own and other trades’ had been successfully suppressed by a local Jesuit, who had been approached by the men’s wives.37 That civic authorities were also concerned about the potential for excess and disorder at wakes is indicated by a 1638 resolution passed in Kilkenny that no mayor was to eat or drink at a wake ‘on pain of £10’, presumably an attempt to preserve the dignity of the office.38

The practice of keening over the corpse, both at the wake and the funeral, was occasionally commented upon in the early modern period, and, in the absence of comments from the practitioners, these comments have to serve to build a picture of the custom.39 In 1634, a traveller, William Brereton, reported passing the house of a deceased Irish merchant in Dublin and hearing ‘either his wife or sister roaring out as though she were violently distracted; this they say is very ordinary with the Irish, and is their custom’. A week later, in Wexford, Brereton heard women lamenting a condemned criminal ‘some-times so violent as though they were distracted, sometimes as it were in a kind of singing’.40 At the 1577 execution in Limerick of Murrogh O’Brien, Edmund Spenser witnessed the dead man’s foster-mother sucking the blood from his severed head ‘saying, that the earth was not worthy to drinke it, and [she] therewith also steeped her face and breast, and tore her hair, crying out and shrieking most terribly’.41 Fynes Moryson described how those attending the dying would cry out reproachfully to them, and that ‘When the sicke person is dead they make a monsterous Cry, with shriking, howling and clampping of hands, and in like sort they follow the dead body, at the burial’.42 In 1584 Richard Stanihurst, Dublin Old English commentator, took a very disapprov-ing tone in his discussion of the custom, characterising the keen as consisting of ‘loud and effeminate weeping’ and ‘wolfish and shrieking cries’.

They shout dolefully through swollen cheeks, they cast off their necklaces, they bare their heads, they tear their hair, they beat their brows, they excite emotion on all sides, they spread their palms, they raise their hands to the heavens, they shake the coffin, tear open the shroud, embrace and kiss the corpse and scarcely allow the funeral to take place.


He argued that the custom should actively be discouraged by preaching and threats, since it was of no use to either the living or the dead, and cited the hypocrisy of those who lamented so passionately the deaths of people they cared nothing for.43 Barnaby Rich added to Stanihurst’s description, blaming the continuation of the custom on the neglect of the Catholic clergy, whom he also blamed for all of the other ills of Ireland.44

There are few glimpses of the fairy belief associated with the practice of keening, and I have found only three mentions of the banshee (ban sí, fairy woman), the vocal fairy ‘death messenger’ whose keen warned of or announced a death, relating to this period.45 The female bardic poet, Caitlín Dubh, in her laments on the deaths of certain of the O’Briens of Thomond, mentions her common cause with the local mná sí (banshees), Aoibheall, Fionnscoth and Áine.46 Coincidentally, Lady Anne Fanshawe, who gave an account of a supposed sighting of a banshee (‘a woman . . . in white, with red hair and pale and ghastly complexion’), was staying with a member of the O’Brien family when the encounter occurred.47 Another literary reference occurs in a 1646 poem by Pierce Ferriter, which depicted the various mná sí wailing before the death of Maurice Fitzgerald, Knight of Kerry.48 However, it is almost certain that amongst the Gaelic Irish in particular, belief in such death messengers and omens was far more widespread than the surviving sources suggest.

In the case of keening we again find both the Catholic and Protestant churches working in tandem with the civil authorities against what was increasingly seen as excessive and inappropriate behaviour. In 1611 the Irish Privy Council’s proposed legislation for a forthcoming parliament incorpo-rated ‘An Act for the abolishing of barbarous and rude customs’ such as ‘howling and crying at the burial of the dead’.49 In 1626 Galway corporation (a largely Catholic body) ordered that:

noe outcrye, houling or sho[u]ting be made in or out of the streetes of this towne uppon the buriall or at the buriall of any deceased person or persones whatsoever. . . but that all such barbarous courses be given over, on payne of five shillings English mony for each abuse in that kinde . . . all and every corpes to be caried to his grave here in sivill and orderly fashione, according to the forme in all good places observed.50

The corporation of Kilkenny (likewise largely Catholic) had in 1609 pro-mulgated a similar order: ‘no outcries to be made in the streets at funerals, on pain of 6d’. In 1626 it was decreed that should any ‘howling or crying’ occur at burials attended by the mayor and aldermen, the company should withdraw until the commotion ceased.51 The Catholic synod of Tuam in 1631 prohibited keening at funerals, though it is again unlikely that any effective steps against it were taken at that time.52 As in the case of wake abuses, the pressure was stepped up from 1660 onwards.53


Essentially what is expressed in the writings of those who condemned the keen is a clash of cultural ideas. For one group its ritualised clamour and poetic expression was a means of displaying the grief and sense of loss (and sometimes the anger or bewilderment) experienced by the community at the death of one of its members. It was thus an expression of respect towards the deceased and his or her family. Like the wake, it also served to mediate other tensions awakened by the presence amongst them of a potent reminder of universal mortality and to strengthen community bonds.54 For the other group (reformers of both denominations), such disorder might be seen as profoundly disrespectful to the deceased, to his or her family, and especially to God, since excessive gestures of mourning indicated a criminal lack of acceptance of his ways.55 Charges of ‘superstition’ would not have helped matters.

That this was not always the case is alluded to in Alice Thornton’s descrip-tion of the funeral of Lord Deputy Wandesford in Christchurch cathedral in 1640. She proudly comments that:

Such was the love that God had given to the worthy person, that the Irish did sett up their lamentable hone, as they called it, for him in the church, which was never knowne before for any Englishman don.

Alice, as a woman, may not have felt threatened by this very female acti-vity, but the male clerics and administrators who sought to stamp it out certainly felt uncomfortable. That the decline of the keen paralleled increased clerical involvement in funerals, the growth of the middle classes, and the increased use of the black mourning costume for women which reached its height in the Victorian era, is not coincidental.56 Still public advertisements of social mourning, women became silent keeners in a more decorous age.57 The keen’s decline also removed its value a form of protest for women in cases when they perceived themselves to be oth-erwise powerless.58 For example, the 1617 poetic keen by Fionnghuala Ní Bhriain on Uaithne Ó Lochlainn lamented both the subject’s death and the author’s loss of precedence since the demise of her patron, the Earl of Thomond.59 A similar function is indicated in reports of an incident in Co. Kildare in the early stages of the 1641 rebellion. During the killing of John Browne, the man’s mother and three sisters ‘were all present teareing of their hayre and with lowde and bitter cryes begging [Dudley] Cooly to save [his] lyfe, but could not prevayle with him’.60 Later keeners on occasion turned their art against rivals and those who tried to obstruct them, as in the case of an eighteenth-century poem by a ‘keening woman protecting herself’ against the contempt of a priest at a funeral.61 However, it seems from an account from Co. Down in 1617 that in the early modern period keeners might work in conjunction with the clergy at funerals, ‘to cry many blessings upon the soul of some of the . . . friends deceased’ of those


who offered gifts to them.62 It is clear, therefore, that the keen held a vari-ety of subtle connotations that invite more detailed exploration than is possible here.

How long was the interval between death and burial into which all of these activities were fitted? The information is sometimes contradictory, but certain tentative conclusions may be drawn. The Irish Funeral Entries are one of the few sets of documents in which any lengthy series of death and burial dates is recorded. The entries from the 1630s are the most detailed in this regard. Of some 285 entries c.1634–40, 94 give both death and burial dates (see Table 3.1). If we lay aside the fourteen entries where a gap of eight or more days occur, an average gap of 3.3 days between death and burial can be calculated. We can thus reasonably confidently take 2–4 days as being the usual time elapsing between death and burial for the middle and upper classes in Ireland in the 1630s.63 Other evidence supports this conclusion. For example, in the few incidents of entries that give both death and burial dates for the period 1595–1605, a similar pattern emerges (Table 3.2). However, it must not be forgotten that the Funeral Entries relate to the better-off sections of society, and thus it is dangerous to generalise about social norms from this position. Certainly, the funerals of the lower classes would have involved less preparation, and may have been accomplished more hastily. The Earl of Cork’s papers mention the deaths of certain of his servants who were buried quite rapidly afterwards. In July 1625 John Potter died in the ironworks and was buried the next day in Tullow church.64

When on 25 August 1626 Thomas Farmer died at five in the morning, he ‘the same evening was decently buried in the chancel of Lismoor’.65 William Badler who died in Dublin of smallpox on 3 February 1635 ‘was the next daie buried in St. warbroughes churche very deacentlie, with goode

Table 3.1 Interval between death and burial (Funeral Entries, 1634–40)

Interval 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8/9 10–20 21–30 31–40 over 40 in days

No. of 6 2 25 14 7 4 4 3 2 2 4 3

entries

Table 3.2 Interval between death and burial (Funeral Entries, 1595–1605)

Interval 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 in days

No. of 3 4 5 1 0 1 0 1

entries


company’.66 The burials of children might also be accomplished rapidly, and in certain circumstances, such as plague, it is likely that bodies would be buried as quickly as possible to prevent infection.

At the other end of the scale are those examples where an extraordinary period – weeks or even months – elapsed between the death and funeral of an individual. This is the case of the most elaborate heraldic funerals, and resulted from the necessity for a period of intensive arrangement and preparation usually orchestrated by the heralds, whose surviving manuscripts capture something of the splendid symbolic display required for these occasions. For example, Sir Toby Caulfield’s impressive funeral took place three weeks after his death in August 1626, a delay vastly surpassed by Sir Arthur Chichester’s interment in Carrickfergus six months after his death in 1625, though in this case the body had first to be transported from London.67

On certain occasions, burial may have been delayed for other reasons. Eleanor Fitzgerald, wife of Robert Frayne, kept her husband’s body for nine weeks after his death in 1643, while she had a vault built to receive it in Dysartmoon Church, Co. Kilkenny.68 Two 1640 entries from the parish register of St Michan’s church, Dublin, indicate that by that point a Coroner’s Court with the power to inquire into suspicious deaths had been set up in the city. On 27 July, ‘Tyrlaugh Fagon, being drowned as he was bathing himselfe, after the Crowner’s inquest was buried in the Parish Churchyard of St. Michan’s’. On 15 August, ‘Robert Dutton, being murdered in Martin Brughes house in Hammond’s lane, after the Crowners Inquest was past uppon him was buried’.69 Doubtless, the existence of such a court made the investigation and prosecution of murder much more efficient, since it removed the need to rely on the testimony of inexpert witnesses such as the women mentioned earlier who prepared the bodies of Mrs Bushin and Captain Todd.

Heraldic and other funerals

The activities around the corpse culminated in the funeral. The primary function of funeral ritual is to dispose of the remains of a deceased individ-ual, while attempting to heal the dislocation caused to society by the death of one of its members. However, the provision a uniform ritual for all members of society has usually been found to be unworkable. Even today in the case of important individuals the damage is considered to be particularly severe and the associated ceremonial often expands to deal with a wider range of issues.70 In these cases it often seems as if the deceased is possessed of two bodies, much like the duality ascribed to reigning monarchs. There is the natural, private body which is naturally subject to death and decay, but also the public body (the king’s ‘body politic’) which does not die, but is instead passed on to a successor.71 By the sixteenth century in England and


elsewhere an effective ritual had developed which depended on visual symbolism to express the continuity of titles and entitlements despite the disruption caused by the inevitable death of their holders. The English heraldic funeral served to accomplish the disposal of both the private and public elements of the deceased’s role, the loss of the private individual being at all times secondary to the fate of their public identity. The heraldic funeral also impressed on the populace at large and on other members of the aristocracy the power and prestige of the family involved, and of the state, whose agents controlled the ritual. This was expressed through the muster-ing of important connections and of heraldry, as well as through the mobilisation of financial resources.72

In Ireland the officials charged with the organisation and regulation of heraldic funerals were the Ulster King of Arms and his deputy, the Athlone Pursuivant. While the Ulster Office had been set up in Dublin in 1552, largely for political reasons, the heralds were for a long period little able to extend their influence outside Dublin and the Pale. That does not necessar-ily mean that grand funerals on the heraldic models were not occurring elsewhere in the country. The funeral of Sir Peter Carew at Waterford in December 1575, for example, contained many heraldic elements, but seems to have taken place without the presence of Ulster or Athlone.73 Nicholas Narbon, Ulster between 1566 and 1588, was the first to record details of funerals he attended or organised. These descriptions, whose main purpose was the recording ‘of all those persons entitled to bear a coat of arms’, later developed into the volumes of ‘Funeral Entries’ preserved in the Genealogical Office in Dublin, and in the British Library.74 The Funeral Entries might be described as the ‘death notices’ of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century armingers, though the amount of information they supply is inconsistent. Some volumes provide little more than basic details of name, place of death and burial and armorial bearings, while others include additional information about dates of death or burial, ordering of funeral processions and descriptions of family relationships. Those records dating from the early to mid-seventeenth century demonstrate a gradual extension of the activities of the Officers of Arms to most of the counties of Ireland. However, not all of those mentioned in the Funeral Entries had nec-essarily been buried with the attendance of the Officers of Arms. The heirs of all armingers were technically obliged to return a funeral certificate, but this formality might only follow some time after the death, perhaps when a family member was in Dublin on business, or when the heralds visited the larger towns. Cooperation was not guaranteed, despite royal prompting, especially since there was a fee involved, and thus the heralds’ manuscripts occasionally record those who had not paid for their certificates.75 The whole system was severely undermined by the disruption of the 1640s, and subsequent heralds never really regained their previous position as managers of relations between the dead and the living.


Few details can be gleaned regarding the conduct of funerals in Ireland prior to the sixteenth century, and it is difficult to tell whether the proto-heraldic funerals that were occurring in England in the later fifteenth century also extended to the anglicised areas of the country or beyond. For example, despite the routine occurrence in the medieval Irish annals of entries noting the deaths of members of the upper levels of Gaelic society, other details, apart from the cause and places of death and burial, are rare. Few give any particulars of funeral ceremonies or customs, apart from men-tioning that the proceedings had occurred ‘with honour’.76 For the later medieval period, only two fifteenth-century entries seem to elaborate any further. That relating to Enri MacCapa describes how he was buried at Cavan in 1460 with ‘fourteen score of axes or more in his funeral procession’.77

Four years later, in 1464, Tadc O Conchobar, ‘half-king of Connacht’ was buried at Roscommon with exceptional ‘pomp and dignity’, surrounded by horsemen and gallowglasses (mercenary soldiers) in armour ‘as if marching into battle’.78 The ‘young levies’, poets and ‘men of art’ also participated ‘and the women of Sil Murray followed in countless throngs’. Large offerings of livestock and money were made to the church, and it was reported that the deceased had on his deathbed seen his soul being saved through the intercession of Saints Mary and Michael.79

Such shows of strength at funerals doubtless related in part to attempts to underline the claims of the appointed heir, given that it seems that on occasion the choice (and inauguration?) of a new taoiseach (clan leader – Gaelic succession was by election rather than primogeniture, though this was gradually changed by government pressure in the sixteenth century) would have occurred in association with the funeral of its former holder.80

So, for example, Aed MacDiarmata was made king of Moylurg ‘after the burial’ of the deceased Tadc MacDiarmata in 1405. Likewise the annals imply that the election of Brian MacMahon to succeed Hugh Roe MacMahon in 1453 occurred soon after the latter’s burial at Clones. In 1458 the events were reversed: O’Conor Faly, Lord of Offaly, died and his son Con, ‘was elected in his place before his father was buried in (the monastery of) Killeigh’.81 It may be that similar lordly funeral processions continued throughout the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth in certain areas, although no detailed descriptions seem to survive.

One of the earliest recorded Irish heraldic funerals was that of Sir Jenico Preston, Viscount Gormanston, a member of the Old English community, in 1569. The funeral procession consisted of the Viscount’s standard bearer, the Athlone Persuivant carrying the deceased’s ‘creste and mantelles’, the sword and target carried by a gentleman dressed in black, and the Ulster King of Arms bearing the coat of arms. Both of the heralds wore the arms of England over their black gowns. These four figures were followed by the corpse of the deceased ‘borne by syx of his men in blake cotes’, and behind the corpse came the seven mourners – the deceased’s heir, Christopher Preston; a


grandson, Sir Christopher Nugent, Baron of Delvin; two sons-in-law Michael FitzWilliam and John Bathe; his brother; another son-in-law, Robert Phyfold (Pyphoe); and John Finglas, one of the executors of his will. When the cortège arrived at the parish church the corpse was set down in the choir and the principal mourners took seats around it ‘vntill offryng tyme’. The chief mourner (the new Viscount), attended by the King of Arms, then presented an offering to the priest and went to stand on the latter’s right. The Athlone Persuivant stood on Gormanston’s other side as the rest of the offerings were made. First came the Baron of Delvin and FitzWilliam who brought the deceased’s coat of arms to the Ulster King of Arms, who in turn passed it to the priest, from whom it was passed to Gormanston and then to Athlone, who finally placed it upon the altar. The same procedure attended the presentation of the rest of the hatchments. The chief mourner then returned to his place, attended there by the King of Arms, where he knelt while the other mourners made their offerings in pairs and returned to their seats. The standard was then offered by its bearer, who was attended by the Pursuivant. This standard and the rest of the paraphernalia would have been left in the church over the grave.82 Following this ceremony the mourners left the church and Ulster accompanied them back to the deceased’s house ‘where was prepared a sumtyous dyner’, while Athlone remained for the burial service. The following day the guests left, and the heralds received their fees from the young Viscount.83

In later heraldic funerals other elements might be present, such as a funeral sermon preached before the burial.84 There are few references to such sermons, and, in contrast to other countries, hardly any published or manuscript sermon-texts seem to survive for the period in question.85 Alice Thornton mentioned that the Bishop of Derry, who preached at the funeral of her father, Lord Deputy Wandesford, in 1640, took as his theme Matt. 21:8. The sermon, or perhaps the whole ceremony, was obviously considered by Alice to have been very moving, as she comments that ‘I am sure amongst the multitude of people there was not many drie eyes’.86 A variety of differ-ent preachers are represented in more detailed Dublin funeral entries from the 1620s and early 1630s. The deaths of important individuals might result in a series of sermons preached during Sunday services, as was the case following the death of Sir Charles Coote in 1642.87 It should be stressed that sermons were not the sole preserve of heraldic funerals. They were also frequently preached at the funerals of more lowly individuals, as at the burial of the Earl of Cork’s servant, Thomas Farmer, in Lismore in 1626.88

Sermons usually served to point a moral and religious example, as in the case of that preached by Nicholas Bernard, Dean of Ardagh, after the death of the Bishop of Waterford, John Atherton who, as already mentioned, had been executed for sodomy and other sexual offences in 1640. Barnard claimed that while Atherton had been guilty of many sins, for which he had been sincerely sorry, sodomy was not one of these. Taking Acts 26:17–18 as


his text, he used Atherton’s neglect of his ministry to highlight the duties of the clergy, while presenting the Bishop’s ‘penitent death’ as a demonstration of God’s forgiveness and mercy to the most ‘woefull sinner’.89 In another pamphlet, Barnard described the massive crowd that had attended his original sermon in Christchurch, alleging that ‘Many Papists . . . were much Affected...One who came thither Wept in the very Church, and was Converted’.90 In Ireland, as elsewhere, therefore, sermons had a function in religious propaganda. It is possible that some of the examples of Catholic good deaths cited in the previous chapter were originally used in funeral and other sermons, given their similarity in tone to the type of sermons preached in France from the mid-sixteenth century onwards.91

The symbolism of a transfer of power was central to the ritual of the heraldic funeral. In the Gormanston funeral, for example, the trappings of rank were presented to the heir, passing first through the hands of the priest and the Ulster King of Arms, the spiritual and temporal representatives of God and the monarch. The continuity evoked would have been underlined in the funerals of peers by the fact that, as in England, the chief mourner did not usually stay for the interment of the body. Instead the procession re-formed and returned to the funeral feast. The symbolic involvement of the agents of the Crown in this transaction had an added significance in Ireland during this period, as ongoing attempts were made to encourage or to force landowners to regularise their titles to their land by submitting to programmes of ‘surrender and regrant’, whereby monarchs granted English titles to lands in return for recognition of their authority. More so in Ireland than in England, participants in such ceremonies may have been aware that this was not merely a straight transfer of rights from titleholder to heir, but that ultimately what God and the monarch had bestowed, the monarch had the right to take away. The slow initial take-up rate of the services of the heralds may indicate suspicion of their purposes as much as their novelty. Furthermore, the fact that the Ulster King of Arms was named for the province he probably visited least, while the Athlone Persuivant may not have frequented that midlands town very often, may not have been lost on the various appointers and appointees to those positions.

The Irish heraldic funeral was refined in subsequent years, with the procession in many cases lengthening considerably, and the heraldic display and other trappings becoming increasingly elaborate and costly. As Raymond Gillespie points out, in a country where the energetic often accu-mulated wealth and titles with unusual rapidity, such displays were ideal vehicles for those whose social position was recently acquired to ‘demon-strate their new place in a mobile social order and shake off all vestiges of their origins’.92 The picture presented by the heraldic funeral was immensely adaptable, and once carefully controlled could usually be relied upon to give a convincing impression of total veracity. The drama and solemnity of the occasion – the black clothing of the mourners set against the colour of the


numerous coats of arms, the procession, and the ritual transfer of power and entitlements – combined to give an impression of immemorial and permanent social relationships. They proclaimed the family involved to be ‘here to stay’, while obscuring or ignoring any suggestion of recent or dubious origins. Tied in with this was a large element of competitive conspicuous consumption, through which families could attempt to turn a loss to their advantage. Such displays of power and wealth did not merely reflect power already attained, therefore, but could put forward an argument for future greatness through the momentary transformation of aspiration into reality.93

To take one example, the funeral of Sir Toby Caulfield occurred in 1626. Caulfield had come to Ireland as a soldier, rising in the ranks to become Master of Ordnance, before purchasing the title of Baron of Charlemont in 1620. His cousin, Lord William Caulfield, inherited the profits and title and acted as chief mourner at the ceremony.94 The procession included such New English names as Loftus, Moore, Blount, Blundell and de Renzi; the heterogeneous collection demonstrating how all possible associations were exploited in the display to locate Caulfield in a wide New English social group, connected by bonds of marriage, dependance, patronage and, above all, self-interest.

By contrast, when Christopher Nugent, Lord Delvin, son and heir of the Old English Earl of Westmeath, was interred in Clonyn at a funeral attended by the officers of arms in July 1625, the procession was primarily a family affair, the majority of the participants bearing the name Nugent.95 When Luke, Viscount Dillon of Costellogallan, died in 1629, his heraldic funeral in Athlone was similarly well attended by Dillon connections.96 Growing Old English involvement in such funerals during a period that found them increasingly alienated from government institutions may indicate that they perceived some dynastic and practical advantages in continued cooperation with the heralds.97 Dillon’s funeral is particularly interesting in this regard, since the death of the deceased’s father only five years ago had not even been recorded by the heralds. His own heir was only a child, and the ratio-nale behind the occasion may have been an attempt to legitimate the succession, and underline entitlements.

Evidently the heralds seem to have been able to reconcile themselves to attendance at what must have been, especially in the case of the Nugents, predominantly Catholic gatherings. Albon Leveret, the Athlone Persuivant at the time, was a Protestant of Calvinistic hue, and Daniel Molyneux, the King of Arms, was also a Protestant, his second wife being the daughter of Adam Loftus, Archbishop of Armagh.98 They may have even colluded with Catholic funerals to an extent, overlooking occasions when Protestant ministers were not present or, if they were, that their role was abbreviated by the omission of the sermon from the funeral ceremony (it is likely that the main part of the religious ceremonies would have been performed


beforehand, a point that will be returned to later). This is suggested by the fact that, of twenty-two seventeenth-century funeral processions chronicled in detail in the Funeral Entries, most of the Protestant processions include a preacher, but the four main definitely Catholic funerals represented do not. The Dillon funeral may also be included in this list since, while it was that of a Protestant, most of those present would have been Catholics.99

A frequently neglected group of participants in these and other types of funerals is the audience who, in fact, played as vital a role as the more visible actors. Onlookers would have followed the procession, lined the streets and filled the church. The funeral entries hint at this when they mention the conductors and grooms placed at various points in the procession, presumably to ensure its ordered progress. At the funeral of Sir James Ware in 1632 at the rear of the procession were ‘2 Men with Staves bareheaded to Keep off the Throng’.100 Behind that of Sir John Brereton in 1629 walked ‘Solomon Doran & Cormack Higin to Keep off the throng’.101

This ‘throng’ was not necessarily a curious rabble. At the funeral of Sir Arthur Chichester, ‘The Mayor [of Carrickfergus] & his Trane’ followed behind the final ‘Two Yeomen bare Head’d wth Staves’,102 indicating that in many cases the official procession may only represent part of the actual one. It is clear from the will of Henry O’Brien, fifth Earl of Thomond, that a considerable number of people who would not have been included in a herald’s description of events were expected to be present at the funeral. Amongst the twenty-eight named individuals who, along with their servants, were to be given mourning costumes, were the Countess of Thomond, her five daughters, the earl’s sister, and her daughter. None of these people, as women, would have been at the front of the procession. The earl also bequeathed £100 sterling to the Bishop of Limerick, who was requested to preach the funeral sermon, and no doubt it was expected that a large crowd would be present to hear his words.103 The funeral of Lord Deputy Wandesford in 1640 was attended by a large number of Irish people who, as already mentioned, began keening him in the church.104

Without such an audience, and without community participation, the heraldic funeral would have lost its effect, and thus its raison d’être. Thus while only a small proportion of the population of early modern Ireland may have ever aspired to the ranks of those for whom such displays were created, very many became invisible (to us) participants in these dramas.105

Cost

Creation of the spectacle of the heraldic funeral involved huge expenditure, a fact reflected to some degree in the heralds’ documents. The illustrations of Manuscripts 64 and 66 capture something of the requisite ostentation.


Ceremonial robes, banners, pennons and palls embroidered with the arms of the deceased are portrayed. Persons of differing rank merited varying degrees of splendour. The work of the heralds in defining the degree of pomp to which each person was entitled, and in controlling the heraldry displayed, had an important function at a time when such symbols expressed the relationships between individuals and groups. One document, for example, itemises the expenses ‘For the funerall of a Lo: viscounte’. The basic banner, standard, pennons, ‘bannerolles’, ‘Coate of Armes’, sword, target, wreath, crest, mantle, helmet, eight dozen ‘scutcheons’, plus 65 ‘-pencills’, would cost to £39 4s. 8d. in all, envisaged the writer. On top of this, the construction and painting of a hearse, a wooden structure set up around the coffin in the church and covered in black cloth, coats of arms, and candles, would cost about £45 18s. 4d.106 The heralds also had to be paid and fed. ‘The fees and travailinge charges of the officers is in this case by order set down xxl [£20] beside theire diet and lodging’. Finally, there was the ‘bayes [baize] to hange the church and house wch is comonly hired at 1d ye yarde’, of which several hundred yards might be necessary. Presumably for those who preferred a cheaper option, there is the comment that ‘The Hearse and alter Rayles being left out ye charge will be but £59 04s 6d’.107 The records of St John the Evangelist Church, Dublin, indicate that they possessed at least two hearses that presumably were for public use or hire.108 Additional charges included the cost of hospitality, mourning clothing, and payments to the preacher, ushers and poor. The funeral of someone of higher rank might therefore cost a staggering amount of money. That of Lord Deputy Wandesford in 1640 cost ‘above £1,300 . . . which so increased the debts upon his estate as proved very heavy in the time of trouble’.109

The illustrations accompanying the five-page account of the funeral of Elizabeth, wife of the Earl of Ormond, in 1601, similarly demonstrate the expense involved in such occasions. The hearse was liberally adorned with crests and flags. Thirty-nine shields of arms, one great banner, four smaller banners, and twenty-two pennons are visible in the drawing. The coffin and altar were draped with black cloth, on which more shields of arms were embroidered. The mourners and their attendants were dressed in black, the attire presumably supplied by the Butler family, as were the poor women at the front of the procession, who also wore ‘white kercheffes of one yarde on their heades’. The ‘chamber and halle’, at the funeral feast, also had to be carefully decorated. The illustrations of this show a canopied chair and coat of arms with the remark: ‘this chayre of estate covered wth veluet and on[e] cussion or pyllow of veluet ye foote charpet of veluet or cloth’. Also shown is a ‘cubart couered wth blake’, and the seating arrangements at three long tables.110 When Lady Valentia, wife of Sir Henry Power, Viscount Valentia, was buried in Dublin in September 1641, the funeral cost well in excess of £300, including over £83 spent on appropriate clothing for the chief


participants.111 The Countess of Cork’s funeral in 1629 cost one thousand marks sterling, which was spent on mourning clothing, wine, the ‘blacks and chardges’, and other necessities.112 It should be noted that each of these funerals were of women whose husbands survived them, allowing their fam-ilies to reap the benefits of the propaganda of the funeral display from a stronger position than would have been be the case had the death been that of a family head or heir.113

Wills tell us something of the cost of other funerals during this period. Testators concerned that their obsequies be performed adequately fre-quently stipulated the amount to be spent. The sums varied. William Wadding of Wexford in 1640 willed £15 ‘to be disposed of in my funerall’.114

Thomas Casey of Rathcannon, Co. Limerick, worried that he might not have allocated enough towards the occasion, authorising his executors to spend more than the £50 mentioned if necessary.115 Dr Charles Dunne, who died in 1617, considered a £60 legacy as adequate to provide a decent funeral for a Master of Chancery.116 Richard Wadding of Waterford willed two gales of rent to his son in 1626 ‘the better to discharge my ffunrall and other charges and troubles comonly cominge upon heires after their fathers death’.117 In a few cases the traditional ‘third part of my goods’ was left by testators for funeral expenses, as did Dwell McSwyny of Kilmore, Co. Tipperary (1639), who divided this third between his funeral and bequests for prayers for his soul.118

Those who reacted against excessive expenditure on funerals also recorded their wishes in their wills. For a number of testators, desire for a simple funeral seems to have gone hand in hand with strong religious beliefs. In 1619, Richard Walsh of Oldcourt, Co. Wicklow (Old English Catholic), left £10 towards prayers for his soul, and asked that his funeral should emulate those of the poor.119 Lisagh O’Connor of Leixlip, Co. Kildare (Old Irish Catholic), who left money for ‘pious uses’ and asked for masses to be said for his soul, similarly asked to be ‘decentlie buried with smale cost’, contin-uing, ‘[I] doe expresslie declare that there shalbe noe blakes isquitchions or such vaine sheowes, onlie that my soule be remembered’.120 Sir Geoffrey Fenton (New English Protestant) in 1608 attributed funeral excess to ‘the looseness of this tyme’, instead asking to be buried ‘with a Christian decency’.121 On a few occasions pleas for restraint were certainly ignored, as in the case of Francis Lord Aungier, Baron of Longford, who requested burial ‘without funerall pompe’ in a chapel near his house, but was instead interred with full heraldic display in St Patrick’s Cathedral two months after his death in 1632.122 There is, however, no extant evidence of the funerals of those on the island who may have held extreme Protestant views and who may thus have rejected all but the most minimal ceremonies of interment.123

Some found it necessary to compromise between religious ideal, trends towards simplicity, and the desire for adequate solemnity at their funer-


als.124 William Wiseman, a Bandon Protestant, in 1635 resolved the dilemma by ordering that he be buried:

without any funerall pompe or greate expence or giving any morneing Apperell or blacks more than an hunderd or thereabouts of blacke Ribbons to be distributed among my friends and Acquaintance as my Executors in their discretion shall thinke them fitt to be bestowed.125

But desire for a modest funeral was not necessarily a pious or fashionable statement. For example, John Inkersall of Castlemote, Queen’s County (will 1637), asked for a private funeral in Desert Gallen parish church ‘As I have neither wife nor alliance on this side [of the] seas’.126

Clare Gittings has charted the retreat of certain sections of English society from the heraldic funeral, which led to a considerable simplification of rit-uals. This situation also occurred in Ireland, though there is little in the Irish material to support Gittings’ controversial attribution of this development to a vaguely defined ‘rise of individualism’. Instead the Irish evidence cited above suggests that religious ideology may have had something to do with the decline of the heraldic funeral. Certainly it has been realised elsewhere that certain Protestant groupings urged simplicity in funeral expenditure since, as they argued, rituals and prayers over the body benefited the soul not at all as its fate had already been decided. Other pressures also came into play, such as the rising fashion in England and elsewhere for nighttime funerals.127 The Irish heralds were to find that just as they were beginning to make headway in their insistence on the use of the appropriate heraldry amongst those of high rank, the trends that eventually undermined the entire system were already beginning to appear. The funeral entry of Mary, Baroness of Ardee, wife of Edward Brabazon, who died in August 1625, recorded that she ‘was burried in St. Katherine’s church Dublin between the houres of tein and a leaven of the cloke at night wthout any funerall rights according to her degree of Honour, contrarie to the rights of Nobility’. Nor were the fees due to the heralds on entering her funeral certificate paid.128

By the last quarter of the seventeenth century Thomas Dineley was lament-ing the decline of the Irish heraldic funeral in the strongest terms.129

Amongst the sections of society which produced few testators (the poor, women), information on funerals is more sketchy and impressionistic. Some information is available regarding the money paid to the clergy involved in the proceedings, whether Protestant or Catholic, though since this infor-mation often comes from the opposing group, it may occasionally be exaggerated. One Protestant document claimed that the Catholic clergy in Ireland received 12d. for Extreme Unction, 2s. for burials, between 10 and 20s. for prayers for the soul of the deceased, as well as the offering given by those attending the funeral, customary levies from the goods of the deceased, plus ordinary legacies left by testators.130 A 1624 order of the Lord


Deputy and Council provided for the payment of 9d. to the Church of Ireland minister and 4d. to the clerk for burials in the six escheated counties of Ulster.131 Four years later it was claimed that the Irish Protestant clergy were charging as much as 6s. 8d. in funeral fees, thereby contributing to the further impoverishment of the less well off.132 The ‘Graces’ of 1628 included a clause ordering restraint on the part of the Protestant clergy when it came to exacting payments for marriages, christenings and burial.133 The conflicting claims of the two systems may have led in parts of the country to a situation where people were forced to pay twice for burials, to both the Protestant minister and the Catholic clergy. Matthew de Renzy, a Protestant, was of the opinion that such double burdens would help encourage the ‘vulgar’ to ‘leave their Irisch priests’.134 But in 1622 John Rider, Church of Ireland Bishop of Killaloe, lamented that it was his clergy who lost out, ‘ye people being unwilling to pay double both to ye clergy of my diocese and to ye Popish preists’.135 A curious document of 1641 listing some of the grievances of the House of Commons regarding excessive financial exactions by the church seems to extend to those taken by the clergy of both denominations, given that mentions are made of anointing of the dying and ‘Soule Money’. It also described how when a person died in one parish and was buried in another, the same payment had to be given to both. Double the normal fee of 3s. 4d. might also be charged for the burial of a stranger to an area.136 In St John the Evangelist parish, Dublin, 6s. 8d. was charged for burial of people over the age of sixteen in the body of the church, while 10s. was the cost of chancel burial. It seems from the application of charges that 3s. 4d. was charged for church burial of children, and burial in the churchyard was cheaper. People not resident in the parish were charged ‘double the valewe’.137

The picture is confused, not only by such incidents of double demands, but also because even prior to the Reformation customary payments at funerals seem to have varied from region to region. So in Dublin and elsewhere ‘mor-tuaries’ (usually the best garment of the deceased) were paid to the clergy on the deaths of parishioners ‘in recompense, theoretically, for personal tithes whose payment the latter had omitted during their lives’. On to this were added payments for the ceremonies of burial (8d. in Ossory in 1537) and Extreme Unction.138 It may be that the 6s. 8d. fee mentioned above corres-ponded to the traditional ‘mortuary’, and that funeral fees were actually rather smaller, or at least that other payments were also necessary. However, in 1632 in Ulster the fees of Catholic priests were reported as including sums for ‘extreme unction, mortuaries and burials’.139 It seems that by the late six-teenth century the rationale given for such payments had changed, the churchwardens of St John’s interpreting this fee as being the proper payment for church burial, while later notes characterised it as compensation ‘for breaking the ground’. Given that the amounts reported by these churchwar-dens as having been collected do not tally with the numbers of people buried


in that church, it seems that many people may have defaulted in their payments.140 In the diocese of Derry in 1631, it was the Catholic clergy who were making money from burial, receiving 1s. for Unction, as well as offer-ings at funerals, and a ‘mortuary’, described as ‘a cowe or mare or some young large beast of such which is possessed of goods; and of the poore sorte some part of what they die possessed of as alsoe theire upper garment as their mantle or brackin’.141 In Connacht in 1641 it was claimed that ‘they [the priests] take a Mutton, 2 lambs, and the best garment of the defunct, as well in the parish where the defunct dies as where he is buried’.142 In certain areas it seems that these ‘mortuaries’ under the term ‘herriots’ may have been col-lected by the local lord, rather than by the clergy.143 The Earl of Cork described on several occasions how he had received ‘herriots’ on the deaths of his tenants, such as ‘a black ambling hackney, which I had for a herriot uppon the death of Turlagh McTeag’.144 Investigation into these payments in the century before and after the period covered here may clarify the issue.

Guild records occasionally preserve some mentions of funerals, and not necessarily merely those of important brethren. For example, the records of the Merchant-Tailors’ Guild of Dublin include a note of 4s. 4d. spent on the funeral of Thomas the button maker on 3 July 1608. Eight months later 12d. was disbursed for ‘Repairing the lights for Mr. Henne’s wake’, and a further 3s. 6d. was ‘spent on the company after his burial’. In the records of 1609–10 mention is made of payments of 11s. 6d. for the burial of another guild member.145 Obviously the provision of an adequate burial ceremony could be accomplished fairly economically, with the most costly aspect of the rit-ual being the provision of hospitality for those who attended. One of the functions of such guilds in late medieval and early modern society was the burials of members. This of course was more important amongst guilds where the majority of members were Catholic, when securing large atten-dance at funerals held the added bonus of securing the optimum number of prayers for the soul of the deceased.146 The guilds often lent out the equip-ment used on such occasions, thereby further reducing the costs to mem-bers. An undated document from Kilkenny refers to the wax tapers, candlesticks, hearse cloth and black hangings owned by one guild in the city, and sets out regulations for their use by members. It also reveals that in the past it was usual to spend £3 on the funerals of masters of the guild and of aldermen or their wives, while £2 10s. was the expenditure on the obse-quies of freemen of the guild.147 For those with no such support, burials might be paid for out of parish funds, as was the case of a number of poor people buried in St John’s parish in the 1640s.

Hierarchy

Thus the concern for hierarchy so central to the heraldic funeral extended also to the burial ceremonies of those of lesser rank. The funeral procession


was society writ small, everyone in order according to his or her degree. In the early seventeenth century Kilkenny Corporation ordered that at the funerals of ‘persons of distinction’ in the town, as at other occasions, the mayor and aldermen, accompanied by their wives, should attend as a group and be appropriately attired. In a Galway edict of 1647 the importance of the deceased, and the relative consequence of those in public office, was expressed by the robes worn by the Corporation. At the burial of aldermen, mayors or their wives, their counterparts were to attend in red gowns, while ‘aldermen in election’ and past and present sheriffs were to wear their black gowns. The funerals of sheriffs and their wives merited black gowns for all of the officials, while for recorders red gowns were to be used.148 In this way the structures of social and civic hierarchy could be recreated, displayed and thus reinforced at every such funeral. Upon the mayor and his brethren, in both Kilkenny and Galway, was laid the onus of setting out the standard of appropriate behaviour, the practice of keening being one abuse that was not to be tolerated by the members of either corporation, as already noted.149 By such means social control could be exerted in a subtle, but doubtless effect-ive, manner. Those persisting in their ‘abuses’ were faced with the loss of the prestige afforded by the attendance of the worthy at the funerals of members of their families.

The authorities occasionally expressed concern in cases where the conduct of funerals was seen as excessively lavish, and were particularly concerned with the meals served afterwards. Eating and drinking attended every communal occasion in the early modern period, but the sense of community expressed in funeral feasts had an additional facet, in that it symbolised the reconstitution of the community following the loss of one of its members. Hence the large sums of money spent on hospitality, to the extent that some families, as we have seen, even impoverished themselves to provide an adequate spread.150 This was the flipside of competitive conspicuous consumption. One hostile commentator wrote that over a thousand people might arrive at Irish funerals, weddings and christenings, ‘to feast and riot it out for three or four days together, at the charge of the dead or married couple and their friends, to their utter undoing for ever’.151

Unwarranted expenditure and display were not only damaging to the finan-cial situation of the family involved, and of the community at large, should debts not be met, but also upset the equilibrium of society by giving a false impression of the status of the deceased and his or her family. Thus the Catholic clergy in 1618 castigated those indulging in overly sumptuous mourning costumes and banquets, as well as those ‘in humble circumstance, [who] seek to compete with those who are wealthy, and sin grievously, imposing an intolerable burden on their own children’.152 The heralds were also concerned to limit display by those not entitled to it, hence their care-ful enquiry into the arms borne by various families, their organisation of funerals, and their insistence on the return of funeral certificates.


Other Catholic funerals

It is unfortunate that funerals in areas outside the towns are particularly under-documented. Any glimpses afforded are usually limited, generally from the pens of outside observers. Certain funerals seem to have attracted massive crowds. One account claimed that the obsequies of a man of the rank of an English yeoman might attract ‘the Inhabitants of 5 or 6 parishes, and some comeing 9 or 10 miles, and many times to the N[umber] of 3000 persons or more’.153 The number of people who could be raised in times of crisis expressed a man’s importance more effectively than the more abstract signs of the heraldic funeral. As already mentioned, since transfers of power in Gaelic areas were often attended by a far greater degree of instability than was the case in more anglicised areas, the funeral must have been an important occasion on which the heir could marshal his supporters and, conversely, where others could demonstrate their opposition. By extension, the element of hospitality reflected by the funeral feast was particularly important, since it demonstrated the lord’s ability to look after his followers.

Even in the towns, the full spectrum of Catholic funeral rites does not really show up in the documentation. So much of the ceremony was officially proscribed, though it was probably unusual that prohibitions would or could be put into practice, that it took place privately, and was rarely recorded. Since here especially churches were usually, though not necessarily, in Protestant hands, the greater part of the necessary funeral ceremonies seem to have been conducted in the deceased’s own house, before the corpse was brought for burial (often to a Protestant church, a factor dealt with later). Occasional complaints give glimpses of the more public elements of the cere-mony. For example, one of the complaints about the Catholics of Navan in 1622 was that ‘They carry a cross openly in the streets before the dead, being carried to buriall’.154 Another document described in detail the scene at a Catholic funeral in Shipland Begg, Co. Down in 1617, where the service occurred in a field near the church of Down, and was followed by the col-lection of offerings by the clergy present. The procession then set off for the church, stopping at the town cross, where prayers were said after the corpse had been carried around the cross. On hearing of the case, the state solicitor imposed fines on the participants, a fact which may have led to more cir-cumspection in the conduct of funerals, but is unlikely to have permanently altered anything other than elements of their location.155

The description of the conduct of burials provided by John Shearman, the frustrated Protestant schoolmaster of Waterford, in 1585, might also be men-tioned: ‘Their dead they bury not if they can choose, but tumble them into the grave like some swine, without any word of a service, or any minister’.156

The procedure had been depicted in similarly derogatory terms by the bishop of the diocese five years earlier: ‘No burial of the dead according to the book


of Common Prayer, but buried in their houses with dirges and after cast into the ground like dogs’.157 A 1619 Catholic complaint to the King of Spain con-firms this picture, describing how members of the Catholic community were compelled to be buried ‘without any rite in one of the violated churches as if he were a Protestant’.158 As late as the nineteenth century, Catholic burial ceremonies were forbidden in certain graveyards, with the result that they would be held before the cortege entered the precincts of the cemetery.159

However, where separation of funeral and interment occurred, it was not necessarily the result of persecution. After the Earl of Clanricard died in Galway in 1582 we are told that ‘His funeral ceremony was performed in that town by his merchant friends; and his body was conveyed to be honorably interred in the town of Loughrea’.160 Essentially, from the Catholic point of view, it was the prayers said on behalf of the deceased’s soul which were important; where they were actually said was relatively less so. Even prior to the Reformation most of the lengthy rituals of death had occurred at home, so that the removal there of further elements of the funeral service cannot have proved too much of a dislocation. For Protestants the abolition of the series of ceremonies preceding the service of interment meant that this latter element now became the funeral, with the result that the religious component of death rituals may have, conversely, become more strongly tied to the church building and cemetery; hence the misunderstanding and deprecation of Catholic practice.161

Certain Catholic funerals could become political events, providing opportunities for the uncompromising display of faith or opposition to the government. Two such occasions (mentioned in the previous chapter) were the burial of Sir Nicholas Walsh in Waterford, after which the Corporation of the city was called to account for their actions, and that of Sir Turlough O’Brien on ‘a superstitious island’ in the Shannon. The funerals of priests and monks might be attended openly by large numbers of religious, as was the case when the obse-quies of Br Thomas O’Leamy, Abbot of Kilcooly Abbey, were performed in Kilkenny in 1636. ‘A great crowd of religious and ecclesiastics and of the laity’ attended the cortege on the lengthy journey to Kilcooly.162 The 1603 recusancy revolt, which followed a report that the new King, James I, was a Catholic, involved the takeover and reconsecration of the churches in various towns throughout the south of Ireland.163 In Cork, it was reported that the mayor had attended the ‘papisticall’ funerals of a townsman and a priest, adding insult to injury by having ‘the Kinges Sword and the badges of Office carried before him’. These examples of the ‘insolency’ of the people of Cork were considered quite as heinous as the defacing of the Ten Commandments in the cathedral, and the setting up of an association pledged to the defence of Catholicism.164

Another such politically charged occasion occurred outside Dublin in 1623:

Mr Dosterfielde’s lately dead, and desired to be buried between those two blessed martyrs as he called them, in St James’ Kilmainham, viz the


popish archbishop of Dublin that was executed in Lord Chichester’s gouernment and a holy fryer that died with him; which was done accord-ingly with 1000 beholders.165

The archbishop and friar in question were Conor O’Devany and Patrick O’Loghran, who had been perceived as martyrs ever since their executions in 1612. St James’s churchyard, outside of the walls of the city, seems to have been the place of burial chosen by opponents to the Protestant regime, even before O’Devany’s interment there. The Mr Dosterfield referred to here must have been a particularly important citizen, to merit such an honourable burial place (he was possibly an English Catholic). That a thousand people gathered to witness such a blatantly Catholic funeral so close to the centre of government must have been a profoundly provocative gesture. Thomas Fitzgerald, a priest who died in prison sixteen years later, was also buried in St James’s after four days of public funeral rites. Similar assemblies are noted as having occurred at the funerals of others who were perceived as martyrs for the Catholic faith, and these occasions must also have had major conse-quences for the maintenance of community solidarity.166

Conflict

Such political demonstrations were not merely the preserve of Catholic funerals. A report from Co. Down in 1641 described how a riot had broken out at a funeral in Killinchy, the rector being chased from the grave. Raymond Gillespie has demonstrated that this incident was connected with Lord Deputy Wentworth’s efforts ‘to neutralise support for the Scots from Scottish settlers in Ireland by forcing them to abjure the Covenant and swear an oath of loyalty to the king (the Black Oath)’.167 Interestingly it is often in such accounts of conflict occurring at funerals that the clearest pic-ture of such occasions is presented. While funerals generally were successful in masking social tensions and presenting an image of ordered and unchanging social relationships, disorder could result when the relation-ships between those involved were questioned, or when the legitimacy of the rite was challenged.

In 1612 Barnaby Rich cited an example of ‘Into what Presumpyon the papystes in Ireland are now growne unto’:

not longe sythens wythin two myles of Dublyne a dead corps beynge brought to be buryed, the mynyster of the parysh presentynge hym self to do hys duty acorgyng to the prescryptyon of hys maties lawes was not onely wythstode but was lykewyse so beaten & brused that it had lyke to haue cost hym hys lyfe, and a popysh pryst brought in that buryed the corps acordyng to the popysh maner. The very lyke was offered in the


towne of Waxforde wher the mynyster was so beaten that he kept hys bed many monethes after.

Such incidents did not merely occur at funerals, according to Rich, who also told of a Protestant minister assaulted on his way to preach in church.168

The rather less reliable O’Sullivan Beare described an incident where an English minister attempted to take over a burial service. The women present in the church (we are told that no men attended ‘for fear of the English’) grabbed the intruder and, depositing him in the open grave, began to bury him, until he promised not to trouble them further.169

Outbreaks of resentment did not always go unpunished. In 1608 the Court of Castle Chamber heard the case of Thomas Meredythe, vicar of Balrotherie, against James Barnewell, Nicholas Bellew and others:

[O]n All Saints’ Day last, being Sunday, he attended at his church both to say divine service and also to bury the corpse of James Barnewall’s mother, but that the defendants, having resolved ‘to bury the said corpse after a superstitious and idolatrous fashion, and not according to the King’s Majesty’s injunctions and ordinances,’ riotously entered the church, assaulted and wounded him – pulling away a great part of his beard and causing his nose to gush forth with blood – struck the book of Common Prayer from his hand and trod it disdainfully under foot, and that James Barnewell did moreover beat his (plaintiff’s) wife and threw her to the ground, she being great with child.

Barnewell and Bellew were sentenced to steep fines and imprisonment for their part in the affray.170

Another riot occurred in 1623 at the funeral of Susanna, Lady Killeen, the Protestant daughter of Lord Brabazon, which was attended by Lord Moore and Sir Roger Jones:

Fowre weomen being the Captainesses and two of these being sisters to the Lord Killeene with about foure score other weomen, imagining that sex to bee lawlesse did without the church dore assault the minister comeing forth to meete the corpse, rent his surplis, toare out a leafe of the Communion booke, and with blowes did offer him such violence that the better disposed people were inforced to reskue him.

When the minister attempted to preach he was again interrupted and, hav-ing given up on the sermon, his endeavour to read the prayers was also frustrated by the ‘hubbub and outcrye’. The female ringleaders were arrested and imprisoned ‘and before their delivery [were] taken very good bondes for their appearance this next Terme in the Castle Chamber, where they are like to bee made examples of iustice and severity’. Lord Killeen was found to be


innocent of any wrongdoing since he had allowed his wife ‘full exercise of her religion’, and a Protestant burial.171

Clearly religious tensions simmering below the surface were wont to explode violently at points where the state sought to intervene in such sensitive areas as the rituals of death. It is especially interesting that the two incidents of this type that were noted in most detail occurred at the funerals of women. While men could to some extent be prevailed upon to accede to certain of the government’s pronouncements on religious matters, which may, though we cannot easily tell, occasionally have extended to attempts to have Protestant ministers officiate at funerals, women belonged to the pri-vate sphere. They could not be coerced to attend divine service or fined for their non-attendance, and thus probably became a powerful force for the maintenance of religious orthodoxy in the local community. Protestant interference in their burials thus became intolerable, since these burials were, in theory at least, non-political. That Lady Killeen seems to have been con-sidered a Protestant made no difference to this identification, especially since she lived in a world where she was surrounded by Catholics. Similarly notable is the enthusiastic participation of women in these funeral riots though such involvement was not unusual and is mentioned on a number of other occasions. Because, as the Killeen incident states, women were ‘law-lesse’, in other words, less likely than their menfolk to be subject to punish-ment (though this was belied by the imprisonment of the women in question), they were in a better position to express the Catholic community’s opposition to government policies. So, for example, in the famous riot which resulted from the raiding of several religious houses in Dublin on St Stephen’s Day, 1629, it was the women and youths who were described as playing an important part in rescuing some friars who had been apprehended.172

Disagreements and conflicts at funerals were not merely the result of tensions in Protestant/Catholic relationships. Uncontested Catholic funerals could also result in conflict, though this was usually non-violent.173

Arguments usually centred on hierarchy and the relative rights and roles of the secular and regular clergy. One such incident in Dublin in 1626 demonstrates the type of difficulties that could lead to confrontation. A Catholic merchant named Plunkett had on his deathbed been attended by Father Strong, Guardian of the Franciscans, ‘who received him into the third order and gave him the habit of St. Francis’. Many clergy, including the parish priest, Father Rochford, attended the funeral in the house of the deceased. When the time came for the sermon to be preached:

Father Rochford asserted his right to deliver it, as the deceased was his parishioner, and, moreover, his relative. Father Strong insisted on his right to deliver the oration, as the deceased was a Franciscan, and entrusted him with the management of all his funeral arrangements. The altercation was getting warm, when Father Strong cut it short by jumping


into the pulpit, giving out his text, and proceeding with his discourse; whereupon all the secular clergy stood up, and quitted the house.174

Other reports of the manifestation of tensions at funerals and at month’s mind services come from elsewhere in the country. The Vicar General of Ossory found it necessary in 1630 to defend himself against charges that he had violently encroached on the privileges of the Franciscans by taking over the funeral ‘of a supposed corpse exposde in their. . . oratory’. In his defence he argued that he treated the regulars who attended funerals conducted by him very well. As for funerals he had attended in the Franciscan convent, he and his clergy had behaved with due respect and he had even, on occasion, been expressly invited to take charge of the obsequies of certain ‘deserving fathers’. At funerals of friars ‘of inferior rank and meritt’, he had attended with his clergy, ‘assuming no other place or respect therin then what pleasde them to graunte him freely in the common bench’. He could recall only three cases bearing any resemblance to that referred to in the original charge, none of which fully corresponded to the allegations. First was that of Sir Oliver Shortall who some years before had died in his own manor house. The funeral had been performed there by the vicar, and the body subsequently buried in the Protestant cathedral. The deceased’s wife, wishing to hold his month’s mind in the city, was offered the loan of a house by the Franciscans. When the vicar arrived there to officiate, his right to precedence was challenged by the Franciscan guardian, Dominick Dempsy, who relented once he realised his mistake. The Franciscans had also refused to countenance the vicar’s tak-ing precedence of them in their oratory at the month’s minds of either Edmund Butler or Richard Comerford, despite the fact that he had officiated at both funerals. In these cases he had excused himself from attending the ser-vices in order to avoid confrontation. Finally he accused Dominick Dempsy and the Franciscans of forging the complaint against him in an attempt to ‘disturbe the quiett and correspondency that is sene to flourish between these towe armes of the clergy (the pastorall and regular) throughout the dioces of Ossory, or by that trick to draw all such fishes to their owne bote’.175

In the Archdiocese of Cashel, there seems to have been a similar degree of secular/Franciscan rivalry. In a strongly worded letter of 1632 to the Council of Propaganda in Rome, the Catholic bishops of Cork and Cloyne, Limerick, Emly and Killaloe, as well as the vicar apostolic of Ross, complained that the Franciscans were circulating ‘images’ which claimed that God had given spe-cial privileges to the Franciscan order. ‘[A] happy death is promised for the mere wearing of the religious habit and the certain mercy of the Lord for the mere love of the Order’, with the result that the laity of Ireland had been deluded into believing that the habit was as necessary to salvation as absolu-tion or Unction. As a result of their presence at the deathbed, the Franciscans claimed the right to preside at the funeral of the deceased. Furthermore, the fri-ars also alleged ‘that in Ireland the privileges of the monasteries are understood


to extend to the houses of the laity’ and that they should therefore preside at any ceremonies which might normally take place at their monasteries. Another grievance was that, since most funerals were in the hands of the regulars, they were retaining most the offerings made for the souls of the deceased.176

This was not the first time that the Munster seculars had entered into this particular affray. In 1629, the Cork Franciscans had complained that the bishop had prohibited them from officiating at funerals, even the funerals of those who had died in the Franciscan habit. In Waterford as well as Cork disagreements over the status of the house of the deceased were particularly bitter due to the insistence of bishops there that the traditional threefold division of funeral offerings, between monastery, officiating clergy and poor, be instead apportioned between bishop, parish priest and officiating clergy. The Council of Propaganda finally decided the controversial issue against the regulars in 1635, though further disagreements about precedence and rights simmered in Cork until the 1640s.177

Such jealousies and altercations were the natural result of a situation where the Catholic secular clergy, following the lead of the newly recon-structed episcopacy, were gradually restoring their influence and the struc-tures of normal parish life. For the regulars, largely deprived of their ancient property, occasionally dispossessed by the government of the new convents they set up in private houses, used to the emergency extraordinary faculties they had enjoyed, but gradually losing them as the seculars reassumed their pastoral roles, the situation could become irksome, and tensions could build up until they found outlets at times such as funerals.178 On such occasions carefully guarded privileges could be abruptly taken away, and the structures of the rituals, particularly issues of precedence and of the distribution of alms, held subtle nuances which, as the examples cited here illustrate, could easily become flashpoints.179

The journey from deathbed to grave was a metaphorical as much as a phys-ical one. The extent of preparation and packaging of corpses depended on their meaning, with those whose public roles were widest-reaching meriting the most elaborate attention. While many of the necessary processes were held in the private sphere, and are difficult to discern in surviving records, com-munity participation was expected. The funeral, in particular, was not merely a ritual to aid the disposal of the dead, but a dramatic and occasionally unpre-dictable occasion where social relationships were renegotiated and proclaimed. Funeral processions and burial rituals at all levels of society stressed the value of social order, and emphasised continuity in the face of the rupture caused by death. Their flexibility meant that disagreements, inconsistencies and novelty could be disguised or even denied. However, conversely, funerals could also become the setting for expressions of opposition to the established authority, and they might even be the scene of conflicts when participants sought to exploit their role in these very public ceremonies for other ends.

4 Burial Location and Society

In 1574 Laurence Archer of Kilkenny requested that he be buried ‘in Our Lady Chapel, in St Patrick’s Church in Kilkenny, towards my father. . . under the tombe that lyeth at the mydel of the altar’.1 This description indicates a strong awareness of the layout of the church in question. The landmarks by which the specific spot intended is identified are fivefold. First is the building itself, probably Laurence Archer’s parish church, and the place where many of his close and extended family would have attended mass (up until the point that doctrinal changes were introduced) and been buried. Within the church building he pinpoints the chantry chapel of the Virgin Mary, a space linked to the body of the church, but at the same time preserving a special isolation from the normal business of the building. That this branch of the Archer family had intimate connections with the chapel and the devotions associated with it is indicated by the fact that Laurence’s father had already been buried there, in a family tomb which was situated in the most prestigious possible position: the middle of the altar.

Recent work on the late medieval Irish church has led to a revision of former depictions of cumulative spiritual and material ‘stagnation and decline’ at parish level. Though the surviving evidence is meagre, it now seems clear that though dioceses and parishes were extremely poor, and though the discipline and quality of clergy left much to be desired, a rea-sonable degree of pastoral care was provided in many areas, and certain bishops were engaged in ongoing attempts at reform.2 Analysis of the few wills surviving from the period indicates a significant degree of lay involve-ment in the ceremonial life of the parish and in its buildings. Testators bequeathed money for masses for their souls, for the upkeep of specific altars, and for altar plate.3 A considerable number of chantries (institutions founded and maintained by families and fraternities to ensure the regular celebration of mass for their souls) were created in the years prior to the Reformation. Monasteries continued to be founded in the fifteenth century and there is architectural evidence for the re-edification of some church buildings during the same period.4 The religious changes of the sixteenth

59


century, the dissolution of the monasteries, and the influx of a large num-ber of Protestant settlers, whose influence in other aspects of death ritual have already been demonstrated, were all to have an impact on the status of ecclesiastical property and social relations, and therefore on burial choices. It would seem, however, that in most parts of the country families such as the Archers managed to retain close connections with local burial sites, despite disruptive changes in their meaning and circumstances. The signifi-cance of this continuity in the face of such changes should not be underesti-mated. Neither should the cause of the disruption be overlooked. New Protestant groups decided to fit themselves into the prevailing pattern of burial. Unlike many of their continental Calvinist counterparts, Ireland’s Protestants embraced traditional burial sites, just as they chose to shun the simple burial rites and unornamented graves of some of their co-religionists. Therefore, when Laurence Archer’s instructions are looked on in this context as more than a set of practical guidelines for the gravediggers, the percep-tion of the role of the churches and churchyards of early modern Ireland widens dramatically. This chapter demonstrates how consideration of where members of the community eventually came to rest can reveal much about human relationships and social and denominational interactions.5

Church and churchyard

It is, however, necessary to start by looking at some more basic concerns. One of the first identifications to be made by people choosing the location for burials was of the precise church, churchyard or monastery preferred. Usually this choice was automatic. Most people chose burials at their parish church, from convenience, if not also out of a sense of parochial, or other, loyalties. For example, Gerrott Nugent of Lissaghenedin, Co. Longford, wrote ‘I ordaine and appointe my body to be buried in my Parish Church if it shall soe please my friend[s]’.6 The parish was not merely an institution or an area of land. It also denoted the community of people amongst whom the deceased ordinarily lived and worked.7 Certain factors might overrule choice of parochial burial, such as issues of prestige, or special devotion, such as that expressed by Christopher Nugent of Corbetstown, who bequeathed his body to burial ‘in some ffranciscan monisterie such as my frends think fitt’.8 Few, however, strayed far from their own communities. If there was no one around who knew you, how could you be remembered?

Once the church had been chosen, a second decision regarding burial had to be made, between the church building itself and the churchyard. The choice was basically one of prestige and thus of expense. In Galway in 1609 the heirs of anyone buried in the church had to give the best ‘clocke or mauntell’ belonging to the deceased to the churchwarden towards the repair of the church. The deceased’s second best garment (‘gowne or cloke’) was given for burial in the churchyard.9 For late medieval populations, church

Burial Location and Society 61

burial was much sought after as an aid to salvation.10 The church building was the location for the celebration of the mass, a ritual that sanctified its surroundings, and the closer a burial was to the site of the ritual, the greater the spiritual benefit which accrued.11 This is the reason why the tombs of founders and major benefactors of churches are usually located in front of or on the south side the high altar, since this was where the greatest amount of sacred activity occurred. Secondary altars in chantry chapels served almost as well, though again burial near them was largely reserved for founders and benefactors. Other desirable burial sites included locations close to the statues of saints: Peter Lynch asked in 1553 that he be buried ‘be for the Image of the Blessyd vyrgin mary in my Parish Chirch of lethercor’.12

That chantry chapels may in certain areas have retained some or most of their sacred associations after the Reformation is indicated in the continu-ation requests for burial in chapels or near altars. For example, David Lombard of Cork wished in 1582 to be buried in ‘the chapel of Blessed Mary in the Church of the Holy Trinity’.13 There may also have been a family con-nection with this chapel, since James Lombard, who died in the city in 1639, asked to be buried with his parents ‘in Our Lady’s Chapel in Trinity Church’.14 The terminology of Catholicism thus survived long after the Reformation, even in important urban churches. Indeed, wealthy Catholic families continued to build chapels on to the churches until the mid-seventeenth century, though they styled them ‘mortuary’ rather than chantry chapels (these will be discussed later). It was rare, though not unknown, for Protestants to create such chapels: they were more likely to adapt an existing building to their own use.

The natural progression in thought was that if power and wealth could secure a prestigious burial place, then surely a prestigious burial place was an indispensable accessory for powerful and wealthy people. Hierarchical arrangement of burials in churches, the most important at the front, reflected the hierarchy of the crowd at the celebration of the mass or at divine service; the great and the good with the optimum view of the pro-ceedings, and lesser individuals grouped further back. Doubtless it was regarded as eminently just that on the Day of Judgement itself, when the righteous arose to the sight of the risen Christ, the most prominent citizens would still have the best view. This connection between place of burial and prestige was the reason why the practice of church burial was not aban-doned by Protestants following the Reformation. While some reacted against the vanity it sustained and the lingering vestiges of Catholicism it evoked, for others the custom was a representation of the order imposed upon society by God and thus unassailable. Community implied diversity (of status, role, gender), as well as unity.

Demand for intramural burial in churches occasionally outweighed the space available, forcing church authorities to legislate for the practice.15 In 1627, for example, the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Dublin, agreed that:


no man or woman shall be buried in our Church by any clayme of right from their pradecessors therein buryed, under pretence of ancient bene-factorship to ye Church, or other pretence whatsoever, unless they can produce ye deed of Deane and Chapter under theire Comon seale for such right or place of Buryall, without which no way must be hereafter given to any Such Buryalls by Deane or Proctor or any member of ye said Chapter, without joynt Consent agayne to ye Contrarie of ye whole Bodie.16

In this case, such legislation may have been necessitated by the fact that the existence of vaults beneath the church, used as shops and for other pur-poses, meant that, as in a number of London churches, burial involved cramming corpses into the limited intervening space.17

There are some indications of the result when official controls over bur-ials were removed in the confusion which followed the Reformation. In the early seventeenth century, the Franciscan Provincial, Donough Mooney, complained that in Clonmel a citizen had defied him by building a tomb for himself on the site previously occupied by a wooden altar.18 Also in the seventeenth century, Malachy Hartry described how:

When the new religion of the Protestants sprung up about 60 years ago, ecclesiastical immunity was violated by abuses . . . and each one chose for himself a place of burial for himself in whatever part of the church he pleased; this by an unheard of scandal took place owing to the sacrile-gious abuses that were introduced, and continued to the year 1637, when it was forbidden by royal authority throughout all parts of Ireland.19

Such abuses did not merely mean upheaval in the church building. They also caused upheaval in society, resulting in cases of sacrilege and in instances when people took prestigious burial places not justified by their actual social standing.

Despite the disproportionate attention given to church burial in extant written sources (since these are usually the documents of the better off, who were precisely the people who most often were buried in churches), the majority of people would have come to rest in the churchyard. Nicholas Seaver of Dunganstown, Lusk, Co. Dublin, who is one of very few testators to describe himself as a ‘yeoman’, is also one of the very few who desired a churchyard burial.20 There are indications that the churchyard too was divided into areas of greater and lesser desirability. As elsewhere in Europe, burial on the south and east sides may have been preferred to the west, and especially the north, where the shadow of the building fell longest, though some medieval Irish evidence suggests that it was the north side that was considered most honourable.21 Occasionally those relegated to churchyard burial attempted to make up for this by placing themselves as near to the church building as possible.22 For example, Thomas Smith of Gill Abbey,


Cork, in 1641 requested burial in the churchyard of St Finbarr’s cathedral ‘under the chancel wall’, near his two wives.23 This document also indicates that family plots may have been maintained in certain parts of the grave-yard, but only as long as there was someone to recall their position and uphold a claim. It was highly unlikely in early modern graveyards that any permanent type of marker would have been used on graves, though the practice was probably beginning to grow in popularity towards the end of this period. This did not mean, as Robert Dinn points out for England, that churchyard burial was necessarily anonymous or random, with wooden or rough stone markers probably being far more commonly used than is appar-ent today.24 Such a situation is possibly suggested in the vestry book of one Irish parish, St John the Evangelist in Dublin, which records various works carried out in the churchyard to remove rubbish and level it, including one 1631 payment for ‘removinge the stones in the Church yard’.25

In parts of Ireland, relatives may have regularly visited graves. Moryson related that: ‘The [women] espetially and Children doe weekely visite the graues of theire dead frendes, casting flowers and Crosses vpon them, with weeping and many prayers for the dead’.26 The custom is mentioned also by Marmaduke Middleton, Protestant Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in a 1580 letter about the behaviour of the citizens of Waterford: ‘Ringing of bells and praying for the dead, and dressing their graves divers times in the year with flower pots and wax candles’.27 It is unfortunate that such customs are not otherwise described, but it does seem that they were considered unusual by English observers.

Despite all of this, however, the construction of new graves would undoubtedly often have involved the disturbance of older ones, and this may have been one reason why those who could afford it planned burial in the church building, where there was slightly less likelihood of such an occurrence. Still, archaeological excavations usually reveal that even here new burials often cut into old ones. Some churches may have possessed charnel houses or ossuaries where remains unearthed by gravediggers or builders would have been stored.28 Though there are no specific references from the period in question, there are records of medieval and later seven-teenth-century charnels, such as one in the churchyard of Christ Church, Cork, which was repaired in 1664/5.29 In some places remains lying about the churchyard were merely reburied: in 1627 the wardens of St John the Evangelist paid four shillings ‘ffor layinge the great pyle of dead mens boanes in the ground’.30 Such a pit was uncovered during nineteenth-century renovation works in St Multose church, Kinsale, ‘a mass of human remains . . . several feet in length and about four feet thick’, probably from graves disturbed during sixteenth-century building work.31 Illustrations of the layout of burials in St Peter’s church, Waterford, show the crowded conditions that prevailed on both church and churchyard, and give a rough idea of the proportion of burials occurring in each.32


The records of St John the Evangelist church, Dublin, indicate that a very large number of burials were occurring in and around it in the 1630s and 1640s. In the main, no division can be made into church and churchyard burials, except on the cases of those from whose families payment had been collected and these were, perhaps inevitably, those who were wealthier and thus more likely to be buried in the church in the first place.33 A few examples of general numbers might be given. In the seven months between 11 November 1634 and 11 June 1635, 61 burials are noted, at least eight of which occurred in the church.34 The outbreak of the 1641 rebellion was marked by the burial of 203 ‘poore English who . . . fled to this Citie for refuge and Dyed in ye parish of St Johns’ between December 1641 and the following September.35

Between 1643 and 1650 an average of 111 people per year were recorded as being interred in the parish, including many who died from plague, and a fall in the cost of some burials may be linked to the hardship some were suffer-ing.36 Does this indicate that in one Dublin parish alone more than 10 000 people may have been buried in the seventeenth century?37 If so, the thought of the ‘turn-over’ of graves is somewhat unpleasant. That churches and churchyards could be rather unsavoury sites is indicated in a 1695 report of an unusual and pungent dew in Co. Cork, which was described as having had ‘a strong, ill scent, somewhat like that of churchyards and graves’.38

For some, choice of burial in the churchyard was an expression of humil-ity, faith, principle, or all three. In 1640 Bishop John Atherton, whose exe-cution and funeral sermon have already been described, requested a humble grave in the furthest corner of St John’s churchyard, Dublin, ‘where some Rubbish was used to be cast and where none could be remember’d ever to have been buried before . . . condemn[ing] himself, as unworthy of the Communion of the Dead, as now of the Living’.39 Bishop William Bedell of Kilmore requested burial in a remote corner of the churchyard of Kilmore with his wife and son. His biographer recorded the reason for this:

He allwaies bore a reverend respect to the place of God’s publick worship, and upon all occasions was wont to testify his dislike of burying dead bodies within those walls; both as savouring of pride in death and a vain affectation of worldly pomp; and also as a kind of prophanation of that place, destinated to a more Spiritual and Holy use.

Bedell had during his episcopacy endeavoured to end the practice of church burial, passing a decree in his diocesan synod that corpses ‘should not be buried in churches, nor outside churches within five feet of the wall of the building’.40 However, his seems to have been a minority opinion in the Church of Ireland. One fascinating passage in the Annals of Lough Cé described an unusual incident where burial in both church and churchyard was rejected outright. Brian Caech O’Coinnegain, ‘an eminent cleric’, was interred ‘at the mound of Baile-an-tobair’ in 1581, about which the scribe


commented ‘we think that it was not through want of religion Brian Caech made this selection, but because he saw not the service of God practiced in any church near him at that time’.41 Observers obviously considered his total rejection of ecclesiastical burial most remarkable.

While on the subject of church and churchyard burials, it must be remem-bered that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries such spaces were not the peaceful ones of today. In urban areas especially much activity would have occurred in and around the church.42 The graveyard was often one of the few reasonably sized areas of common ground in the parish, and might be used as grazing for pigs and other animals, and as a place to dump house-hold waste, sometimes to the despair of church authorities. To deter people from keeping animals in the churchyard, fines and other sanctions were imposed and yew trees were sometimes planted (the berries are poi-sonous).43 The church itself would have been one of the most substantial buildings in the area. Churches could be used as courthouses, meeting places and for other community purposes. Dublin Corporation in 1573, 1592 and 1620, issued orders that fire-fighting equipment should be pro-vided in each parish and stored in the parish church. The corporation records also include a 1631 decision that meetings should be held in each parish church of the city and suburbs on the subject of poor relief.44 The Chapter Act Book of Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, evokes a space hum-ming with activity. The church itself was the site of various state and public ceremonies. Houses, shops, workshops and taverns were situated against the walls of the building, in the churchyard, and even in its vaults. Economic activities extended into the cathedral, with rents traditionally being paid at the site of Strongbow’s tomb.45 An Act of 1631 sought to regulate the behaviour of those living and doing business within the precincts of the cathedral, forbidding, amongst other things, the disposal of ‘Ordure, Urine or other filth, garbage, durt or Ashes’ and ordering the lighting of the area on dark evenings. In 1633 the Lord Deputy and Council lent their weight to provisions for the proper conduct of divine service, the ending of encroach-ments on church property, and the selling of alcohol or tobacco near the cathedral. This latter act was even to be affixed to the door of the building, indicating its use as a place for the transmission of information.46 Similar acts were also introduced elsewhere. The instructions sent to the towns of Munster in 1621 indicate the extent to which the churchyard was a place of social activities, since they forbid ‘boys and loiterers’ from playing in churchyards during times of divine services.47 Clearly these places were for the living as well as for the dead.48

Family and friends

Several aspects of affective human relationships are revealed by choice of burial location, familial connections being most obvious.49 As Rosemary


O’Day comments: ‘There was a re-forming of the natural family in the grave’.50 One of the greatest concerns of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century testators, especially men, was that they would be buried with their parents or their ancestors in a place which would in time also become the burial place of their descendants. To specify such locations was to claim one’s position in the map of the community, to proclaim connections and to reinforce status by underlining continuity with the past. In 1577 James Uniacke of Youghal bequeathed his body to burial ‘with his father in the burial of his ancestors’.51 When Sir Henry Cadye of Castlecarbrye, Co. Kildare, made his will in the 1630s, he requested burial in ‘the Church of Carbrye in the sepullcher and monument of my ancestors’.52 Piers Kirwin FitzClement of Galway similarly instructed in 1618 that he be buried ‘in the Abbey of St Francis with the rest of my ancestors’.53 All of these men thus envisaged their eventual incorporation into mnemonic locations within the landscapes of the church and cemetery. An anthropologist might comment on the extent to which separation from the living family at death was bal-anced by incorporation with one’s ancestral group at burial.

Desire that families should rest together might also overwrite other con-cerns, such as with parochial burial. This is unsurprising given the changing circumstance of many of the country’s inhabitants, especially the new-comers to the towns. Sir William Reeves (later Solicitor General) who lived for a time on Merchant’s Quay, but seems later to have moved from St John’s parish, buried two children between 1622 and 1624, his wife in 1624 or early 1625, and a daughter in 1639. The prices paid on the first three occa-sions indicate that the family was resident in the parish, but the payment of double the normal fee of 6s. 8d. in 1639 reflects the fine imposed on non-residents. Sir William himself was buried at St John’s in 1647, the 5s. fee indicating that circumstances may have prevented his burial in a family grave.54 Other instances of determined co-interment of families are discussed in the next chapter.

This preoccupation with familial burial was particularly strong in Gaelic Ireland. It was frequently the case that families were enduringly associated with monasteries that they had founded, patronised or protected. These sites were thus intimately tied in with the identity of the kin-group, and people would be carried long distances to be buried amongst their relatives. Meigs suggests that the importance of the monasteries as a focus of com-munity identity was tied in with the peripatetic lifestyle of the Gaelic Irish – they were fixed points in a turbulent world.55 The Annals record such instances of interments as that of MacCarthy Reagh ‘in the burial-place of his father and grandfather, at Timoleague’ (Co. Cork) in 1576.56 Donal O’Sullivan More in his will dated 1632 requested ‘My body to be interred and buried in the Abbey of Irrelagh [Muckross Abbey, Co. Kerry], in my pre-decessors’ tombe’.57 The burial place of the O’Briens was in the monastery of Ennis, and interments there are recorded in the Annals of the Four


Masters in 1552, 1577, 1579, 1580, 1582, 1583, 1584 and 1600.58 O’Brien wills also reflect the desire to be buried in Ennis, and in 1577 Donough O’Brien, who pleaded that it was the ancient burial place of his family, saved the monastery from demolition.59 Another aspect of such ‘clan’ burials was the fact that the lesser families connected with them would be buried at the same places as their masters, thus preserving the hierarchy of relationships in death. So, for example, when O’Donnell, Lord of Tirconnell died in 1563, he was interred ‘in the burial place of his predecessors, and ancestors at Donegal, in the monastery of St. Francis’. Three years later when O’Cleary, O’Donnell’s historian, died, he also was buried in the monastery.60

The conjugal relationship, that most basic of the pivots on which societal interactions turned, is amply represented in choices of burial location. Marriage was not just a contract between two individuals, but also con-nected interest groups in a surprisingly comprehensive way. The burial of husbands and wives together was symbolic of this wider chain of relation-ships. Tombstone inscriptions are perhaps the most obvious source for such burials, though valuable information can be found elsewhere. As might be expected, testators frequently requested burial with deceased spouses. The Funeral Entries also mention couples being buried together. Katherin Grene, ‘the widdow of Thomas Chambers’, is described in one entry as having been buried beside her husband in St Michael’s church, Dublin in August 1597.61

Walter Wellesley, feudal baron of Norragh, writing his will in 1614 bequeathed his ‘bodie to the earth and to be buried with my former wyffe Allson Eustace in the church of Moone’.62 This last reference indicates one of the incongruities that could arise from the burial of spouses. What hap-pened to those who had married more than once? Burial, like marriage, was usually virilocal, therefore men who had remarried were usually eventually buried with two or more wives.63 Henry Shee of Kilkenny, who made his will in 1612, seems by that stage to have remarried for the third time, and asks that he be buried ‘in our ladye Church of Kilkenny where both of my wives deceased are buried’.64 It was far less likely that a woman would be buried near more than one husband, a pattern replicated in other parts of Europe, though exceptions did occur.65 One is recorded on a memorial in St Mary’s Church, New Ross (c.1630s), probably paid for by Ellinor Cooper, which indicates that her two deceased husbands, Henry Culaipe and Edward Cooper, as well as her son, Zabulon Culaipe, had been buried there together.66

One unexpected aspect of the burial of young women is reflected in cer-tain of the Funeral Entries. Women dying in childbirth, especially while bearing their first child, might be buried in the tomb of their father, rather than with their husband’s family. Thus, in 1597, Margaret Smyth was ‘buryed by [beside] hir father in St Michelles’ in Dublin.67 Anne, daughter of Richard Meredith, Bishop of Leighlin, ‘deceased in childe-bedde of her first childe [18] Septemb: 1608 [and] is bur[ied] in St Patrickes Dublin in her


father’s tombe: the child (named William) alsoe died’.68 Her sister, Margaret, also died and was buried in the same way a few months later, though her child, a daughter, survived.69 It seems that marriage alone was sometimes not considered sufficient for a woman to complete the rite of passage from adolescence to maturity. She also had to bear a living child, better still, a male heir, and come through the experience herself. Until this occurred, a woman remained fundamentally attached to her own family, still holding the position of an outsider in the new one.70 That this was not just the case for young, recently married women may be indicated in the case of Mary, daughter and co-heir of Henry Travers, who had married twice, first the Viscount Baltinglass and secondly Sir Gerald Aylmer. When she died ‘issules’ (though she had adopted her sister’s son, Henry) in 1610, she was buried with her father at Monkton.71

The circumstances surrounding the burial of children are rarely recorded in early modern Ireland. Children did not make wills, family documents mentioning them are scarce, archaeological evidence is scanty, and they rarely had memorials erected to them or were mentioned on such memor-ials. What is indicated by sources referring to the burials of children is the ubiquitous contemporary phenomenon of high child mortality. The St John’s parish records include frequent mentions of the burials of children of parishioners, with parents often burying more than one child over a number of years. So, for example, Mr John Harris lost three children between 1626 and 1633. Amongst those buried during the plague in 1650/1 were Captain Mitchell and four of his children.72 It is frustrating that no information can be gleaned here as to whether these families were buried together or in separate graves. When an infant son of Sir Philip Perceval died in 1633 he was buried ‘at St Audoen’s, at nine at night, near Arthur Usher’. This Arthur Ussher was Perceval’s father-in-law, the baby’s grandfather. Another child, who died in 1638, was also buried at St Audoen’s, though no more precise location is specified. It may be that where possible children were buried near family members.73 Certainly Garatt Nugent of Dublin expressed a wish to be buried with his three deceased children in his will of 1650.74 Elizabeth Smith, the wife of William Smith, Vicar of Athboy, Co. Meath, was buried in the church there: her memorial states that she had six sons ‘whereof three were here interred before her’.75 Two examples of groups of children who had been buried together were found during excavations in St Mary’s cathedral, Limerick, and Power suggests that each case may repre-sent family groups buried either simultaneously or consecutively.76

Concentration of burials in vertical groups in post-medieval contexts in Duiske Abbey, Co. Kilkenny, also led excavators to suggest the existence there of family plots.77

Certain of the Funeral Entries also measure child mortality, mentioning children who died young before the deaths of their parents. Only in rare cases did the funerals of children merit notice in their own right, as in the


entries recording the deaths of the child Earl of Kildare, and the infant son of Sir Arthur Chichester.78 These entries are perhaps the most enlightening documents to refer to the subject, for they concern children who were unusual in that they possessed a social as well as a familial identity. In a sense they were almost honorary adults. The Earl of Kildare was a child hold-ing a crucially important adult title. Arthur Chichester was the only son and heir of the Lord Deputy of Ireland. This is not to suggest that the deaths of other children occasioned less grief. What is sometimes interpreted as a lack of grief in such cases was actually a lack of the public rituals of grief, since children had not yet left the private sphere and taken on roles and identi-ties that were vital to society.79 This is also why their places of burial did not tend to be formally recorded.

Something of the lesser social role played by children in early modern Ireland may also be tentatively surmised from information gleaned through archaeological excavation. Such evidence, for example, suggests that in cer-tain parts of the country infant children may not have usually been buried in churches or churchyards. Three examples in St Peter’s cemetery, Waterford, of neonate or full-term foetuses buried with women may indicate deaths during pregnancy or childbirth; ‘these were the only examples of infant burial in St Peter’s cemetery’.80 It is probable that in this parish very young children were interred in the ‘cillinigh’ still used up until the twenti-eth century, though the faster dissolution rate of infant burials must also be recognised.81 Thus, not only did such children lack a social role, but they were interred literally ‘outside of society’. That such exclusion lessened as children grew older is possibly indicated by a concentration of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century child burials inside the northern wall of the nave in St Francis’ abbey, King’s Island, Limerick.82 While inside the walls of the church, these were, as we have seen, less prestigious grave sites, again reflect-ing a lower social standing which may have had little to do with the relative status of the children’s families.

The nuclear or ancestral family was not the only affective landmark for those choosing their place of burial. People also requested burial near to more distant relations, probably those with whom they had special links or friendships, and near unrelated friends. Nicholas Hollywood of Artaine, Co. Dublin, in 1570 asked to be buried in the ‘Chappell of Tertaine amongst other my Ancestors and friends there’.83 Certain occupations and offices also provided individuals with a sort of surrogate family, and they were some-times buried in this context. Thus many government officials tended to be buried in St. Patrick’s and Christ Church cathedrals, while the merchants of Dublin often leaned towards burial at St Audeon’s, although this reflects the parishes in which people lived as much as their occupations. Sir Peter Lewys describing the funerals of Patrick Sarswell (Sarsfield) and Walter Pypart (Peppard), both aldermen of Dublin, in June and August 1565 mentions that they were buried beside one another on the south side of the choir of Christ


Church, Dublin.84 In the 1630s the aldermen of Cork seem to have favoured burial in Christ Church there.85 If it is considered again that relative wealth and prestige secured one’s place of burial, it becomes obvious that in many cases people of similar rank and wealth, who would probably have socialised together in life, ended up being buried in close proximity to one another as well.

One of the most obvious examples of this type of burial is that of the clergy during this period. Protestant and especially Catholic clergy tended to be buried near one another in the churches they served. A tombstone from St Patrick’s cathedral, Trim, mentions one example of this: ‘Here lie the Bodies of John Gregg, [Protestant] Dean of Lismore and First Vicar of Trim Who died Jan 21 1629 and William Griffith next Vicar of Trim Who died [blank]’.86 Likewise, when the Catholic Bishop of Kilmore died in 1607, he was interred in the usual burial place of the friars at Multifarnham ‘that is to say, in the cloister, and right under the door leading to the church’. Bishop Richard Arthur was buried in the cathedral of Limerick in 1646 ‘in the tomb of his predecessors’.87 In Holy Cross Abbey, Hartry mentions a ‘Tomb of the Abbots’, though its location is not described. It was possibly in the chapter house, a traditional place for the interment of abbots, since it was ‘the meeting place of the monks’.88 The lesser monks of the monastery may have been buried in the cemetery to the north-west of the monastery.89

Hartry also mentions that three Cistercian monks dying in c.1605, 1617 and 1645 were all buried in the same tomb in the epistle side of the high altar of St John the Evangelist church, Waterford.90 Also in Waterford, archaeologic-al remains indicate that the priests of St Peter’s church were being buried together in around 1600. Three burials at the east end of the chancel were found to be aligned with heads to the east rather than the usual Christian practice of burials aligned with heads to the west. These were probably the burials of priests who were, in the early modern period, ‘frequently interred in this way so that [each] “would rise and face his risen flock”’.91

Lay Catholics occasionally sought burial with unrelated priests and reli-gious, especially those who were noted for their holiness. One example of burial reflecting a popular cult was the case, already mentioned, of the inter-ment of a ‘Mr. Dosterfield’ in the grave of the martyrs Cornelius O’Devany and Partick O’Loughran in 1623, eleven years after their deaths.92 Other rea-sons might entitle a layperson to burial amongst the clergy. One Andrew Nugent, who became a Franciscan lay-brother following his wife’s death, and impressed many by his piety, was allowed burial with the monks of Multyfarnham when he died in 1614.93 In this case it can be seen that the adoption of a religious family could mean separation at burial from the ancestral or nuclear family group. For secular priests, however, this associ-ation with the religious community was not as strong. Thus we see two brothers, James and John Shee, both of whom worked as priests in the Kilkenny area, commemorated on a monument in St Canice’s, where the


famous Bishop David Rothe and the rector of St John’s church, James Clere, also had their tombs.94

Status and property

Those without a ‘traditional’ or ‘ancestral’ burial place often found the need to create one. It was especially those whose fortunes were on the rise who found the need to provide themselves with an appropriate grave, one which matched their new standing. This is a trait especially evident amongst new settlers. Without roots in the country they adopted for the opportunities it provided, the New English in particular found it necessary to ‘plant’ ecclesi-astical as well as secular space. Whether in the context of Dublin, the centre of government, or on the lands they had acquired and settled, the location of burials stressed the permanency of intentions. Closely allied with the pur-pose of these graves were the monuments often erected over them; these will be analysed at more length later. Such monuments added an extra impression of prestige and permanence to the graves, marking out the space in an unmistakable fashion, while simultaneously obscuring the novelty of the situation. The dilapidated state of many countryside churches during this period made it easy for newcomers to fix their mark on them. Furthermore, the economic problems of the Church of Ireland meant that the exertion of financial pressure would probably overcome any opposition to the acquisition of suitable burial places. One example was the case of Sir Robert Tynte in Kilcredan, Co. Cork, who not only took advantage of the ruined state of the church in Kilcredan (‘Church and chancel down’ in 1615) to provide himself with a grave on the south side of the altar, but also rebuilt the church and erected an elaborate monument to himself.95 Sir Randall Clayton of St Dominick’s abbey, near Cork, made his 1637 bequest of forty pounds sterling to the Dean and Chapter of St Finbarr’s cathedral condi-tional on their provision of ‘a seemely buriall place in the said Church for my body’.96 The dilemma of members of the New English grouping who had recently arrived in Ireland, or who had few connections in the country, when faced with death far from their place of origin is reflected in the will of Philip Culme, a merchant tailor of London, written on his Dublin sickbed in 1635. His anxiety to acquire a burial place befitting his status led him to bequeath £50 to the Dean and Chapter of St Patrick’s cathedral, which was to go towards the making of two silver flagons, a chalice and two silver plates.97

This tactic of acquiring a burial place that matched, and legitimised, a fam-ily’s new status was not used exclusively by the New English. Certain indi-viduals of Old English descent also profited from the events of the century, some building up significant landed estates, and even acquiring new titles. One example was Theobald Burke, son of the famed pirate, Gráinne O’Malley, who was raised to the peerage in 1627 with the title Viscount Burke


of Mayo. A crudely carved tomb covers his newly established burial place in Ballintubber abbey.98 The Langton family of Kilkenny enjoyed a similar rise in fortune in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Nicholas Langton FitzRichard was an alderman and mayor of the town, and during his lifetime purchased property in Kilkenny and at Grenan (Thomastown). He also built a tomb over a new burial place in the choir of St John’s abbey.99

John Lye or Lee of Clounaugh, Co. Kildare, who worked for the state as an interpreter of Irish, acquired extensive lands as the rewards of his service to the Crown, and secured a grave and tomb at Kildare cathedral.100 The case of the Earl of Thomond is particularly interesting. As has already been men-tioned, the usual burial place of the O’Briens was at Ennis in Co. Clare. However, Donough O’Brien, the fourth Earl, rejected this tradition, and instead requested burial in his newly constructed tomb in St Mary’s cathe-dral, Limerick. Brought up in England as a Protestant, and energetic in his attempts to apply English standards of civility to the territories under his con-trol as Earl of Thomond and as Lord President of Munster, he must have felt very little identification with the Catholic O’Brien branches. St Mary’s cathe-dral was a much more comfortable place for a man who identified himself with English government interests and Protestantism.101

Another aspect of such acquisitions of graves concerns the people who were buried in them. Usually these were family members, but patron–client rela-tionships might also be expressed. An individual with a spacious grave or vault was in a perfect position to display magnanimity towards lesser associates by offering them the facility of burial there. Thus the Earl of Cork extended the hospitality of his vault in St Mary’s, Youghal, to his family and friends, many of whom were dependent on the Earl as their patron, a dependency thus underlined even after their deaths.102 Indications in written sources suggest that an increasing number of burial vaults were being built during this period, allowing further privatisation of burial space for the richer sections of society, whether Catholic or Protestant. Archaeological investigation of vaults may in the future serve to clarify the circumstances of their creation.

All of this underlines the fact that certain graves were perceived as the pri-vate property of those who had paid for them.103 The Earl of Cork, in pur-chasing a burial place in the chancel of St Patrick’s cathedral, was given a grant of fee farm, the secular language of possession indicating the extent to which, in a manner strange to us today, parts of the church building could actually become private property. This impression is reinforced by mentions of the transfer of burial spaces. In 1580, for example, John Lea fitzNicholas of Waterford purchased a space measuring fourteen feet by eight in the church of the Holy Ghost hospital ‘for a buriall for the said John and his heirs, children, wives and posteritie’.104 The archdeacons, parish priest and churchwardens of St Peter’s church, Cork, in 1600 ‘graunted unto Thomas Davie . . . a voide place for a grave to burie the said Thomas his wiffe . . . the which place lyeth goinge upp to the quire or chauncell of the said Churche,


from Morgan O’Halerine his grave or toumbe on the south side to gouldes Chapell on the north’. The grant was to be held as long as Thomas and his heirs lived in the city, or until they moved to another grave, whereupon the grave would once again fall to the use of the church. During the time of his use of the grave Thomas was liable ‘to beare his porcion of all repaira-sions which shalbe doune uppon the saide Chauncell as other graives shall doe proporcionablie’.105 Records of several such grants of space in St Finbarr’s cathedral, outside the same city, might also be cited.106

Graves might even change hands between laypeople. Paul Strange of Waterford wrote in c.1617, ‘I will that my body be buryed in Christ Church in the buryall which I bought of John Booth’.107 Another testator, Michael McMahon of Limerick, in his will of 1640, mentions a grave bought from ‘my cossen Dominick Creagh Alderman . . . in consideration of a satten doub-let’.108 Elsewhere in Limerick, Edmund Sexton was the broker for graves within St John’s church, which had been granted to his grandfather follow-ing the dissolution of the monasteries along with the rest of the possessions of the Crouched or Crutched Friars. Amongst his papers is a ‘note of such toumbs as I past in St Johns Chancell’, in which each burial place is located by reference to others nearby. Sexton, a Protestant, also ensured that Church of Ireland services were maintained in the church, appointing ministers himself, a fact that caused some conflict with the Bishop of Limerick. The Catholicism of most of the families to whom he granted burial rights is all the more interesting in this context.109

The reference in one of the above cases to ‘Goulde’s chapel’ indicates how the claims of individuals to certain chapels were so strong that the chapel might come to be named after those buried there. Edmund Sexton consist-ently referred to his family burial chapel in St Mary’s cathedral, Limerick as ‘my’ chapel, and mentions glazing and repair work.110 A 1660 enquiry into the property of the Cathedral Church of Waterford described five of the seven chapels as belonging to certain families who were expected to keep them in good repair.111 Ownership could not be in any way more comprehensively stated than by the handing over of such responsibility. Such glimpses of the world of the parish again underline the extent of the involvement of the com-munity in the sacred space of the church. But private patronage of ecclesiastic-al structures must have become problematic following the Reformation, since those who had been responsible for their creation may in many cases have become reluctant to fulfil these obligations. That the names of a number of the chapels in St Mary’s, Limerick, changed during the eighteenth century, indicates that burial rights there had been transferred to Protestant families.112

The unfortunate

What of the fate of those who died within the community, but who were not part of it? Where were the unwanted and the unfortunate – poor


strangers, those dying in war, excommunicates, and criminals – buried? Here lack of evidence is a severe problem. The records of St John the Evangelist’s church indicate that in Dublin, at least, poor strangers were accorded decent burial, probably at the expense of the parish or of those at whose houses they had died. For example, in 1622, burials included ‘a stranger who died at Mr. Williams house’, and ‘a man who died in George Burrowes his house’. The 1635–6 accounts included the burial of ‘one that died at the 3 pigeons’, presumably a tavern, and ‘One that died at Mr. Smith his house’. In 1641–2 a very large number of ‘poore English’ refugees and ‘poore souldiers’ were buried in the parish. The problem of poverty in the city is tellingly reflected in various records of expenditure from the 1640s for the burials of paupers, including those ‘found dead in the streets’.113

Large numbers of people might be interred during times of stress in soci-ety, particularly during war and famine when it became impossible to sustain normal burial customs. For example, a large number of people died in 1642 during the last stages of the siege of St John’s castle, Limerick, from injuries and ‘of the Fluxe, and of swelling under their feet’. Most were buried within the castle walls, and archaeological excavation revealed a number of graves.114 In two other excavations of castles besieged in the 1640s and 1650s, unusual burials were found, probably of those who died violently or of disease and deprivation during these sieges. At Clogh Oughter castle, Co. Cavan, one skeleton was even found under a fall of rubble; another had a broken leg.115 At Aughinish castle, Co. Limerick, a number of burials found in 1974 are likely, at least in part, to represent victims of a siege in 1642.116

The spurious attribution of a more fashionable meaning to these burials in particular should serve to caution against interpretation of archaeological evidence (and incomplete assemblages in particular) without reference to extant records.117

Theoretically, during this period those who were executed, especially those executed for treason, could also be denied burial on consecrated ground. It has been suggested that burials dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, on a site outside the medieval walls of Clonmel, may be those of men detained in the nearby prison, or who had been hanged.118

That the quartered remains of traitors were displayed on the walls and gates of cities is supported by eyewitness reports, by illustrations and by archaeo-logical evidence. For example, human remains found near Dublin’s medieval walls had injuries consistent with such treatment.119 The practice of all sides in the various conflicts occurring during this period of removing the heads of important enemies who had been killed in battle for dispatch to commanding officers, or even to London, is quite frequently encoun-tered, especially during the Elizabethan wars. On occasion the prospect of financial reward made such dispatches highly lucrative, as evidenced by the argument over the rightful recipient of the reward for the slaying of the rebel, Gerald Fitzgerald, fourteenth Earl of Desmond, in 1583.120


All of this meant that, in a number of cases, while the body of a slain com-rade could be accorded proper burial (Desmond was eventually quietly buried near Castleisland, Co. Kerry), the disposal of that body’s head was in the hands of the opposition. When Sir John Chichester, Governor of Carrickfergus and brother of the future Lord Deputy, and Captain Rice Mansell were killed in 1597 in a skirmish with the McDonnells, their heads were sent to the Earl of Tyrone, while their bodies were recovered and buried in Carrickfergus.121 It was even alleged that Tyrone’s troops had played a gruesome game of football with the severed heads; a fate only slightly less dignified than that of the trophies displayed as the rewards of treason in Ireland or London.122 Possession of the head, the seat of the personality and the soul, demonstrated the defeat of the enemy, while misuse and display compounded his disgrace.123 Certain heads were particularly significant, witness the snatching of the head of the martyr, Cornelius O’Devany, after his execution in 1612. A hostile Protestant commentator, Barnaby Rich, claimed that the executioner had intercepted the theft. However, it is clear that Rich’s statement was a dignity-saving falsehood, since the relic was still at large in the 1650s.124

Concern to avoid such events, to conceal the identity of a fallen leader, as well as to provide some form of burial in circumstances where it was impos-sible to carry the deceased away, occasionally resulted in the decapitation of corpses for that purpose. When James Fitzgerald, twelfth Earl of Desmond, was killed in an ambush by his cousin, Sir Maurice Fitzgerald, in July 1540, his head was removed by his nephew ‘that he might not be made a laughing stock to his enemyes’, and was buried in Tralee.125 Likewise, after Edmund MacGauran, Catholic Bishop of Ardagh, was killed while attending to Maguire’s troops in 1593, it was reported by Bingham, the English com-mander, that ‘he hath left his dead carcase on the Magherie, only the said rebels carried his head away with them, that they might universally bemoan him at home’. It was traditionally believed that the head was buried in Kiltoghert cemetery, near Carrick-on-Shannon.126 Later folklore also indi-cates that occasionally those who desired burial far from the place in which they died (and who, presumably, were unable to pay for the preservation or transportation of their entire corpse) might request that their head alone be transported to the requested grave.127

To return momentarily to the use of bodily mutilation as punishment, it should be noted that in one series of executions for treason the traditional display of the heads and body parts of the traitors seems hardly to have occurred. Few of those described by their biographers as Catholic martyrs were mistreated in this way, with the government, more often than not, allowing their families and friends to take their remains away for burial. A number of these men were even buried in family graves in church buildings, such as Alderman Francis Taylor, who died in prison in 1630 and was buried in St Audoen’s, Dublin, and Sir John Burke who was buried in St John’s


church in Limerick, a building which, as already noted, was controlled by the Protestant mayor of the city, Edmund Sexton. The cemeteries of St Kevin’s and St James’ outside the city of Dublin became places of pil-grimage after the secret but uncontested burial of Dermot O’Hurley in the former, and Cornelius O’Devany in the latter – the subsequent well-attended burial of one Dosterfield in O’Devany’s grave has already been alluded to. It seems that the government either underestimated the propaganda and reli-gious value of such burials and remains, or that they feared the conse-quences should they retain them in the usual manner. In returning them to the Catholic community, however, the administrators undermined the validity of their arguments that such people were traitors, thereby totally undermining the message they had hoped to convey by imprisoning and killing them.128

During this period, excommunication supposedly carried with it the penalty of denial of Christian burial on consecrated ground.129 There are, however, few indications that such penalties were ever carried through, though one document did allege that excommunication could result in a severe financial burden. A 1621 list of Catholic grievances included com-plaints about abuses of the excommunication system, claiming that when excommunicates died:

before their assoyling, their dead Carcases arr not admitted to christian buriall, but of their remayning estates, or out of the benovolent contri-bution of their frende, a good som of money assessed at the pleasure of the demandants.130

It is difficult to ascertain whether this claim is accurate, and specific examples are not cited. It also fails to delineate the extent of the practice, and, indeed, to identify those who pronounced sentences of excommunica-tion and their rationale. It is hard to believe that the Catholic population would have paid much heed to such pronouncements by Protestant clergy, or to see how, in most areas, such sanctions could have been enforced. It may be that the payment of a fine was a local solution to the problem faced in England as well of what to do with the (decomposing) body of an excommunicate when public opinion was sympathetic but the authorities refused to back down.131

The only detailed account of the treatment of an excommunicate comes from a Catholic document of 1646 in which the Bishop of Ferns set out the rites for the interment of a Protestant, Francis Talbot. The body was be buried in the evening ‘in the ale (avenue) of St. Mary’s churchyard [Kilkenny], nearest to the garden of the parsonage’.132 While Talbot was not totally excluded from the churchyard, he was placed on the very fringes of it, and beneath a pathway; a situation symbolising the eternal wanderings of the damned.133 There seems to be no mention of the burial places


allocated to suicides, though the financial penalties exacted from their property outlined in Chapter 1 indicate that, in certain places at least, they were probably excluded from Christian burial.134

Confessionalism, coexistence and conflict

The fact of the impact of religious differences has been little mentioned thus far in this chapter. With the implementation of Reformation decrees in Ireland from the mid-sixteenth century came the gradual removal of sites of religious observance from the influence of Roman Catholic clerics, whether regular or secular. The dissolution of the monasteries, effected from the late 1530s onwards, claimed for the Crown the estates of these foundations. The parish churches, with their lands and revenues, were also annexed. Where did this litany of dispossession leave the dead? How did communities rec-oncile religious differences and competing claims to consecrated grounds? And what happened when coexistence became impossible to sustain?

The monasteries, as we have seen, had always been popular places of burial. There are some indications of disruptions to traditions of monastic interments following the Reformation. Maurice Uniacke of Youghal in 1646 asked that his body ‘be interred and buried in my Ancestral buryall or Chappell in the South Abbey of Youghall, if licence thereof may be hadd for love, or money, otherwise in my ffather’s Chapple in Our Ladyes Church in Youghal’. Obviously this family had originally been interred in the Franciscan foundation in Youghal. Upon its secularisation in the later six-teenth century, they removed to St Mary’s church, but Maurice Uniacke seems to have had special ties with the Franciscans (he asked to be buried in their habit), and sought to return his family to their care.135 Anxiety about the future of one monastic foundation caused Matthew Archbold of Co. Westmeath to stipulate in his will of 1618 that his body be buried in Multyfarnham Abbey ‘if it be not polluted or the franciston ffryers from hence banished before my burial tyme and if soe as Godd forbid I leave my boddy to be buryed wheare the same shall seeme moste convenient’.136 The conversion of monastic buildings into private residences may in certain cases have meant an abrupt end to burials, as seems to have been the case in at least part of Tintern abbey, Co. Wexford, following its conveyance to Sir Anthony Colcough in 1576.137

However, to a great extent monastic burial was little disturbed following the Reformation. Its liturgical aspect may have been impoverished, follow-ing on from the dispossession and dispersal of the monks, but the possibil-ity for burial, in most cases, continued. In many areas the families involved in founding monastic establishments continued to be associated with them, and they and local people continued to seek burial within their precincts. Outsiders to whom monastic buildings were granted were rarely concerned enough by Catholic burial practice to seek to disrupt it. Instances of outright


collusion were reported, as at the Franciscan friary of Creevelea, Co. Leitrim. Though it was burned by the ‘heretics’, the friars remained in the area. The buildings were eventually taken over by an Englishman named Harrison, who converted the friary into a house and thatched the church. However, he ‘allowed the Catholics to continue to bury in the graveyard since this brought him in a certain amount of revenue’.138

In certain areas, especially those under Gaelic control, it was the early seventeenth century before the most remote monasteries were molested at all. Elsewhere, the unusual situation occasionally arose where the descendants of former founders of monasteries were granted the lands and buildings following the dissolution. The monastery of Kilcrea, Co. Cork was leased to Sir Cormac McTeige MacCarthy in 1577 – it had been founded by his ancestor, Cormac Laidhir MacCarthy, about a century before.139 The friars of Rosserrilly were for a time protected by the Earl of Clanricard who bought out the grantee’s interest in the building. The monastery of Multifarnham, whose future had worried Matthew Archbold, was similarly protected by the Barons of Delvin who ‘always contrived to purchase the monastery and church from the grantees’.140 The Cistercian abbey of Abington, Co. Limerick, was granted to Peter Walsh in 1562, but the fact that his son’s very Catholic monument was later erected there is surely an indication of where the family’s sympathies and patronage lay. Tellingly, in 1622 the Bishop of Killaloe, John Rider, complained that in his diocese:

there are divers Abbies or monasteries dissolved . . . wherein yet ye people do bury theyr dead out of ye ordinary place of christian buriall to ye con-tempt of religion and maintenance of theyr superstition. And besides that to these places many ffriars and Priests do ordinarily resort and some-times in ye yeare great concourse of people publikely.

It seems that Rider’s clergy could not extend their jurisdiction over such ‘abbies, monasteries, old chappells and places where rectories and vicarages are both impropriate’, to their financial detriment.141

Following the Reformation the greatest paradox of church buildings in Ireland was the fact that, despite the continuing Catholicism of a majority of the population, the parish churches and cathedrals were technically taken into Protestant ownership. This was not necessarily the case in practice, especially in the sixteenth century. But the Church of Ireland was increasing its control of its churches in the seventeenth century. Given this situation it is unsurprising that for a long period Catholic burial in Protestant churches could proceed relatively undisturbed. But what happened in cases where Protestant presence was strong enough to take full control over the churches, as it was especially in the larger towns and cities? How did Catholics reconcile themselves to the paradox inherent in a situation where attendance at Protestant services was increasingly resisted, yet church burial


seems to have been embraced as willingly as ever? To what extent was the fact that burial in a Protestant church in effect meant eternal attendance at Protestant service pondered by those who asked to be buried in these build-ings, or who buried their families there?

The answers suggest a far more complex picture than previously acknow-ledged. As seen in the previous chapter, during the 1603 ‘recusancy revolt’ following the death of Elizabeth I, a number of churches were reclaimed by Catholics, and ritually cleansed. Mass was celebrated, and an era of toler-ation proclaimed. The triumph was shortlived, but the incident must have lingered long in Catholic folk memory. In the 1640s churches and cath-edrals in many areas were again reoccupied and reconciled. Between these dates, in parts of the country, Catholics continued to assert their associ-ations with church buildings, sometimes to the dismay of Protestant observers. In one incident in New Ross in 1606, a minister was interrupted during service by a crowd of 200 people who came to make an offering at the site of the high altar.142 Such confrontations demonstrate Catholic determination to preserve traditional rights, including the right to bury their dead where they traditionally had been buried. This meant, in many cases, that they had to come to terms with the fact of the celebration of Protestant services literally over their dead bodies, and over the bodies of their friends and families. It also meant that occasionally they would have had to pay burial fees to the Protestant minister. As also seen in relation to burial ceremonies, evasion and compromise were a fact of life for sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Irish populations, especially the more well-off sections of society; who were also the group most likely to hold strong Counter-Reformation views.143 However, they have left little trace on conventional sources for the history of the period.

Further to this the presence of Catholic funerary monuments in churches must also be considered. To what extent did the Protestant authorities con-nive with Catholics in this matter, or was it the case that they did not have enough authority to follow through any objections to the construction of memorials to Catholics (some of which included a significant amount of Catholic symbolism) in the churches? What implications did this have for Catholic perceptions of the Protestant establishment? Conversely, what implications did it have for Protestant feelings of security in the tenure of their own churches? In Dublin’s St Patrick’s cathedral, for example, the 1616 monument of Nicholas Kenan and Margaret Fyan displayed the Instruments of the Passion, the motifs ‘exce homo’, IHS, heart and nails, and the letter ‘M’ on a shield, invoking Catholic devotions to the wounds of Jesus, the name of Jesus, and the Virgin Mary.144 It is certainly a subdued and under-stated display, as such monuments go, but surely it would still be provoca-tive enough, should someone choose to be provoked? Other monuments showing similar Catholic symbolism also existed in Dublin. In the parish church of Youghal, Co. Cork, in the north transept and directly opposite to


the south transept containing the Earl of Cork’s monument, is the monu-ment to Peter Miagh (mayor of Youghal in 1630). The inscription asks for prayers for the souls of those interred there. Near the top of the monument stood the figure of Christ, carrying a standard, an image that would have been seen by many Protestants as idolatrous.145 Unlike in England and most of Scotland, Catholic symbolism continued to appear on tombs and none of the type of iconoclasm that occurred in the other two countries was reported in Ireland, until the arrival of the Cromwellian army.146 So in cer-tain cases, Protestant churches were silently colonised by Catholic corpses, memorials and signs.

Similar evasions and compromises seem also to be revealed in the surpris-ingly widespread practice of mortuary chapel creation (oratories and chapels in private houses also seem to have increased in number). During the early to mid-seventeenth century, the number of mortuary chapels built on to parish churches by Catholic families seems to have been increasing. As has been mentioned, such chapels had a long history in the pre-Reformation period, usually as chantry chapels where a priest would celebrate mass for the souls of the founders and their associates, who were often buried nearby. Now that such activities had been curtailed (though not prohibited), the reasoning behind the creation of additional chapels might have been expected to die out. Instead the practice seems to revive, though in the absence of a thorough archaeological investigation, anything said must unfortunately be of a general nature. A glimpse of the sheer numbers of chapels built and proposed is, however, instructive.

In 1611, Valentine Blake Fitz-Thomas, then mayor of Galway, built a mor-tuary chapel on the south side of the choir of the monastery of Galway. In 1642, Richard Martin, of Dungorie, bequeathed a considerable sum for the erection of a chapel in the same monastery. In 1633, Sir Henry Lynch pro-vided in his will for £100 to be expended on a mortuary chapel to be annexed to St Nicholas’ church in Galway.147 Earlier, in 1585, Rose Archer had a chapel and tomb erected to the memory of her husband, Edmund Butler, in Callan, Co. Kilkenny.148 Piers Kealy (d.1648) and his wife Alson Hackett had a monument in a chapel in Gowran.149 Sir Gerald Aylmer ensured that when he re-edified the church of Donadea, Co. Kildare, in the early seventeenth century, he placed his own very Catholic monument in a separate chapel.150 William Fitzgerald of Castleroe also built a Catholic monument, incorporating the Instruments of the Passion and a Crucifixion scene, in a separate mortuary chapel at the church of Kilkea.151 Richard Shee, who died in 1608, erected a mortuary chapel and monument in St Mary’s church, Kilkenny. John Rothe’s chapel near the same church; ‘dedi-cated to ye glorie, and honor of ye most holly and individuall Trinitie’, was described in his 1620 will as being located ‘between ye Crosse Church and the northern porch of St Mary church’. The ground had been purchased from the Dean and Chapter of St Canice’s cathedral, and the building was


to be maintained by Rothe’s successors. The chapel has now disappeared, though Rothe’s monument survives.152 The dedication to the Holy Trinity and the injunction that its maintenance be seen as part of the ‘honor’ owed to God, are indicators of a religious as well as a mortuary purpose. In 1616 Robert Rothe fitzDavid was also planning a mortuary chapel in the grounds of the same church, ‘in honour of God, the blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Michael’. This provision was later erased from his will, and he instead requested a chapel at Tullaghmaine dedicated to ‘our Blessed Saviour and St. James’.153 Two further Catholic chapels, in counties Tipperary and Monaghan will be considered in the next chapter.

The reason for the creation of such chapels was twofold. In the first place they expressed the status and the integrity of the family involved. They con-ferred exclusivity both through the expense necessary to their creation, as well as in their manipulation of sacred space to create a part of the church which, while connected to the main body and business of the building, was also in some way aloof from it. By extension they also in some cases indicated a draw-ing away from Protestant services celebrated (or supposedly celebrated) in the main body of the church.154 It seems that a similar situation existed in many parts of England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Catholics tended to be buried in family chapels, some of which were also newly created, or in a special part of the parish churchyard, though provision was sometimes made for new Catholic burial grounds.155 Further investigation of Catholic burial practice in both Ireland and England in the later seventeenth century would probably provide valuable evidence about this point.

It seems clear that the religious aspect of the burial situation in Ireland in many ways reflects the tripartite model governing the creation and the ‘crossing of the confessional divide in matters concerning the dead’ sug-gested for seventeenth-century France by Keith Luria.156 Building on the work of other historians of religious coexistence and tolerance, he suggests that communities containing both Catholics and Protestants tended to organise themselves practically in the interests of avoiding conflict (Bob Scribner’s ‘tolerance of practical rationality’).157 Religious boundaries might be constructed in three different ways. Firstly, common concerns with ‘rank, privilege and occupation’ might blur distinctions, leading to the sharing of cemeteries and compromises on ritual practice. Under other circumstances, awareness of confessional differences might be asserted but mediated in such a way as to allow different groups their own standing in the commu-nity. Both of these patterns are evident in the co-interment of Catholics and Protestants in Ireland, as well as in the funeral ceremonies discussed in Chapter 3. Luria’s third boundary type, ‘a discriminatory, confessional boundary that broke the bonds between neighbors of different faiths by invoking . . . fears of social contamination’ tended to arise as church leaders sought to underline differences in their drive to educate their flocks in belief and practice.158


The case of the excommunicate, Francis Talbot, mentioned earlier, indi-cates a flip-side to the evidence already presented of the coexistence of the Catholic and Protestant dead. Protestants were always the minority grouping, despite their claims to the governance of the churches and graveyards, and it is therefore unsurprising that their tenure of their graves was eventually contested. The 1640s in particular provide an exten-sive number of allegations of the exclusion of Protestants from burial on consecrated ground, and even worse fates, as violence escalated.159 The cruelty of the Catholic rebels is often expressed in accounts of their refusal to bury their victims or other Protestants. Minard Christian of Waterford deposed:

That such was the inhumanity and mallice that the popeish priestes there bore vnto the protestants, that they would not suffer one John Collins . . . to be buried either in church or churchyard . . . And that the popeish vicar-generall there gave comand that no Romish Catholique should goe to the buriall of the said John Collins upon paine of present excommunication, & directed that the corpse should be buried in the slyme or mudd of the sea.160

Other reports from Waterford and Kerry told of the corpses of Protestants being disposed of on the seashore.161 Frequently the depositions speak of corpses left to rot or be eaten by dogs, crows, and other ‘ravenous crea-tures’.162 Andrew Chaplain deposed that the besiegers of Ballially castle, Co. Clare, murdered and stripped a number of individuals, continuing that: ‘their corpses lay about the ground not far from the castle walls, and were not suffered by means of the said parties to be buried, until the dogs and crows did pick and eat up their carcasses’.163

Where burial was accorded to slain Protestants, it was commonly alleged that the corpses were shamefully treated, being thrown into ditches or into holes in or by public roadways. Honora Beamond witnessed the burial of the corpses of sixteen Protestants ‘nearly all women and children’, drowned near Clones, Co. Monaghan, ‘in one hole in the highway, near the ditch or bog where they were drowned’.164 In Longford Ruth Martin, witness to killings there in 1641, saw the bodies ‘thrown into the ditch by twos and threes together by some of the rebles’.165 In Louth, Margaret Cosar was refused permission to bury the bodies of four Protestants, who had been hanged, in the church or churchyard, and instead they were buried in her garden.166 Robert Becket of Carrigaline, Co. Cork, claimed that his wife Elizabeth was killed by rebels on the road to Cork: ‘where she lay in a most inhuman manner two days, and at last was buried in an unchristian man-ner in the highway’.167 Robert Maxwell further alleged that when the rebels eventually gave permission for the corpses of Protestants to be interred in ditches, they insisted that:


they must ever be laid with their faces downwards. The reason whereof this deponent not understanding, asked the rebels themselves what the meant thereby, who readily answered, that they so placed them to the intent they might only have a prospect and sight of hell. And . . . when they killed any they used always these words, “Hanuniam Diaaoul!” which is Irish for “Your soul to the devil!”.168

It seems to have been this charge which was alluded to during the trial of Sir Phelim O’Neill: ‘To all this is added your turning of dead Englishmen with their faces downward to look into hell, and women in like manner obscenely dealt with’.169

Given the extent of compromise and co-interment which had existed in the country prior to the 1640s, these events highlight the dramatic break-down of communities which had occurred, a breakdown born of the social strain caused by the rapid influx of settlers in many areas, as well as the increasing influence of the type of clerical and official policies of confes-sional exclusivity which also contributed towards the undermining of cordial interdenominational relationships in countries such as France.170

Further cases of the mistreatment of Protestant bodies, which were also on occasion ritually mutilated and humiliated, recur throughout the depos-itions, with almost every county being represented. Both the extent of con-viction amongst Catholics that their enemies should not receive burial in consecrated ground and the awareness of Protestants of the serious and disturbing nature of such gestures, are abundantly clear. Purposeful inver-sion of normal burial procedures implicitly denied the humanity and the legitimacy of the religious stance of Protestants.171 The inference was that they were God’s enemies: for them there was no hope of Resurrection, thus they had no place in God’s acre. To be excluded from church and church-yard was to be excluded from the community, and to be excluded from the community was, in effect, not to exist. This impression was reinforced by the disposal of corpses in such locations as public highways, ditches, rivers or on the seashore. Given the prospect of dissolution that faced them, it is not surprising that Protestants objected vocally to such treatment of their friends and relatives.

Conclusion

Choice of burial location, or lack of such choice, involved a set of identifi-cations. It could express one’s place in the community in a number of ways, classifying a person by place of residence, by status and/or wealth, by famil-ial connections, and by occupation. It could reflect an established identity, or create a new one. Noticing where people were buried can also shed light on the religious position of particular groupings at this time, and prelim-inary surveys suggest a picture that was much more complicated than


historians have previously painted. While Catholics and Protestants in many areas seem to have reached accommodations on the use of churches and graveyards, tensions eventually become evident, and were violently expressed in the 1640s. It is likely that, from the later seventeenth century onwards, choices were gradually curtailed. Burial began to be removed from the churches, and thus the subtle nuances that had developed were eroded, with only the gravestone remaining to express earthly identity. This may be one of the major reasons for the rise in the popularity of such monuments. Laurence Archer’s request for a precise burial place thus reveals his back-ground and allegiances in a startlingly effective manner. Few other statements could have told us so much with such economy.

5 The Politics of Disinterment

In his will of 1600, Sir John Bellew asked that should he die and be buried at Duleek, his second wife, Ismay Nugent, should be buried beside him. All very well, until we realise that she was already dead, and had been interred, probably in Dundalk, in the early 1590s. What Bellew was proposing was that she be exhumed and reburied in the new grave.1 While today, as one anthropologist points out, we are ‘horrified at the disturbing of bodies’, other societies have not always had the same qualms.2 In early modern Ireland, for example, incidents involving the disinterment of corpses were documented surprisingly often, and there seems to have been much less control over the phenomenon than in England.3 Given that, as we have seen, the settlement of churches and churchyards reflected and recreated the community in death, it becomes obvious that the movement of a corpse following burial involved a symbolic re-evaluation of one’s position in that community.4 Motivations for exhumations varied, ranging from attempts to honour those connected with the corpse (a family, a monastery, an order, or a religious grouping), to efforts to demean and dehumanise that individ-ual and all connected with them. Accounts could also have political and didactic purposes or undertones.

Sometimes disinterment could be a straightforward affair. Reports from Gaelic areas of the disinterment and reburial of noble individuals who had died and been buried at a distance from the burial place of their family and ancestors indicate that corpses might be temporarily interred and subse-quently exhumed to be reburied elsewhere. Examples of this include the case of Teige O’Brien who died in 1601 and was buried ‘successively at Loughrea and Athenry in one week’.5 Similarly, Edmond Fitzgerald, the White Knight, and his son Maurice, who died on 22 and 23 April 1608 respectively, allegedly of poisoning, were buried in Kilbeheny, Co. Cork, before being moved to Kilmallock, to ‘lye in theyre owne tombe’.6 Such procedures probably served the practical purpose of ensuring the better preservation of the corpses, or at least to protect them from interference while arrangements were made to transfer them to their final resting place.7

85


It was more often the case that other concerns came into play, however. In Ireland, a country where fortunes and reputations could be made and lost with unusual rapidity and where families on the rise had to be willing to exploit the geography of opportunity, often leaving deceased family members behind them in their path to wealth and status, disinterment and reburial occasion-ally proved an important strategic tool. As yet without ‘roots’ in Ireland, those wives, children and other relations who died along the way were interred according to immediate conditions, often far from the new ‘ancestral’ burial sites finally established by successful heads of families. In such cases, disinter-ment and reburial could be a means of reuniting scattered loved ones, and incorporating them into newly achieved social standing. Sir Arthur Chichester, created Baron of Belfast following a successful career in the Irish administra-tion, was one of the most important of these settlers. In his will of 1621 he requested burial in his vault in the church of Knockfergus (Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim), beside his wife who had died a year earlier. Furthermore:

My will is . . . That my little sonne . . . who lies buried in Christchurch Dublin be removed thither and that my brother Sir John Chichester who lies likewise buried in the said church of Knockfergus be likewise removed and laid in the former vault.8

The Chichesters had been devastated when their only child, Arthur, had died in 1606 at the age of two months.9 John Chichester, Governor of Carrickfergus, had been killed in a skirmish against local rebels in 1597, and his head was sent to the Earl of Tyrone.10 Arthur Chichester’s arrival in Ireland soon afterwards and his hardline approach to his military role have been attributed to the bitterness he felt over his brother’s ignominious death.11 His desire over twenty-five years later that his brother be hon-ourably buried indicates that his feelings about the manner of John’s death, and his desire to rehabilitate his memory, were still strong. It would appear that the request that the bodies be reburied in the vault was carried out. Their coffins were noted as being present in the early nineteenth century, and in the early twentieth century a small lead casket was tentatively iden-tified as that of the infant Arthur.12 In this case disinterment and reburial brought the family together for eternity, presenting the world with a con-venient impression of physical and moral unity, of success and of honour: an impression which, it could be argued, only partly reflected the reality.

Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork, followed a more ambitious line when in 1632 he moved the remains of his recently deceased wife and her rather less recently deceased father and grandfather from their grave in St Patrick’s cathedral, Dublin, to the vault under the impressive new monument he had built to their memory in the same church.13 Boyle’s wife, Katherine Fenton, had illustrious connections. Her grandfather, Robert Weston, had held the positions of Lord Justice and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, while her father,

The Politics of Disinterment 87

Geoffrey Fenton, had been Secretary of State in Ireland at around the turn of the century. Cork’s concern to link himself with these men stemmed in part from the recent rise of his own fortunes in Ireland. By manipulating the deposition of the corpses in this manner, Cork could in some sense link himself with the illustrious reputations of both Fenton and Weston. To con-trol these corpses was to control the past, legitimate the present, and point the way to the future. That the earl’s tomb-building project was subse-quently challenged and impeded by Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, the new Irish Lord Deputy, is an indication of its symbolic effectiveness.14

Certain other families, who were not technically newcomers to the coun-try, might also make use of disinterment and reburial in order to underline newly found status and influence. James de la Field of Derryneshallog, Co. Monaghan, making his will in 1638, asked that a chapel be built on to the church of Tehallen (Tyholland), where he had requested burial, within two years of his death:

into which Chapple I would have my Corpes and the Corpses of my father and mother who are buried in the said Church to be removed and layde together as conveniently may be if the ordinary of the diacis will freely give leave to the building of the same.15

In this case it is doubtful that the chapel was built and the reburials carried out. This branch of the de la Field family of Painstown, Co. Meath, seems to have moved to Co. Monaghan early in the seventeenth century, probably fol-lowing the ‘settlement’ of that county in 1606 which resulted in significant land transfers to Catholic speculators from the Pale. One hundred and twenty townlands from the Barony of Monaghan, in which Tyholland is situ-ated, changed hands at this time, some of which were acquired by the de la Fields’ Meath neighbours such as the Barnewalls and the Flemings, Barons of Slane.16 Judging from James’ will, he had been successful in the Tyholland area, having purchased and leased a considerable amount of land, some of which he may have inherited from his father, Robert, who held lands at nearby Knockboy.17 He can probably be equated with the James Field who was sheriff of the county in 1625. His wife, Mary, daughter of Art Óg O’Neill, was from the neighbouring county of Tyrone, and was the widow of one of the local McKennas (she later married a Brian O’Neale).18 However, they had no children, and the Monaghan lands were destined to revert to the Painstown branch of the family, being divided between Christopher de la Field and his older brother, William, who seem to have been the sons of Simon, James’ executor.19 It may be that the planned chapel was an attempt to preserve the memory of the success of the Monaghan de la Fields, estab-lishing them as an ancestor group to their cousins from Meath, whom James probably hoped would settle in the area. They never did. All of their property was confiscated following the 1641 rebellion.20


Catholic reaction to changes in the status of their religious position, as well as the local political and doctrinal concerns of the many continentally educated Irish Counter-Reformation missionaries arriving in the country, resulted in a large number of reported and actual disinterments during the period in question. For example, when Nicholas White, head of a Clonmel Catholic family, was exhumed from his ancestral grave in St Mary’s parish church, and reinterred in the newly constructed tomb and mortuary chapel adjoining in 1623 (Figure 2), his heirs were doing more than making a statement about their status in the town.21 This phenomenon of Catholic mortuary chapel creation has already been referred to (and the planned de la Field chapel is another example). Such an arrangement allowed Catholics the chance to distance themselves from the Protestant service celebrated in the main body of the church, and from the polluting burial of heretics there, while at the same time continuing to associate themselves with the struc-tures their ancestors had attended and endowed. In the case of St Mary’s, there would undoubtedly have been memory of the occasion during the ‘recusancy revolt’ of 1603 when mass had been celebrated in the building by the Vicar Apostolic of Waterford, Fr. James White.22 Thus in the case of the White family, manipulation of sacred space and the removal of a corpse from one place to another allowed some degree of evasion of the full consequences of recent religious changes.

The Catholic religious orders were prominently involved in a large num-ber of disinterments in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Ireland. Anxious to protect their claims to status and financial entitlements, the monastic orders were always keen to ensure that the benefactors of a convent, or their kin, should continue to be buried within the precincts of that foundation. Disputes occasionally arose when the right to bury an important individual was perceived to have been usurped by another order or monastery.23 One such case arose in 1597. Murrough O’Brien, Lord Inchiquin, had been killed at Ballyshannon by Hugh O’Donnell’s soldiers while trying to cross the River Erne with an English army. His body was interred in the Cistercian abbey of Assaroe. The friars of the Franciscan friary of Donegal some fifteen miles away objected to the interment, claiming the body on the grounds that the Baron’s ancestors had heretofore been buried with the Franciscans of Ennis. Interestingly O’Donnell himself, along with the Catholic bishops of Derry and Raphoe, were called upon to arbitrate in the dispute. When they decided in favour of the Franciscans, the corpse was exhumed ‘three months after its interment in the monastery of Assaroe, and the friars reburied it in their own monastery with reverence and honour, as was meet’.24

Occasionally such disputes could descend into outright body-snatching. The friars of Donegal had been involved in an earlier incident. Cuconnaught Maguire, Lord of Fermanagh, killed in 1537 on Creachan on Lough Erne and buried in Devenish, ‘was sometime after disinterred by the Friars Minor who carried him to the monastery of Donegal and there interred him in a becoming


Figure 2 White chapel, St Mary’s church, Clonmel.

manner’.25 Almost one hundred years later, in 1630, Malachy O’Queely (afterwards Archbishop of Tuam) wrote to Luke Wadding of a feud between himself and the Thomond Franciscans on one side, and the Limerick Franciscans on the other. The body of a nobleman buried in Thomond had


been stolen four days later and taken to Limerick: ‘We complained to the Provinciall, and got a redresse in your chapter, wheare they were bitterly chaptered, and a sentence was given against them; nevertheless we did not remove the corpse’.26

Father Mooney, the Franciscan Provincial, recorded two similar incidents. The first occurred in Ennis Abbey in about 1603. Daniel Neylan, the ‘pseudo-bishop of Kildare’ (consecrated in 1583) had ‘made scant effort to become reconciled to God as death approached’. He had, however, created a marble tomb in the abbey, the burial place of his ancestors, who were O’Brien clients. The local Franciscan, being absent when Neylan died, was unable to prevent his burial in the tomb. However, on his return, he gathered some men who extracted the corpse by night,

and brought it outside the church, and even outside the whole town, to an obscure and filthy place where they covered it with earth lest it should become offensive to those who passed by. When it was noised abroad that a pseudo-bishop had received an ass’s burial, no one had enough sympathy to search for his bones again and bring them to a more respectable place. People jeered and commended the brother for his zeal.27

Mooney used a similar tactic himself when he arrived in the Franciscan friary of Clonmel in 1615 and found that certain ‘Jesuits and other ecclesi-astics’ had allowed a Protestant mayor of the town, a ‘notorious priest hunter’, to be buried alongside the high altar there.

[T]hrough their carelessness the sacred place, which had hitherto escaped pollution, was desecrated . . . I had the body exhumed by night and removed to unconsecrated ground, and having got permission from the

28Archbishop, I purified the place by Asperges.

On close study of these examples, several aspects can be commented on. First of all is the use of corpses in the political strategies and disputes of the various religious groupings and subgroupings within the country. Most obvious, perhaps, is the Catholic/Protestant tension evidenced by Mooney’s accounts of events in Ennis and Clonmel. The ill-advised burial of a Protestant bishop in Ennis abbey, and of a Protestant mayor in a part of Clonmel abbey usually reserved for prominent benefactors of the church, were profane acts which could only be redressed by the removal of the offending corpses to ignoble locations.29 But more subtle information is given to us in this anecdote regarding the religious situation in Clonmel and Ennis at this time. Both were moderately important towns with friaries that were supposedly in the gift of the Crown. Yet permission had to be sought for Protestants to be buried in churches which should have been under


Protestant control. In 1606, John Davies had complained that Clonmel: ‘is more haunted with Jesuits and priests than any other town or city within this province, which is the cause we found the burgesses more obstinate here than elsewhere’. On that occasion the Lord President had proceeded against 200 recusants, and the townspeople had firmly refused to cease receiving priests and Jesuits into their houses.30 Things obviously had not improved (from the Protestant point of view) ten years later.

The reports of disputes over burials and of body-snatching incidents also indicate dynamic religious groups in this period eager, and more import-antly able, to defend traditional rights. The Donegal/Assaroe dispute over the remains of Lord Inchiquin had little to do with the wishes of the deceased or his family (who are never mentioned), and everything to do with Franciscan/Cistercian rivalry (over influence and finances) in the area.31 The ‘nobleman’ involved in the Thomond/Limerick Franciscan dis-pute is unnamed in the records – what counted was the significance of the theft of his body. Similarly, in the Clonmel case it is probable that Mooney’s disgust for the heretic buried within the sacred space of his order had less to do with his view on the pollution spread by the corpses of heretics, than with the fact that the interment was a symbol of the usurpation of the local position of the Franciscans by Jesuit interlopers. This becomes clear when we are told of Mooney’s reassertion of Franciscan entitlement to the monastery, despite the opposition of certain ‘other ecclesiastics’ who had found their tenure of the church most lucrative.32 In the end, these narra-tives are lively illustrations of the internal squabbles of sections of the Counter-Reformation church in Ireland which are such a feature of the correspondence of Catholic clerics, especially during the 1620s and 1630s.

Another type of disinterment scenario found in Irish sources of this period is related to the concept of the translatio or translation of the bodies of saints.33 Since translation involved the movement of the corpses or relics of purported saints from their original graves to more prominent and hon-ourable situations, given the religious situation prevailing in Ireland during this period, it is unsurprising that official translations of holy people were rare. There are indications that the remains of the body of the martyred Maurice McKenraghty who had been buried behind the altar of Clonmel Franciscan friary were moved to the convent of Askeaton, in 1647, sixty years after his death.34 But other rather less formal translation-type projects were also taking place. Luke Wadding, a native of Waterford, described the exhumation of one Brother John Luker (died 1597), an unnamed secular priest and a pious laywoman, who were secretly removed from their original burial places in St Mary’s church to the Franciscan friary (French church) in the early seventeenth century. Wadding commented that the corpse of the friar was found to be incorrupt, a phenomenon which would have provided convincing proof of his holiness.35 A similar interpretation may have been made in 1627 when the Provincial of the Irish Dominicans reported the


discovery in a grave at Athenry of the incorrupt head and the bones of one of their order, a Dominic Rowland.36

Other aspects of the Counter-Reformation mission to Ireland are illus-trated in descriptions of instances where the earth itself supposedly miraculously rejected the bodies of blasphemers. Philip O’Sullivan Beare described one such incident, said to have occurred during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The English Protestant Bishop of Ferns and his entourage were engaged in destroying the furnishings of the church of John the Baptist in Castleellis, Co. Wexford, and plotting against the Irish Catholics, when:

a pain spread all over him by which he was violently racked and reduced to madness and dashing his huge body on the ground and against the stones, he put an end to his impious life. His body, buried in the church by his brother and comrades, was found the next day outside the church, thrown up on the walk. The English, thinking the Irish had done this, again buried the body and put guards, but again the second night the grave was opened, and the body was nowhere to be found.37

Another such wonder is recorded in Hartry’s account of Holy Cross abbey, Co. Tipperary. In 1584 Peter Purcell, a ‘very stupid worldly man’, requested burial the ‘Tomb of the Good Woman’s Son’, the sedilia in the monastery, alleged to be the grave of an English prince whose mother had donated a piece of the True Cross to the place. While Purcell’s corpse lay buried in his misappropriated tomb, a constant torrent of rainwater poured from its arches which threatened even the structure of the chapel. In 1603, the author continues, Hughy Purcell, son-in-law of Peter was sent a vision from God on three nights:

enjoining and commanding him to cast the corpse of his grand-father completely out of the tomb, which he had taken possession of unjustly. . . as soon as the tomb was opened, such a stench and so great a smell of foul air burst from it, that the workmen . . . would not endure so fetid and pestilential odour. . . No part of Peter’s intruding body was left however, except the foul smell of his putrid corpse.

The flow of water subsequently ceased, and was replaced by a spring which posed ‘no inconvenience or harm to the church’, and performed a number of miracles.38

Such tales tell us much about attitudes towards blasphemy, miracle, death and burial during this period. Most obvious is a sense of divine arbitration in the affairs of men. Punishment for blasphemy in the case of the (myth-ical) Bishop of Ferns was painful disgraceful death, and indeed the ground rejected his body when the further sacrilege was committed of burying him within the church he had ransacked.39 Peter Purcell’s attempt to secure an


illustrious grave for himself provoked the anger of God, expressed as the destructive flow of water and through the annihilation of the intruding body, which was expelled completely when the tomb was opened. But in both cases the miracle also had positive characteristics that served to impress upon the audience the power of God and the truth of the Catholic cause. The Castleellis incident was alleged to have led to the conversion of the dead bishop’s brother and comrades and ensured that the church would henceforth remain unmolested. Similarly, at Holy Cross abbey, the local population were cautioned against the ‘sacrilegious abuses’ introduced when ‘each chose a place of burial for himself in whatever part of the church he pleased’, while their faith was strengthened by the miracles performed by the spring which replaced the harmful cataract.

Such cases of purificatory disinterment did not occur merely at the behest of supernatural agencies, however. Human actors too could use the uncover-ing and destruction of corpses as a powerful sanction against those perceived as enemies to social and natural order. In such cases the perpetra-tors of the disinterment and denigration of such corpses acted according to the principle that the offending body was a source of pollution and danger to the community and to humanity in general. It was also a punishment which transcended death itself, for the debasement and destruction of the bodies of outcasts indicated the inevitable damnation of their souls. If their immortal element had no home in heaven, their mortal remains were clearly out of place amongst those who had received Christian burial. One example was the disinterment of the body of David Barry, Archdeacon of Cork and Cloyne, by the Earl of Desmond in 1500. Barry had killed his own brother, William, Lord Barrymore, and for this was killed by Thomas Barry and the O’Callaghans, and his corpse ‘made . . . into dust and ashes’.40

A less straightforward case occurred in 1554 when the body of Edmund Sexton was secretly removed at night from his tomb in St Mary’s cathedral, Limerick. The corpse’s right arm was cut off at the elbow and left in the tomb, whilst the rest of his remains were hanged by the heels above the ceil-ing of the chancel. The event went unnoticed until Sexton’s wife was buried three years later, and when a thief hiding in the rafters eventually discovered the corpse, it was reburied at night. Sexton’s grandson, who recorded the tale many years later, comments by way of explanation: ‘This was done for his religion he imbraced uppon the refermation’.41 But this was not the full story. Sexton was one of the small group of native Irish and Old English who chose to embrace Protestantism in the 1530s and 1540s. In addition, he was a very slippery character, who survived the falls of several patrons, rose from relatively humble status to the mayoralty of Limerick, and acquired a landed estate based largely on the spoils of the unpopular dissolution of the monasteries. Religious models may have suggested aspects of his punish-ment (the manner of his corpse’s disposal seems to have been based on a biblical account of the punishment of a blasphemer), but Sexton, an upstart


and self-made man, was being penalised for other crimes in addition to his heresy.42

This type of disinterment is thrown into particularly sharp relief in the many cases of sectarian use and abuse of corpses during the rebellion of the 1640s. Amongst the many atrocities laid at the door of the Catholic rebels and their leaders are widespread allegations of the exhumation of the corpses of Protestants from graves in churches now in Catholic hands. In most cases, deponents cited religious motives, and the role of the Catholic clergy is stressed. Consider, for example, Nicholas Walsh’s description of events in Harristown, King’s County:

the graves in the churchyard and church of Harristown were digged up, and the corpses of Protestants that were there interred for seven years at least before that time were taken up and their bones and bodies were thrown into ditches and other base places, by the directions of the Vicar-General James McShane Dempsey.43

From Brittas, Queen’s County, Barnaby Dunne described attempts by Catholics to coerce Protestants to mass, adding that ‘the titulary bishop and the priests said they could not consecrate the churches wherein to celebrate the mass, until the corpses of the Protestants should be removed thereout’.44

In Kildare town, Thomas Huetson witnessed the disinterment of his brother and grandmother whose corpses were reburied in a garden outside the churchyard under the supervision of various named priests and friars.45

Mary Woods corroborated the allegations, saying that the retrieved remains were thrown ‘into a filthy backeside [back yard] to bee devoured by dogges’.46 In Limerick, the local tradition of disinterment was kept up when the recently deceased Church of Ireland bishop of the diocese, George Webb, was exhumed from his grave in St Munchin’s church and his ears cut off.47 In Mountrath, Co. Westmeath, the coffins, bones and bodies of Protestants were exhumed.48 From Waterford, Kilkenny and Limerick rumours even suggested that the rebels were recycling the remains of Protestants. Laurence Hooper claimed that Protestant graves in the former town were dug up in order to make gunpowder. Corpses with bones and flesh on them were ‘boyled in great furnishes till they came to salt peeter’ producing about sixty pounds of gunpowder a week. The Limerick graves allegedly produced smaller quantities of gunpowder, but this was of high quality.49

Such disinterments, like the absolute refusal of burials described in the last chapter, primarily served as a symbolic rejection of the religious stance of Protestants. Their heresy was so polluting that every trace of their contam-inated bodies had to be removed from the company of the righteous. But this did more than cleanse the churches and graveyards repossessed by the Catholic community. The removal of Protestant bodies would have paralleled


the renewing of Catholic iconography and the reintroduction of Catholic liturgy to these spaces, in effect rewriting history by destroying any evidence of the Protestant form of worship set up in the intervening period. Of course, such symbolic niceties were entirely lost on the Protestant party, who, understandably, rejected Catholic interpretations of their own actions, and instead attributed them to the malice and barbarism of a people who had refused to be reformed either in manners or religion.

Disinterment incidents could, therefore, be perceived as the ultimate in barbarism. This is stressed in the description of a highly political disinter-ment in Wicklow in 1628. Following the death of Una O’Toole, wife of Phelim MacFeagh O’Byrne:

after that shee was interred by the space of three weekes or thereabouts, the body (contrary to all lawe and justice) was digged upp, in the pres-ence of Mr. Fox who is Vicar of Wicklowe, and taken out of the ground in a most barbarous and inhuman manner. And this shamefull act (which is without example) was done (as the authors pretend) by direccion from publique authoritie.50

Witnesses to the uncovering of the grave in Rathdrum church claimed that upon the sight of the body it was closed again, and that the reason for the action was a report circulated that Una O’Toole had not actually died. The hurt and resentment of the deceased woman’s relatives at this indignity is expressed in the strongest terms. It is obvious that there was a political motive behind the incident. Certainly the exhumation of a member of a family whose loyalty and usefulness to the Crown were unquestioned would have been an unwise and provocative action. The O’Byrnes did not have an impeccable pedigree in this respect, however. Phelim’s father, Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne, had been one of the most dangerous rebels of the six-teenth century.51 Phelim MacFeagh himself had also been classed as an ‘archtraitor’. Their problems were compounded by the attempts of succes-sive Lords Deputy to ‘civilise’ the Wicklow area and bring the O’Byrne lands under Crown control.52 The exhumation was another way of undermining the O’Byrnes by asserting the power of the Crown, while at the same time provoking them. A revolt by the O’Byrnes in 1628 would have provided the perfect excuse for a plantation of their lands. This case is, however, an unusual one. The authorities rarely made use of disinterment as a weapon, and other reports mentioning such incidents usually refer to random acts of local revenge or provocation, one example being Lord Forbes’ destruction of graves in St Mary’s church, Galway, in 1642.53

It becomes obvious that disinterment could be a highly ambiguous issue, and that opposing groups could view the same event from vastly different standpoints.54 Much tension between ideas of rightful and wrongful disin-terment is evident. Rightful disinterment was designed to do honour to the


deceased person and, by extension, to their family or a social group to which they were connected. On certain occasions rightful disinterment, while doing violence to the corpse involved, restored order to the world by denigrating or expelling wrongdoers, thus inscribing the consequences of their crimes upon their remains. Wrongful or irreverent disinterment could, on the other hand, be perceived as disruptive to order and as completely contrary to the norms of civilised behaviour. In this sense, acts of disinter-ment could be highly unstable, in that their meaning was not necessarily fixed, and could be challenged or reinterpreted according to the viewpoint of observers. The conditions prevailing in Ireland during this period meant that a consensus of opinion might not necessarily be forthcoming, To rearrange burials was, in effect, to rearrange reality into the patterns the living wished for it to hold. The explosion of the 1640s indicates the extent to which the inhabitants of the island, old and new, failed to reach a consensus on how exactly this reality should be ordered.

6 The Nature and Uses of Funerary Monuments

Aspects of the commemoration of the dead have already been referred to earlier in this book, and it is now necessary to consider one of the most obvi-ous expressions of such commemoration. While medieval and early modern Irish funerary monuments have long been exploited by historians and others as useful illustrative material for a society which left few other images, they have been little considered as documents in their own right. A small group of Irish writers have in recent years attempted to depart from the antiquarian and archaeological tradition of merely describing and clas-sifying memorials, by displaying the extent to which they reveal ‘changing political, social and religious values’.1 However, the drawback to the com-mentaries produced thus far has been under-use of the range of material available and underestimation of its potential. The focus has been on the most impressive monuments, with simpler or less decorative examples being largely ignored.2 This typifies and reinforces an overriding concern for the visual elements of memorials. The preference for pictures over words (and for big pictures over small ones) obscures the extent to which both elements were inextricably linked in the intentions of patrons of these works. Indeed, the increasing concentration on the verbal element towards the end of this period means that many important pieces have simply been ignored. As Antoine Prost points out in relation to French monuments to the dead of World War One, ‘to concentrate on the statuary alone is tantamount to deciphering a long sentence by focusing on a single word: misreadings are inevitable’.3 The next two chapters attempt a broad view of surviving com-memorative material, from the simplest pieces to the most elaborate, which reveals much about the concerns of the living, as well as their views of the dead.4

The first point to be addressed is the difference between ‘simple’ and ‘elaborate’ monuments. At the top end of the scale are those impressive architectural structures which may stand many feet tall with niches containing the sculptured figures of the patron and members of his or her family, in positions varying from recumbent (lying back with hands clasped

97


in prayer), to reclining (leaning on one elbow and lying to face the viewer), or kneeling (side to the viewer and usually portrayed in prayer at a desk). The latter posture was increasingly fashionable in European monumental sculpture of this time. Other decorative devices may appear, and inscrip-tions are usually long and detailed. Next are the less obviously elaborate altar or box tombs, which take the form of a rectangular chest, and which may stand next to the church wall or be detached from it. Degrees of decoration vary: some have an additional mural element and they may incorporate recumbent effigies on the cover slab and smaller figures, repre-senting saints or family members, in niches on the side-pieces. Mural monuments vary greatly in ornamentation, from simple, unadorned inscriptions, to large sculpted pieces incorporating kneeling figures. Ledger or floor slabs, designed to lie on the floor like paving slabs, also vary in size and elaboration, from small pieces with brief inscriptions, to large examples of beautifully executed design and workmanship which may include coats of arms, incised effigies, and religious emblems. Some of the pieces now existing as floor slabs may at one time have been the cover slabs of larger monuments. The free-standing modern gravestone was only beginning its rise in Ireland in this period.5

The above categories are, however, crude, and there was considerable var-iety of style, composition, construction and elaboration, according to the patron’s instructions, budget, and religious position, constraints of location, the type, availability and quality of material used (stone, brass, plaster, wood), and the skill of the craftsman. It must also be remembered that what is seen now is not what the patron got. Monuments now grey and drab would have been highly polished, brightly painted or even gilded. They have also had a high casualty rate, being broken, scattered or lost. How, then, does one go about studying them?

Sources

Given the difficulty of the task of visiting all of the churches containing monuments relevant to the period in question, researchers are fortunate in possessing a large body of published descriptive material relating to them. The most important collection is the series of Journals of the Society for the Preservation of the Memorials of the Dead, published from the 1890s to the 1930s, comprising descriptions, drawings and photographs of Irish monu-ments of all types. Various historical journals, such as the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland and the proceedings of more local historical and archaeological societies, continue to publish notices about monuments, including an increasing number of collections of inscriptions and archaeo-logical descriptions of gravestones and monuments. Accounts of local, church and family history can also provide information about relevant tombs, in these cases usually stressing their importance as genealogical

The Nature and Uses of Funerary Monuments 99

sources. In the past, travellers often included monuments and gravestones in their descriptions of places of interest that they visited on their tours, the most outstanding example being the work of Thomas Dineley who travelled extensively in Britain and Ireland in the 1680s.6

Of course, all of these sources provide their own sets of problems when it comes to interpretation of the data provided. First is their inherent geographical bias. Connacht and Ulster lagged far behind Munster and espe-cially Leinster in terms of volume of output as represented in the Memorials of the Dead and elsewhere, though this reflects lack of material as much as lack of local interest. Throughout, the standard of description and tran-scription varied. Many memorials are and were difficult to decipher, leading to errors in recording and interpretation of both inscriptions and images. More accessible, better preserved and more photogenic monuments have received far greater attention than those that are more remote, smaller and damaged, a shortcoming still reflected in more recent articles. The personal agendas of researchers also varied. For many, the inscription, especially its genealogical and historical content, was the most important aspect of the tomb. Conversely, for modern researchers, inscriptions often take second place to iconographical detail. Though recent archaeological descriptions are often thorough, such meticulous treatment means often that only a limited geographical or thematic area can be covered and archaeologists at times fail to set their findings in a wider context.7 Irish archaeologists also tend towards a time-bias, with anything later than 1600 often seen as beyond their remit. Here lies the key to why, in the last few decades, funeral monuments erected after 1500 and especially after 1600 have been under-used as a source. To many archaeologists, such memorials are too late to be archaeology, while for historians they are too archaeological to be history; even for art historians funerary sculpture is often considered too crude to be labelled art.

These reservations aside, the work of centuries of writers has made descriptions of a large section of Irish funeral carving available to researchers. In many cases, this record is all that remains, for, despite the permanence which is ascribed to all things ‘set in stone’, weathering and general wear and tear conspire to make these pieces highly destructible. Monuments have frequently been the casualties of projects of church restoration, being damaged, thrown away, lost, decontextualised through their removal from their original location, reconstructed wrongly, or demoted to positions that ensure their rapid deterioration. For example, a significant proportion of Dublin’s memorials have disappeared; at St Audoen’s church several tombstones vanished after their relocation in 1673 ‘to preserve the Living from being injured by the Dead, who were very shallowly buried’.8 In St John the Evangelist’s church, tiling work in the 1630s included the removal of ‘the great stonnes in the Chancell’, which may have included ledger slabs (the church itself was demolished in 1884).9


Finally, general vandalism has also deprived historians of the chance fully to appreciate these sources. In the early modern period, warfare could have destructive consequences for churches and their contents. Cromwellian forces have been especially blamed for stabling horses and billeting men in ecclesiastical buildings and for raiding them in search of valuables. So, for example, Cromwellian troops ‘demolished’ the Wall tomb in Ballinaree, and ‘defaced, brok[e] and burned’ wayside crosses in Co. Wexford.10 In Waterford, brass church ornaments and funerary brasses were exported by Colonel Thomas Sadler, while many of the tombstones in St Stephen’s church were allegedly re-used to floor the house of one Lieutenant Leigh.11

Such actions were not unique to the Cromwellians.12 In times of peace, other early modern individuals had few qualms about grave robbery and destruction. In 1681, Dineley complained that theft as much as religious bias had led to the loss of ‘most of the Inscripcons Epitaphs, arms, Pedigrees, and history of families, upon the goodley Tombes of our worthy ances-tors’.13 In the nineteenth century Col. Vigors, founder of the Society for the Preservation of Memorials to the Dead, indignantly cited instances of improper use of tombstones, including pieces used in a baker’s oven and a pigsty. Elsewhere, the monument of the White Knights in Kilmallock was described as lately defaced ‘by persons, as I am told, dancing upon it’.14

Vandalism and carelessness continues today, a problem compounded by the fact that early modern funerary monuments generally fall under the category of ‘post-medieval’ in archaeological terms, and thus are not offered the same legal protection as earlier pieces. Under-resourced town corporations and parish communities have difficulty in protecting them from damage.

A few final problems relating to the interpretation of monuments must be considered. First is that they are an elite source. As with so many texts, they are the documents of those who could afford them. The poor are unrepre-sented. It must also be remembered that relative size is not necessarily an indication of the prosperity of one family in comparison to another. Many important individuals had no tombstones, or relatively modest ones, while individuals from lower down the social scale might provide themselves with ostentatious memorials. Gaelic landowners especially seem to have been to some degree unconvinced of the worth of erecting memorials for them-selves, or were satisfied to use earlier family monuments, while in the Pale and the towns the comfortably-off middle classes engaged in ambitious tomb-building projects. So, though commemoration became increasingly widespread as the years advanced, it was not a universal aspiration.

Creation

While today most people dying in Ireland can expect to have headstones erected to their memory, usually a year later, the vast majority of early mod-ern Irish people were never commemorated in this way. It seems most often


the case that those who were ambitious of being commemorated had to arrange this themselves during their lifetimes. The danger of postponing such arrangements is revealed by the will of Henry O’Brien, fifth Earl of Thomond, in which he expressed a desire to be commemorated on his father’s monument in Limerick. The requested improvements, including kneeling statues of the earl, his brother, their grandfather and great-grand-father, were never carried out. Doubtless the debt in which Henry had left the earldom left his brother and heir with little enthusiasm for such a costly project.15 As shall be discussed later, married couples are the most usual people to feature on monuments of all types. Other family members may also appear. Very occasionally, monuments were erected to esteemed friends or local notables, or even to people long deceased or unknown to the patron, either as a means of creating links with certain elements of society, or continuity with a glorious and pious past. Examples of this include the Bennet memorial in Youghal and the O’Dea monument in Limerick, rebuilt by the first Earl of Cork and the fourth Earl of Thomond respectively.16

The business transactions that went into the making of memorials are difficult to reconstruct. Wills occasionally give instructions for the creation of memorials, but few other documents exist to elucidate the process. Wills are, of course, an unreliable source in this context. Most people would have created monuments before their deaths, and for latecomers the cost of the work was secondary to the instruction that it be made; in consequence any prices mentioned are usually vague. Lady Eleanor Butler, Countess Dowager of Desmond and widow of Donogh O’Connor Sligo, bequeathed £300 to the erection of a monument and chapel, which may indicate the projected cost of a fairly substantial memorial and somewhere to put it, but it is unclear whether the work was carried out.17 In 1634, Nathanial Fox of Rathreagh, Co. Longford, left two years’ worth of tithes from two parishes towards the building of his tomb in the church he had constructed there.18 Henry O’Nealle of Edendufferick, Co. Antrim, allocated £100 in his 1637 will ‘to erect a monument’, while Morris Fitzgerald of Newcastle, Co. Longford, allowed £20 for his memorial in Athlone.19 George Sexton’s 1631 will sug-gests that location may have influenced costs, Dublin being more expensive, possibly because of the availability of better craftsmen. He set aside £100 sterling for a Dublin monument, should he be buried there, or £60 for a monument in the north. His will also suggests that a reason for people’s cre-ation of their own monuments was the fact that their heirs might be loath to spend the necessary money.20 He reminds his wife and son that, apart from cost of the tomb and some legacies, the estate came to them ‘gratis’. He was eventually buried in St John’s in Dublin, but there is no record of any monument to him having been built.21

The only detailed existing figures are the Earl of Cork’s accounts for the creation of his tombs in Youghal and Dublin, and for Matthew de Renzy’s monument in Athlone. For two monuments, a vault and the rebuilding of


his chapel in Youghal, Boyle paid over £500. The monument in Dublin cost about £400.22 De Renzy’s heir paid £40 10s. sterling ‘for making and setting up’ his father’s monument in 1635.23 Such figures would have included materials and their transport, the payment and maintenance of the tomb sculptor and any other craftsmen and labourers, plus extras such as payment to the designer of the work, often one of the heralds in the case of larger monuments. It must be presumed that prices varied according to the amount of detail required and the skill of the craftspeople involved. Surviving pieces indicate that as the popularity of memorials increased during the period, their quality in many cases declined; a reflection of the evolution of an increased range of options to suit the ambitions and purses of a widening range of consumers.

As the rarity of accounts relating to the creation of monuments suggests, correspondingly little is known about their makers. Three of the makers of more elaborate sculptured memorials can be named. Francis Andrews and Edmund Tingham worked in Dublin, and may originally have come from England.24 Andrews created the de Renzy monument in Athlone in 1635, while Tingham, described by the Earl of Cork as a ‘stonecutter’ from Chapelizod, Co. Dublin, was employed as the builder (though not the designer) of the Earl’s Dublin monument.25 The latter may also have erected Archbishop Jones’ monument in St Patrick’s and the Roper monument in St John the Evangelist’s church.26 Alexander Hills of Holborn created the Earl of Cork’s Youghal monuments and may also have worked for the Earl of Thomond.27 It is likely that the makers of some of the other more elaborate sculptured memorials may have come from abroad. For example, Bishop Rothe’s monument in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny, was traditionally considered the work of an Italian, an idea which may be borne out by the inclusion thereon of an unusual Continental representation of a bishop’s hat.28 Italian and English influences are recognisable on certain Dublin monuments, and London-trained masons may have created several tombs in Ulster.29 Scottish influences have been identified in a group of seventeenth-century monuments in Co. Meath, a factor attributed to the influence of Scots settlers in the Monaghan area.30 One tomb, that of the tenth Earl of Ormond, in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny (no longer extant), was created by the celebrated English craftsman, Nicholas Stone, who recorded that:

I Bargened with Ser Walter Butlar [Ormond’s Catholic heir] for to make a tombe the Earell of Ormon and to set it up in Iarland afer the wich I had well payed me £100 in hand and £130 when the work was set up at Kilkenny in Iarland.

This comment suggests that the piece was made in England and then trans-ported to Kilkenny, though whether Stone accompanied it to Ireland is unclear. It also suggests that Catholic as well as Protestant lords were well


aware of the trends prevailing in England, and of the identity of those producing monuments there.31

Most makers of memorials would have been master masons whose main source of income was ordinary building work, though on occasion, they may also have, been involved in carving domestic ornaments such as chimney-pieces.32 For example, the aforementioned Tingham was re-employed by the Earl of Cork to wainscot the study and gallery of his Dublin house and later he was involved in rebuilding at Maynooth castle and extensive work at St John the Evangelist church in Dublin.33 It is also likely that some sculptors travelled to where they were needed, executing their work on the spot rather than exporting finished pieces from a centralised workshop: Hills certainly stayed in Youghal.34 While some seem to have had a fair amount of training, for most the instruction received was probably rudimentary. Thus, while the number of memorials increased in the early to mid-seventeenth century, their quality often declined, many of them taking the form of coats of arms with simple architectural surrounds, or even unadorned inscriptions.

A few native ‘schools’ of funerary sculpture have been identified, and a number of individual sculptors are known from the simple fact that they signed some of their work.35 Several pieces in the Kilkenny area dating between 1501 and 1608 were the work of Rory O’Tunney and three other O’Tunneys (William, Patrick and James) who were probably related to him.36

Margaret Phelan suggested that the O’Tunneys occasionally collaborated with another family of masons, the O’Kerins or Kerins, who were involved in the creation of at least thirty-four tombs. Walter Kerin signed pieces in counties Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny and Tipperary between 1577 and 1608. Patrick Kerin, who worked in counties Limerick, Tipperary and Kilkenny between 1618 and 1637, was probably his son or grandson, and there may have been another Walter Kerin as well.37 Phelan was mistaken in her suggestion that the O’Tunneys and Kerins were the only Irish craftsmen to sign their work during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.38 For example, Nicholas Cowli’s name is recorded on two monuments and a bridge in Co. Tipperary.39 Other makers included Matheve Molanvxe (Matthew Molyneaux) at Moone, Co. Kildare, Molhlen O’Kelly at Athy, Co. Kildare, Walter Brennagh at Kildare cathedral, Mortagh Mury (Murrey) at Tullow, Co. Carlow, Mahon O’More at Narraghbeg, Co. Kildare, and possibly Kildare cathedral, and William Omwoll Egan (O’Mulligan?) at Clonebraney, Co. Meath.40 Closer study may reveal others.41

Makers were not necessarily professional stone workers. Elizabeth Hickey has identified one amateur sculptor, for whom stone carving was one of the achievements of the Renaissance man. John Cusack created at least three pieces: the Cusack monument at Trevet, the Marward stone at Skryne, and the Wakely/Handcock memorial at Ballyburly, Co. Offaly.42 Another ama-teur, William O’Ullahan, added his own epitaph, request for prayers and doodlings to the abbots’ tomb-slab in Jerpoint abbey.43


Non-stone monuments must also be considered. Memorial brasses, which are rare in this country, were usually imported from English workshops.44

Plaster pieces and their creation have hardly been studied at all, largely due to their low survival rate. Harris suggests that the Dublin plaster monuments may have been the work of one craftsman or workshop.45 Some of the plas-terers enrolled as freemen of Dublin prior to 1649 may have made funerary monuments. Judging from surnames such as Mackworth, Gilson, Moreland, Ludlowe and others, many of these men, or their parents, may have been immigrants from England or Wales.46 Finally, wooden grave-markers and wayside crosses, or their wooden components, have universally perished.47

Various monuments also testify to the work of heraldic and effigial painters and the smiths employed in creating the protective iron grates that occa-sionally survive, as on the Boyle monument in Youghal.48 Thus the work of rendering desires for commemoration into more permanent form was done by diverse individuals with diverse skills and materials. It is to be hoped that further scrutiny of monuments will identify other craftsmen and throw more light on their methods and patrons.

Motives

The motivations of those paying to create memorials great and small are dif-ficult to reconstruct, principally due to the fact that, like the processes of creation, these have largely gone unrecorded. Furthermore, each piece reflects a different set of circumstances and intentions that respond better to individual treatment than to the wider, more impressionistic survey neces-sary here. It has been noted that their erection resulted from choice rather than custom. It is therefore obvious that a strong element of personal input was involved on the part of the patron. It is also clear that memorials were designed with an audience in mind. This consciousness of onlookers results that monuments reflect not only who people were but, often, who they wished to be; not only how they thought, but how they wished to be seen to think; not only what they believed, but what they wished to be seen to believe. To these levels of analysis must be added another, for monuments also reveal to the historian subtexts invisible to contemporaries, since they were, to a great extent, taken for granted. By decoding and pointing up those assumptions implied in these texts, the processes whereby early modern society functioned become clearer.

At the most basic level, monuments were grave markers. In a time when, as already seen, family ownership of particular sections of the graveyard was less defined than today, plots could be periodically reused. For those who could afford burial within the church, the likelihood of disturbance was probably less. The erection of a memorial may have provided some permanence to a burial or sealed a claim on part of the church or graveyard. The issue is prob-lematic, however, as memorials do not necessarily correspond with actual


burials, and many have been moved in the interval. Associated with this is the fact that stones might be appropriated and re-cut by later individuals.49

The commemorative function of monuments was paramount. However, the expression of loss and regret for the dead was inextricably entwined with and, to an extent, secondary to attempts to continue the memory of their owners’ personal and social identities. Sir Arthur Chichester, writing to the Trevelyan family on the death of his sister, advised that they erect a ‘fayre monument’ to her and her husband which would ‘make them memorable to posterities, when other temporarie expe[die]ncies (if they be superfluous) will sone vanish, and be forgotten’.50 Such a medium was ideally suited to the reflection of greatness inherited or earned. But far more than serving as passive reflectors of identity, or as a type of status symbol, monuments actually can be seen as active voices in the creation of identity and status. They are very often the documents of the upwardly mobile, paradoxically stressing the often quite new status of the patron, while giving an impres-sion of continuity and antiquity. Tactics employed by those seeking to integrate themselves with a new peer group can include intermarriage with well-established families, and the financial pressure of patronage and conspicuous consumption.51 What may still be lacking is antiquity, a long-established claim to high standing. In this scenario, the endlessly manipu-lable nature of funeral monuments could become invaluable. By choosing an identity from the most socially acceptable elements of one’s past, present and future, and rendering this in stone, a medium which by its very nature could convey added veracity, solidity and permanency, reality could be created and controlled by the patron.52 Moreover, once reality is constructed in this manner, monuments allow for no doubt or argument. Their owners may be denounced or discredited, but monuments will continue to proclaim their own brand of truth. This is why contemporaries occasionally found it necessary to destroy monuments. The propaganda element inherent in them could not be countered in any other way.

Nigel Llewellyn and Jonathan Finch have both commented on this aspect of funerary sculpture. Llewellyn argues that the funerary monuments created by the Tudor and Stuart monarchs: ‘[suggest] that the need for monuments was manifestly greater at the establishment of the dynasty, but that once the lineage was safely established, monuments became less impor-tant, could be left unfinished or even dispensed with altogether’.53 He points out that though Henry VII created an elaborate tomb, Henry VIII’s more elaborate one was left unfinished. Mary I and Edward VI ‘were never properly commemorated’. Neither did Elizabeth I plan a tomb. Her Stuart successor built imposing memorials to Elizabeth and to his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, as well as the aforementioned monuments to his deceased children. However, the Stuart dynasty was so well established by 1625 that it was not considered necessary to build tombs to either James I, or to his queen, Anne of Denmark.54


Jonathan Finch has also traced a link between creation of monuments and the ‘arrival’ of families at a new status and in a new parish, commenting also on ‘competitive strategies of commemoration’.55 Certainly in Ireland the upsurge in the creation of elaborate sculptured monuments in the years 1604–41 reflects the rise of a new ruling and settler class of ‘New English’ Protestants. Loeber estimates that this group accounts for about 46 per cent of such memorials, though his list is incomplete.56 This connection between monuments, social mobility and what Finch terms ‘family strategies’ is another topic which deserves more detailed study.57 One particularly striking Irish example, that of the first Earl of Cork and his five tombs, has been alluded to on a number of occasions, and will be mentioned again, but grandiose monuments were also going up elsewhere.58 The flurry of monu-ment building in Kilkenny and the surrounding area in the late sixteenth and early to mid-seventeenth centuries might be mentioned in particular. While circumstances such as the availability of suitable stone and quality local crafts-men may have influenced this upsurge, other factors are also likely to have been influential. Previous chapters have alluded to the staunch Catholicism of Kilkenny and its hinterland, which was to become the headquarters of the Catholic Confederation in the 1640s, with the result that burial strategies and chapel and monument building certainly involved an element of Catholic defiance. The townsmen were becoming increasingly wealthy during this period, with many underlining claims to ‘gentry’ status through the acquisi-tion of landed estates. There may thus have been an element of competition between those negotiating and asserting their new status, indicating signifi-cant changes in the social structure of the area. Further consideration of these tombs on the model of Finch’s study in Norfolk would doubtless provide interesting results, though the poor quality of other evidence regarding the families involved may prove a handicap.59

A factor alluded to in Chapter 5 regarding the monument set up by Arthur Chichester and the mortuary chapel desired by James Delafield, is that cer-tain monuments created by those who died childless can be read as attempts to ensure commemoration of the founders of family fortunes after the trans-ferral of these fortunes to more distant relations. C. M. Barnett points to a group in late medieval York for whom commemoration was in part a means of securing prayers for the souls of people who had no close living rela-tives.60 In his study of the memorials of the Cobham family of Kent in the same period, Nigel Saul likewise demonstrates how expenditure on tombs, chantries and building programmes might help to ensure continued prayers, as well as going some way towards allaying fears of ‘looming dynastic extinction’.61 Both Irish Catholics and Protestants are also likely to some degree to have considered the implications of childlessness on the length of time they would be remembered at a local level. In many cases the monu-ments, chapels and vaults they created to subvert this outcome would have continued to be used by the extended family, thereby at the very least


ensuring the symbolic creation of closer relationships between benefactors and heirs in death than in life. Furthermore, some monuments might be read as going some way towards covering up for more minor dynastic glitches. Take, for example, the aforementioned tomb to Thomas Butler, tenth Earl of Ormond, carved by Nicholas Stone. Ormond was succeeded by his Catholic nephew, Walter Butler, who was later to be involved in a protracted struggle to defend his rights to the lordship.62 Was the tomb in part intended to bridge this successional gap, as well as highlighting the power of the Butlers following the demise of the man who had held the title for nearly sixty years?

Early modern people seem to evince a certain amount of discomfort at the idea that monuments might merely be read in terms of a desire for personal glory. Thus, in many examples, a concern for the transcendent is also dis-played. As already noted, for Catholics monuments were imbued with reli-gious significance. By reminding passers-by of the plight of the dead, monuments and wayside crosses could remind them also of their duty to pray for deceased relatives and friends. Any other motive for the creation of memorials could even be expressly denied: ‘Be my witness, O Christ, that this stone does not lie here to ornament the body, but to have the soul remembered’, proclaims one.63 Certain larger Catholic monuments may even have been designed to channel ritual activity, providing altars for the celebration of mass, though this was less the case in the sixteenth than in the fifteenth century. Protestants rejected the intercessionary and ritual aspects of funerary sculpture. They were, however, interested in the didactic potential of memorials, seeing their very existence as useful reminders of the transience of life and the need to prepare for death. Catholic tombs also hold this didactic element. Both denominations also used memorials as vehicles for the statement of religious positions. However, while Protestant tombs did this largely verbally, leading to the mistaken idea that Protestant memorials do not concern themselves with religion, Catholic examples do so both verbally and symbolically.

Communication

Funeral monuments are documents that are at once intensely public and visual, yet private and verbal. These tensions are rendered particularly obvious by the unusual conditions prevailing in Ireland in this period. Central to the purpose of monuments was their visibility. They were made to be seen and read. But who were the intended audiences, and to what extent was there a hierarchical set of levels of access to, and understanding of, such pieces?

Location is as important to memorials as their form and sculptural and verbal content.64 While the graveyard would have contained a small proportion of memorials, most of them, especially the most important and


elaborate, would have been concentrated within the church building itself. This immediately raises the question of access. Who frequented these build-ings? They were, of course, technically Protestant and ecclesiastical. Yet, as has been seen, even Protestant clerics admitted the extent to which they had failed to annex churches to their own purposes, with many buildings stand-ing ruined or in outright Catholic possession. This is especially the case for the former monastic sites where it seems that for long stretches Catholic activity in some form could go on undisturbed. And even those churches under undoubted Protestant control often contain monuments of Catholics dating right up to the 1650s, indicating a cross-denominational or commu-nity aspect to the buildings. As already posited in relation to burial, the irredentist character of Catholic relationships with such buildings may have been an important factor in their continued memorialisation within them. Nor did churches merely adhere to an ecclesiastical function during this period, with people coming and going for the various reasons outlined in chapter 3. In many cases, therefore, monuments were not solely directed at one’s co-religionists, but were also seen by people of other denominations. Likewise, wayside crosses were set up by roadways, particularly in Leinster, so that they could not have been missed by locals and travellers.

Another point to be considered is the legibility of memorials. To what extent were they read differently by different people? It could be suggested that there were levels of understanding of these pieces and that their full meaning could be intentionally obscured in order to increase their impres-sion of exclusivity and correspondingly to highlight the importance of their owners. At the most basic level, meaning could be suggested by the size and location of memorials. Judgements that might be made according to size are obvious: surely the larger the monument, the wealthier and more noble and important their owner. That such a correspondence rarely occurred is obvious, an English contemporary lamenting that though tombs should reflect status, in actuality ‘by some of our epitaphs more honour is attributed to a rich quondam Tradesman, or griping usurer, than is given to the greatest Potentate in Westminster’.65 The question of location again arises here, since it too could be problematic. As we have seen, technically the most prestigious parts of churches were reserved to the use of families who were prominent and long-standing patrons of the building. In practice, this type of status could be bought, especially in the confused years follow-ing the Reformation. So even the most basic of visual information is not and was not to be taken on face value, as it tells us more about aspirations than actuality.

Other types of visual information also needed to be read and interpreted. In the larger examples, sculptured figures obviously represented the lord and his family, but to tell individuals apart required further knowledge. Other symbolic information also necessitated interpretation. For example, a dis-play of the Instruments of the Passion might be interpreted differently by


different groups. Some may not have recognised them and thus have attached no significance to them. Protestants may have chosen to resent, revile or ignore them. Catholics may have appreciated and responded to them on different levels according to the degree of sophistication of their religious education. Heraldic devices and displays of coats of arms would always have indicated the status of the tomb owners and local people would probably have recognised the arms of locally important families. But again most would have found difficulty in identifying other shields of arms with-out further information being supplied.

This brings us to the verbal element of monuments, the inscriptions which during this period were increasing in length and becoming more cen-tral to the composition. This development has been ascribed in part to the increased literacy of the period but, paradoxically, it must be acknowledged that illiteracy levels remained high. The picture is complicated by the acknowledgement that varying levels of literacy existed, and that gender and status were further factors governing the distribution of reading and writing skills.66 Keith Thomas has distinguished between three main levels of literacy. At the most basic were those who could read printed documents, for many of whom black-letter type was easier than Roman lettering as it was often the first type learned by children. Writing was taught to older chil-dren and the difference between written and printed texts meant that many who could read the latter may have been unable to understand a written document. Above this ‘there was a higher literacy, the knowledge of Latin . . . Latin was essentially the prerogative of a social elite and a masculine one at that.’67 All of this means, firstly, that a very large proportion of the Irish population may have been entirely unable to read the verbal element of these documents. To this must be added the language difficulty, complicated further by the fact that while the majority of the population used Irish as their first or only language, there are only a very few isolated examples of tombstones incorporating Irish in their inscriptions.68 An increasing number of memorials did use English, but this had little impact in a country where it was reported that ‘None of the common people and few of the gentry can either write or read, neither do they affect the learning of the English tongue, nor any good letters’.69 Latin seems to have remained the main language of commemorative inscriptions during the period in question, and even where certain details were given in English, epitaphs were often in Latin. It is thus likely that only a very small proportion of the well educated would have had a sufficient grasp of the latter language to read such inscriptions easily. Given also that fewer women than men could understand Latin, or had mastered reading or writing at all, it is probably fair to assume that even those who were commemorated on monuments in this period may not have been able to read the inscriptions on them.70

Jonathan Finch has put forward an intriguing explanation for the con-tinued use of Latin in funeral monuments, and, indeed, its resurgence in


popularity in the later seventeenth century. The layout of medieval English churches, large sections of which were divided into several private or semi-private chapels, a strong religious aspect to memorials, as well as the centrality and limited understanding of the language of heraldry, impressed upon local people the power of the elite. Following the Reformation the physical layout of churches became more open, the religious significance of the monuments disappeared, and the language of heraldry became subordin-ated to the praise of the epitaph, a development which suited the rising new elite whose prestige was based less on lineage than on involvement in the administration. In such circumstances Latin obscured the full meaning of monuments, and ‘became an emblem of elite status; acquired through elite education it became the key not only to the meaning of monuments, but to polite society itself’.71 In Ireland, it may be that the use of English had quite a similar effect. Thus choice of a language that few could understand was not just the result of convention but further served to mystify monuments, ensuring that though they were a very visible part of the layout of churches, they also remained in some way apart from the business of these buildings.

A final possibility regarding the use of Latin on Catholic funerary monu-ments might also be suggested. The fact of continued Catholic burial in sup-posedly Protestant churches has been noted several times in this chapter and earlier. To what extent may the use of Latin on funerary monuments sited in prominent churches have been a protective mechanism? Not against these monuments being read, since educated Protestants would have been able to read their inscriptions. However, there are suggestions that Latin, because of its centrality to the Catholic liturgy, was to an extent regarded almost as a magical barrier against Protestantism and heresy. For example, the 1606 annual letter of the Jesuit mission in Ireland reported that Christopher Hollywood, ‘answered many arguments and queries . . . changing the minds of those who thought they could go to Protestant churches as a form of temporal obedience provided they prayed in Latin once there’.72 Is there a connection between the elaborate Latin eulogies of the monuments to Catholic families in places such as Kilkenny, and the possibility of the buildings in which they were housed being overtaken by Protestant services? Did their aloofness from their surroundings arise from a consciousness of the sacred qualities of Latin, as much as from its intellectual aura?

Their enigmatic nature may be the reason why memorials and wayside crosses sometimes came to be surrounded by folklore. One example is the Nagle slab in Youghal which incorporates the thirty pieces of silver, the nails and the hammer (Instruments of the Passion). Locals claim that this is a reference to a betrayal suffered by the owner of the gravestone during his lifetime.73 Water from a depression in a 1587 grave slab in Holmpatrick (Skerries), Co. Dublin, was locally believed to cure warts, while the entire effigy of Bishop O’Dea of Limerick was looted piecemeal in the eighteenth century by people who believed in its curative properties.74 A stone dated


1625 in Killadda church, Co. Cork, was moved in the nineteenth century by people digging for the treasure allegedly buried there with its legendary owner.75 At Newtown priory, Trim, Co. Meath, the effigies on the tomb of Sir Lucas Dillon, ancestor of the Earls of Roscommon and Fingal, who died in 1592, were known as the ‘Jealous Man and his Wife’ (Figure 3). The sword shown lying between them was traditionally said to stop them from fight-ing, ‘and each passer-by was supposed to aid them in the good work by dropping a pin’.76 Even today a substantial number of rusty pins may be found on the monument.

This consideration of the changing meaning and reinterpretation of monu-ments suggests one final point. Monuments, by their very monumentality, can survive to exist in very different contexts to those in which they were first created. As Janet Levy has commented in relation to archaeological monuments from an earlier age, death rituals ‘leave behind physical remains that may influence or organize human behavior or be manipulated by human behavior for much longer than the ritual event itself’.77 So, as we have seen, monuments might be destroyed or, like those mentioned above as featuring in later folklore, revered as places of healing and reminders of folk histories. Others became redundant, obstacles to new liturgical practices and new ideas and ideals of church arrangement and usage, such as the more widespread introduction of seating and the gradual removal of burial from churches, and so were disposed of. Some were reused to mark later graves. Today, monuments are increasingly reinterpreted as ‘heritage’, becoming tourist attractions and, as represented here, objects of study.

Figure 3 Dillon tomb, Trim, Co. Meath – ‘The Jealous Man and His Wife’.


Funerary monuments should not, therefore, merely be regarded as dec-orative devices, or plundered for factual information. Neither should they be considered as fixed and immutable signs, since their context and, often, the meaning attributed to them may have changed in the period that separates us from their creation. Yet at the same time they were the products of spe-cific circumstances and choices, they represent financial contracts and embody personal and cultural concerns. In a country undergoing a period of rapid social change when many were ‘upwardly mobile’ while others sought to defend their reputations, their religion, or their graves, monu-ments could express objectives and ideals as much as realities, selectively concealing and revealing information, flamboyantly making much of little or discreetly making little of much. But in order to reach a fuller under-standing of these documents, and to further capitalise on the information supplied, it is necessary to consider their words and pictures more closely, and it is to this task that we now must turn our attention.

7 Funerary Monuments and Society: Family, Honour and Death

‘Behold in such a dwelling as this every human being is enclosed’, proclaims the Malone monument in St Audoen’s church, Dublin.1 In the rhetoric of the early modern period the grave might be envisaged as a house in which each person awaited resurrection: the cemetery was the city of the dead. The complex processes that went to create the layout of this city have already been demonstrated, but the more elaborate dwellings that constituted it now need to be considered further. For despite the note of caution sounded in the previous chapter, the words and images which people chose to adorn their graves constitute an unmatched collection of statements regarding what mattered to early modern Irish people about their lives and their achievements, or what they saw as mattering to others. The themes dealt with in this chapter – the glimpses of family life offered in memorials, their role in the discourse of honour through the reflection and construction of an honourable identity, and the attitudes they reveal about the meditations of the inhabitants of Ireland on the subject of death – link in with other topics already discussed. They also shed light on subjects such as the role of women in early modern society and town life. Ultimately discussion of all these themes leads back to a consideration of the nature and purposes of the monuments themselves, resulting in a deeper understanding of their com-plexity and their value.

The family

In an earlier chapter, the question of families being buried together was dis-cussed, and it was found that family membership was one of the primary considerations governing the choices of those in a position to dictate their burial location. It is therefore unsurprising that family relationships are cen-tral to the verbal and pictorial images portrayed by funerary monuments. What they tell us about the experience of family life in Ireland can shed light on an area that has been very little studied.2

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The most usual tombstone inscriptions commemorate married couples and include the date of the creation of the memorial, or of the death of one of those persons named.3 An example from the French church, Waterford, indicates a typical format: ‘Here lie Philip Devenish who died 4 October 1620 and his wife Ellen Gough’.4 In many cases, it is likely that the death of a spouse provided the impetus for the creation of a monument by the widow or widower before their own death, though the large number of stones erected while both were still alive must also be remembered. Often, gaps were left for the later insertion of dates of death, as seen on an example from St Mary’s churchyard, New Ross: ‘Here lies Patrick Conway once burgess of the town of New Ross who died the 17th day of the month of May anno domini 1587 and Katherine Archer his wife who died [blank]’.5

Spouses might often be represented in effigy, either recumbent on the top of their tomb, or kneeling to face one another across a prayer-desk. For those who had married more than once, two husbands, or, more usually, two wives might be remembered. The inscription on the altar tomb of William Fitzgerald in Co. Kildare (c.1623) commemorates his two wives Ivane Keiting and Cislie Geidone.6 On the larger, more elaborate memorials, the two wives of the patron may be depicted kneeling at his head and feet, as on the Tynte monument in Kilcredan.7

Widows and widowers often remarried following the creation of a memor-ial to themselves and their former spouse, in which case they may have requested burial in the original grave, or may have been interred with their new spouse (or a later one). Margaret Fagan, daughter of Christopher Fagan, an alderman of Dublin, was commemorated on her son, Christopher Sherlock’s, monument in Waterford. Her first husband was John Cusack, a Dublin merchant. The second, James Sherlock, died in 1601 and the third, Sir Richard Shee, in 1608. She was also commemorated in the mortuary chapel built by Shee and on the wayside cross that she erected to Shee’s memory in Kilkenny.8 She lived another thirty-one years and in her will, dated 1639, elected to be buried with Sherlock in Christchurch, Waterford, despite Shee’s invitation to her in his own will to join him and his first wife, Margaret Sherlock, in his monument.9 John Prim suggested that a certain amount of tension may have existed between Fagan and her husband’s sons by his first marriage, and that her creation of the wayside cross was a way of associating herself with the almshouses founded by Shee, but from which her name and arms had been omitted.10 The case of Ismay Nugent, the second wife of Sir John Bellew, has already been briefly referred to. Together the couple had built a memorial in Dundalk, Co. Louth, in 1588, and Ismay was probably buried there soon after.11 John married a third time, to Jenet Sarsfield, who herself was marrying her sixth husband. In Moor churchyard, Co. Meath, a slab reads: ‘Here vnder liethe the body of Dame Ienet Sarsfield Lady Dowager of Donsany who dyed the xxii of February an. Dni. 1597’.12 It is unclear who commis-sioned this memorial, but it is interesting that Sarsfield was not buried with

Funerary Monuments and Society: Family, Honour and Death 115

any of her husbands, though her title identifies her with the third, Robert Plunkett, fifth Baron of Dunsany, who died in 1559. Perhaps her long career as a wife entitled her to burial in her own right. Sir John Bellew died in 1600. His will expressed his desire that, should he be buried in Duleek, Ismay’s remains should be moved there.13 In a time of frequent remarriage, often for practical and economic reasons, it is clear that some spouses were more cher-ished than others, and that complicated family situations often led to tensions which may occasionally be glimpsed in burial arrangements.

The bond of love existing between many married couples is expressed by their memorials in a number of ways. Such statements served both as a trib-ute to the success of a marriage and as an example to others.14 Several are described by their inscriptions as monuments ‘of love and death’.15 Wives and husbands are characterised as ‘loved’ (St John’s cathedral, Cashel, 1630),16 ‘most dear and loving’ (Agard monument, Christchurch, Dublin, c.1584),17 and ‘dearest’ (Teampul-a-Calla, Co. Tipperary, 1648).18 Long and successful marriages could be celebrated, as on Sir Nathanial Fox’s memorial in Rathreagh, Co. Longford, which boasts that he and his wife Elizabeth Hussey ‘lived 25 years in the state of holy matrimony’, producing thirteen children (eleven surviving) during that time.19

The conjugal relationship was also celebrated in verse, with stress on the continued union of the couple in the grave and beyond. The Keally/Hackett monument (c.1648) was inscribed with a personal tribute to married life:

Rest together the wish of man and wife To rest intomb’d resembling their past life Though death subscribed to their lives divorce Their remnants wall’d are from divisions force.20

The Ash and Glasier slab from the ruined St Patrick’s church, Trim, Co. Meath (c.1620s) is equally personal with its puns on the family surnames:

Love and age have joined in one To lay these two under this stone Sir Tho[mas] Ash his lady Elizabeth Both tu[rned to] ashes in this house of death [And n]ow both having run their glasses [They hop]e to be revived from ashes.21

One wonders, however, what sort of menage à trois was envisaged by James Keally who erected a monument in 1646 for himself and his two wives, Ellen Nash and Mary White:

Both wives at once he could not have, Both to enjoy at once he made this grave.22


The expectation that families as well as spouses would be reunited after death is also reflected in funerary sculpture. The family becomes increas-ingly visible on the memorials of this period, not least because of the rising popularity of the inclusion thereon of kneeling effigies of the whole family group.23 Occasionally, more than the nuclear family gathering may be depicted – former wives, ancestors, sons and daughters-in-law also appear. The inclusion of individuals, especially children, already dead by the time the memorial was erected, such as the child holding a skull on the Agard monument in Christchurch, Dublin, the two children blowing bubbles on to Cusack tomb in Trevet, and the infant in a draped cradle on the Cork tomb in Youghal (all emblems of mortality) indicates a view of the family as the sum of both its living and dead members, no matter how young they were when they died.24

The family was not represented solely in sculpture, but also by verbal descriptions of family relationships. Longer inscriptions allowed for increas-ing numbers of people to be commemorated, even on more modest memor-ials. So the Sentleger slab in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny, is inscribed:

Here lie James St Leger of Ballyfennon, who died 1st February 1597 and Egida Toben, his wife, who died 2nd November 1570. And Patrick St Leger their second son who died 21st February 1607. And Margaret Shee his wife who died [blank] day of the month of [blank].25

It was presumably Margaret Shee who commissioned this monument. Consider also the inscription from St Nicholas’ church, Galway: ‘here lyeth the bodyes of Richard Browne and his wife Cate Browne their sone Mathew Browne and his wife Mary Terny and theire cheildren God rest theire sovles amen 1635’.26

Clearly the network of family relationships envisaged by tombstones was not merely a horizontal one, extending to those alive at the time of the cre-ation of these pieces, but a vertical one stretching backwards and forwards into the past and future. The status and identity of an individual came not only from his or her achievements, but also from their place within a wider web of important connections.27 Allegations of an abrupt shift in the sixteenth century ‘from a lineage-dominated society to one dominated by more restricted family structures’28 does not hold up in the face of the fre-quently voiced concern of early modern Irish people for burial within the bosom of the lineage. Similarly, those creating memorials were not just concerned with those already buried there, but also those who might be expected to rest there in the future. So a slab in Moylagh cemetery, Co. Meath, was erected in 1637 by Theobald Tut [Tuite] ‘as well for his predecessors as for his successors’.29 The Browne/Terny slab mentions the ‘children’ buried in the tomb. Other tomb-builders envisaged the burial of their ‘heirs’ (for example, the 1625 Magher/Murughue slab at Buttevant, Co.


Cork), their ‘posterity’ (Cooke/Parsons, Killena, Co. Wexford,1641), or their ‘successors’ (Cadell/Waring, Drogheda, 1637).30 An unusual memorial from Athenry, Co. Galway has a more Gaelic appearance:

IHS ma [Jesus Maria] this is dermot O Daly Fitzcofy of Newcastles tombe and his wife and theire scept lafully gotten by them praying all xpian [Christian] people who may see it to pray for them 1648.31

So even in the 1640s we see the lineage group or sept holding its importance in Irish society.

Apart from pictorial and verbal representations, family and lineage were also shown symbolically on Irish funerary sculpture in the shields of arms that were common decorative motifs on elaborate and simpler memorials alike. Loeber’s claim that, in Ireland, Protestants more than Catholics relied on heraldry as a decorative device may have an element of truth for the largest sculptured tombs, but obscures the fact that generally Catholics use just as much heraldry as Protestants (see Figures 3 and 4).32 Heraldry served

Figure 4 St Ledger monument, Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin (detail).


several functions. Shields of arms, which were usually painted and gilded, were first and foremost a means of identifying the owners of monuments, and their rank, even to those unable to read the inscriptions. The arms and crests of important families would have been widely recognised locally. They set into stone the heraldic display left over from the funeral (wooden hatch-ments and cloth banners hung over graves), thus perpetuating respect due to those belonging to distinguished family line and representing the con-tinuation of power, titles and lineage, despite the ruptures caused by death.33 Quarterings and cadency marks could identify exactly which family branch and member was involved and also served to record family connections such as marriage alliances, thereby perpetuating bonds of friendship.34 The shields of arms originally belonging to the Agard monu-ment, for example, displayed a multitude of quarterings, indicating a wide network of distinguished connections.35

By interrogating statements made about family relationships on funerary monuments we can begin to look more closely into an everyday human landscape and to trace patterns of social interaction. Spouses, parents, sib-lings, ancestors and descendants are portrayed, presenting a united front to the world, a situation which may never have existed in reality given the ravages of death and the necessary separation often imposed on family groups, especially in the upper levels of society, by individuals’ public roles and private situations and occupations. But the family was only one of the contexts in which people lived out their lives. They also appeared on a more public stage.

Honour

The manipulable nature of monuments and their effectiveness in the cre-ation of a prestigious identity has already briefly been considered. Further examination of monumental sculpture can help identify those elements which contemporaries believed formed the basis of an honourable reputa-tion. Recent debates on societal constructions of ‘honour’ have tended to concentrate on the upper levels of society – nobility and gentry. However, other groups also used the verbal and pictorial elements of their memorials to express their standing in society, a standing derived from descent and/or personal achievements and/or virtues and/or public employment. That some of the memorials considered are far more modest and less detailed than the tombs of the rich, does not make them any less important in reconstructing the values of early modern society.

The evidence already discussed regarding concern with lineage and heraldic display becomes especially important in the context of recent debates about the concept of honour during this period. An argument put forward most comprehensively by Mervyn James claims that in the six-teenth and early seventeenth centuries, changes in this concept may be


ascribed to ‘the shift from “lineage” to “civil” society, from a society structured around the affinities of great landed families to one based on association between the heads of patriarchal, nuclear families’.36 This view has been modified by commentators such as Richard Cust, who argues that in fact honour was not a static entity, but a ‘range of topics or discourses’ – ‘polyphonic discourses’ in the words of Ian Atherton – amongst which lineage and pedigree continued to be centrally important to the construc-tion of honour and reputation.37 The applicability of this view to Irish funeral monuments is clear from the material discussed thus far, particularly their use of heraldry. While heraldry was a clear indication of noble lineage, it was also highly manipulable. It was particularly useful to Protestant new-comers to the country, since even newly granted or recently assumed achievements of arms could make for as impressive and seemingly antique a spectacle as those held for generations. From the late sixteenth century on, it must also have become vitally important to Catholic families in particu-lar, as they were increasingly deprived of other means of asserting their honourable reputations.

There were other ways too of indicating good birth and personal and familial honour. Reference to noble titles was one obvious strategy. Connection to a titled individual could often serve as well as being titled oneself, and indicated illustrious local connection or national connections. For example, Peter Butler, buried in St Mary’s church, New Ross, is described as ‘son of Richard, Lord Viscount of Mountgarret’.38 Occasionally the ‘status labels’ used sound suspiciously like a matter of opinion rather than fact.39

Vague designations such as ‘Gentleman’ and especially the Latin term ‘gen-erosus’, signifying ‘noble’ or ‘noble-born’, were often used, the advantage being that one’s origins could be implied to be highly respectable, but it was not necessary that further proof of this respectability be offered.40 Richard, the son of Malachy Daly of Ballynadrimny, Co. Kildare, is described on his 1554 memorial as ‘noble-born’, but the piece does not enumerate his family’s qualifications for this title.41

Honour during this period was not merely aristocratic but, increasingly, meritocratic. It could derive from public service, personal achievement and private virtue. Service to the Crown in the expanding military and adminis-trative spheres was the means by which reputations could be created and defended.42 In Ireland, many individuals, especially, though not exclusively, the newcomers, derived much of their status and its accoutrements (offices, titles, lands, arms), from the rewards of their service, and the money they made during it. Thus Sir Richard Bingham’s monument in Christ Church, Dublin, described how he had been ‘from his youth trained up in military affairs’. Having served in many foreign campaigns, he arrived in Ireland, where he was an effective governor of Connaught (‘he overthrew the Irish Scots, expelled the traiterous Orouk, suppressed divers Rebellions and that with very small charge’), before being made Marshal of Ireland and General


of Leinster as a reward ‘for his good service’.43 Alexander Sanderson, a Scots settler in Co. Tyrone, also described his ascending fortunes on his monu-ment: ‘a soldier in Belgium, a leader of horse and foot in Poland; in Ireland a Justice of the Peace, and thrice High Sheriff’.44 Robert Tynte was not hesi-tant in attributing his rise to his own efforts (with a little help from above):

Here lieth the body of (Sir) Robert Tynte, Knight, of the Privy Council of Munster (fifth son of Edmund Tynte, Esq. of Wrexall, in the Co. Somerset, in England), who gained his distinction by the sword. He caused this church and monument to be (built) by the providence of Almighty God, in the year of our Lord 16[36].

He is pictured on his Kilcredan tomb with the same sword exhibited prominently by his side.45 The continuing importance in Ireland of the older chivalric and military values, values which were being eclipsed in England, but in which many prominent inhabitants of Ireland had their origins, could be expressed visually in memorials showing their subjects dressed in armour, as on a number of Dublin memorials, or by including representations of military paraphernalia in their composition.46 It must be remembered, however, that not all of these armoured knights portrayed on tombs had based their careers on military service. Some were probably intentional anachronisms, especially when shown in the outdated recumbent position, a design intended to give an impression of antiquity to the tombs of families on the rise.

For military men who moved into politics, the expanding administration also gave individuals an opportunity to prove themselves and rise far above their origins. Sir Arthur Chichester’s impressive monument in Carrickfergus, (c.1625), describes his modest origins, his titles and his achievements. Stress is laid on his career as a governor and his effectiveness in that post:

he did virtue and religion norishe; & made this land late rude, with peace to flourish. The wildest rebell, He be power did tame & by true justice gayned an honord name.47

Honour therefore could derive from effective and appropriate action and from just exercise of authority. This aspect of the discourse of honour became especially important in Ireland during the reigns of James I and Charles I as the ‘inflation of honours’ led to a vast increase in the Irish peer-age and the increasingly centralised system of government devolved into the hands of New English and native Protestants, many of whose claims to noble lineage were limited.48

For Catholics, some of these aspects of the honourable reputation were problematic. Amongst the Old Irish, for example, martial honour had


always been a key element of reputations, but what if one’s martial skills were exercised in opposition to the Crown’s authority? It is unfortunate that few examples of tombs belonging to this group exist, making it difficult to measure such ideas. While references to state employment do occur on Irish and especially Old English monuments up until the beginning of the seventeenth century, their almost total exclusion and alienation from such offices (because of their religious standpoint) subsequently becomes appar-ent. Increasingly few Catholics are described in the type of terms used on the tomb of Gerald Comerford in Callan (whose compromise with Protestantism during his career is mentioned earlier):

Here lies the most celebrated man, Gerald Comerford, Esq., formerly Queen’s Attorney for Connaught and Thomond, Second Justice of Munster, Second Baron of the Exchequer and lastly Chief Justice of Munster aforesaid. He died at Cowlnamuckie, Co. Waterford, Nov. 4th 1604 in the second year of the most illustrious King James, & 37th of his reign over Scotland.49

Their gradual exclusion from such outlets in the service of the state could not but damage their reputations and, despite their recourse to protestations of loyalty and lineage, the Catholic gentry were increasingly alienated from this means of asserting honour.50 Several questions suggest themselves at this point. What alternative means provided them with opportunities to fill this vacuum? In particular, to what extent did their adherence to Counter-Reformation Catholicism, and their patronage of its agents, provide them with an alternative channel for such energies? How far was this type of recourse to Catholicism a response to, as well as a reason for, their increasing isolation from the means of creating and asserting honourable reputations that were open to others? Further, it might be asked to what extent the embracing by the leaders of Irish and Old English society of the mantle of Catholic crusaders in the 1640s represented an attempt to retake the initia-tive and regain their place in the discourse of honour.

Townspeople, both Catholic and Protestant, were another group who found it expedient to create memorials, and thus funerary sculpture reveals something of their ideas regarding honour. One of the most basic causes for pride was the possession of the status of ‘freeman’ of the town or city, a title usually restricted to quite a small group.51 Thus, to give one example, several tombstones from St Mary’s church, Kilkenny, record the memory of people who were ‘quondam burgensis civitatis Kilkenie’ (once burgess of the city of Kilkenny).52 At the top of this group were those who succeeded to high office and their identification on their memorials as aldermen or former mayors sheriffs, or sovereigns indicates the status and satisfaction derived from municipal service. A 1619 example from St Audoen’s parish church, Dublin, commemorated several generations of the Tyrell family, merchants who served as aldermen and mayors at several points, their


fortunes culminating with John Tyrell, a Protestant, who was knighted.53

While the Tyrells were armigers, this was frequently not the case and, as Roe comments:

often tombbuilders were townsmen of substance . . . who had not the right to bear arms. In lieu then of such visible claims to noble descent, pride of place on their costly monuments is given to the civil rank of the deceased – be it Mayor or Citizen of a great city. . . or burgess of an important municipality.54

In Drogheda one Sir Francis Roe who died during his mayoralty of the town was shown on his monument wearing his scarlet gown of office.55

For similar reasons, townspeople and others were often anxious to record their professions on their tombstones, to indicate status earned if not inherited.56 Often the wealthiest group in town society was the merchants, whose profession appears frequently on tombstones.57 Two tailors are repre-sented in St Audoen’s, Dublin, one named Dowde (1636), the other Conran (1619).58 Nicholas Kenan, a butcher, is commemorated in St Patrick’s cath-edral in the same city.59 Cornelius Hurley, buried in the French Church, Waterford, is described as an ‘aurifabri’ (goldsmith).60 On his tombstone at Newcastle, Co. Waterford, James Ronan of Hacketstown is described as a ‘medic’ celeberum’ (most celebrated physician).61 Daniel Jacobs, a ‘lawyer’ died at Cashel in 1588.62 Two smiths are buried in Athenry, Co. Galway (stones dated 1631 and c.1650).63 While the names of the masons who carved them appear on a number of memorials, one stone on Bangor was made especially for a mason, possibly by his employees. It displays masonic devices in the centre and the inscription reads: ‘Heir lyeth William Stennors [Master] Mason who deceased the 27 March 1626 and his wife Efon Watson’.64 Other craftspeople recorded in their gravestones include shoe-makers, carpenters and a weaver.65

Protestant and Catholic ecclesiastical figures were frequently the subjects of commemoration. This is perhaps unsurprising, given their intimate involvement with church buildings. Again status came from office, though for those employed in the church added merit came from the mystique of sacred orders and the extent of one’s involvement in building up the church materially, numerically and spiritually. So, for example, Dr John King, Protestant Bishop of Elphin from 1610 to 1638 was described as an incum-bent who ‘mvch avgmented the revenve of that see, was a constant preacher of God’s word, and a man of Great Sanctity of Life’.66 In Bangor church, Co. Down, a stone tells us:

Hear lyes Beloue ane learned and reverand father in Godes Church mester John Gibson sence reformacione from Popary the first Deane of Dovne send by His Maiestie into this kingdom and receved by my Lord


Claneboy to be preacher at Bangor. At his entry had XL [40] communi-cants & at his departour this Lyf 23 of [June] 1623 left 1,200 . . . So Christ was his advantage bothe in lyfe & death.67

Mathew Young (d.1626) clerk and ‘som tyme parson’ of the parish of Kilskerry, Co. Tyrone, was described as ‘an honest man in his vocation’.68

Not such an honest man was Miler McGrath, Archbishop of Cashel, who all his life walked a tightrope between Catholicism and Protestantism. Despite his job, his wife and children were Catholics and he alienated large sections of the property of the see to them. The inscription on his monument in Cashel underlines his lifelong defiance of detractors: ‘He that judges me is the Lord, 1 Cor. 4. Let him who stands, take care lest he fall’.69

A number of monuments also commemorate Catholic clerics. A mural slab in Muckross Abbey, Co. Kerry, reads: ‘Pray for the happy state of Brother Teige Holan, who caused the rebuilding afresh of this sacred convent in the year of the Lord 1626’.70 In Templemore churchyard, Co. Tipperary, a slab ornamented by an eight-armed cross reads:

Remember death. Here lies Reverand Father. . . Edmund Dullany Rector of [the convent of] Blessed Mary of Tamplemore and Prior Commendam of [the Island . . . ] [who] had this made the year 1632.71

In Ballygriffin, Co. Tipperary, one priest, John Corcrane, is commemorated along with his mother Onora Trohi on a monument dated 1646.72 The secu-lar symbolism of the Corcrane or Corcoran arms is adopted in this memorial, rather than the religious motifs that might have been expected. In St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny, the floor-slab commemorating James Clere, ‘prothonot-ary and rector of the church of St. John’ (1643) combines religious and secular symbolism with a scene showing an altar, chalice, Host and candle-sticks, as well as the Clere arms. Clere himself is described as: ‘a good man, in aspect modest, in morals chaste, in speech decorous, from his youth exer-cised in virtues, devoted to God, beloved by man, a bright example of all good works’.73 Again the honour of the cleric came from being perceived to act honestly and piously and to display painstaking attendance to the duty of advancing the faith by building and by preaching. Family connections were still important, however, even for those embracing the monastic life. At a more political level, along with other evidence regarding burial, such remains indicate the strength of Catholic involvement in the churches of Ireland, especially in those areas where English power was weaker.

At all levels of society various ‘laudatory epithets’ were used to pad out monumental inscriptions.74 Above all, these reflect a concept of honour based on public and private virtue. This concern with personal integrity was expressed in various ways. Of central importance was one’s role in the preser-vation of order through the wise, just and, above all, moderate exercise of


power and office. Thus, Richard Comerford, Lord of Ballibur, is described as ‘vir vere pivs, probvs, prvdens, fortis’ – a man truly pious, upright, prudent, valiant.75 At another level, concern with hospitality, generosity and charity is evident.76 These virtues signalled prudent exercise of wealth and patronage, indicating good household management in a time when men and women’s roles in the household were increasingly emphasised. Hospitality had always been an indispensable element of Irish lordship. The altruistic trinity was also bound up with the virtue of piety, which was indicated by statements and illustrations of belief and trust in God and the saints. Robert Frayne of Dysertmoon, for example, was ‘a man truly pious, munificent, hospitable’.77

Matthew Dormer of New Ross, combined many virtues, being a ‘foresighted, prudent, just and pious man and also a faithful son of the Catholic religion’.78 Piety might also be represented by the inclusion of religious symbols. Thus analysis of the religious element of monuments can reveal something of the beliefs held by sections of Irish society, particularly by Catholics.79 Allegorical figures representing the ‘Virtues’ are rare in Irish monumental sculpture, but do occasionally appear, for example on the aforementioned Malone monument in St Audoen’s, where Charity, Justice and Faith were portrayed, and on the Earl of Cork’s monument in St Patrick’s which was crowned by all of the seven virtues.80 It goes without saying that the manipulability and subjectivity of such symbols and titles made them a useful tool in reflecting, maintaining and perhaps occasionally creating reputations.

Other elements could also be advanced as reflecting or augmenting the honourable qualities of an individual. Matthew de Renzy, who died in 1634, was presented on a mural tablet in the church of Athlone as quite the Renaissance man. Not only was he descended from a worthy military family, but he also was ‘a great traveller’, a statesman who corresponded ‘with most nations in many weighty affairs’, and a ‘general linguist’ who wrote ‘a gram-mar, dictionary and chronicle in the Irish tongue’.81 The achievement of excellence in one’s chosen profession could also set one aside as honourable. Donal Barry, who created a monument to himself and his family in Abington, Co. Limerick, in 1633, described himself as noble and pious, but his major distinction was that he ‘flourished learned in Apollo’s art [medicine], and . . . full of faithfulness, never failed the sick and feeble, but helped his country with all his power’.82 Age could also set one aside as being worthy of honour. In a few cases, men who had reached old age recorded this fact in their inscriptions, presumably since gravity and wisdom were associated with age and experience. Indeed, to reach old age must in itself have been seen as something of an achievement in a time when average life-expectancy was sig-nificantly lower than today. Thus Robert Hartpole, Constable of Carlow, was described as being ‘more than a septuagenarian’ when he died in 1594.83

Where effigies were included in the composition of monuments, rich attire was a major indicator of wealth, occupation and status. Even crude figures usually showed their subjects as being richly dressed, and the


painting of the effigies would have shown details which are now lost, such as rich colours, furs and brocades.84 We have seen how armour could set civilians apart from soldiers, and how a mayor was portrayed in his scarlet gown. Clerics too could be distinguished by their clothing. For example, Thomas Jones, Archbishop of Dublin and Chancellor and Lord Justice of Ireland, can still be seen on his tomb in St Patrick’s cathedral in his church-man’s cap and gown; the recumbent figure of his son, Roger, Viscount Ranelagh, lies below, clad in armour, while his son kneels in civilian dress (Figure 5).85 Rank could be indicated by coronets on the heads of those

Figure 5 Jones Monument, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.


effigies entitled to them. The Monumenta Eblanae manuscript shows them on certain members of the Jones family, while Dineley’s sketch of the Boyle tomb in the same cathedral shows a number of figures in coronets; all of these have since disappeared.86

One societal paradox revealed by the whole question of honour and status relates to the place of women.87 While women were demonstrably energetic patrons of tomb sculpture, their own personal lives are largely obscured in these documents. Women are presented to us according to their relationship with significant male figures, usually their husbands, but also their fathers and sons.88 Almost universally, when a couple is named in an inscription, the husband’s name is mentioned first, with the wife taking her status from that attributed to him. In most of the few cases where monuments are erected to women, they are defined by the men with whom they were asso-ciated. Consider an example from Derrykeighan, Co. Antrim: ‘Heir lyith the corpis of Ane fathful Sister in the Lord calid Margrat Boyd Dochter to Archibald Boyd of Carricolagh & svmtym wif to William Hvchisovn of Stronocvm Who desist the 01 of June 1625’.89 In Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, a mural tablet reads:

Near this lies buried Elizabeth Dodington, wife to Edward Dodington, Esquire, and captain of the Castle of the King at Dungiven in the County of Colereine, & the first who built in the English manner. She was the eldest daughter of Sir George Powlett, who was Governor of the City of Derry, & there fell in the Rebellion of O’Doherty. She died the 4th day of June, 1610 in the year of her age 24.90

From this inscription we can reconstruct something of the exploits of both Edward Dodington and George Powlett, but learn nothing of Elizabeth Dodington, ostensibly the central figure, except that she was daughter to one, wife to the other, and that she died quite young in 1610.

Another, unusually detailed, stone tells us something of other elements involved in the creation of the feminine reputation:

Here lies buried the wife of the Dean of Derry, twenty years of her life gone through. She bore twins twice – one pair survived; the former, a boy and a girl died . . . Her esteemed memory remaining, she outshone others in virtue, far surpassing them in happy piety, in simplicity. Her breeding, voice, look, bearing, the other adjuncts of her life as well, sing of a praise not likely to pass away. Jeneta Houston died 24th Jan. 1618.91

So, firstly, Jeneta Houston is remembered as wife of the Dean of Derry and mother of four children. Motherhood was a central aspect of the female role and went hand in hand with housewifery, the sphere in which female repu-tations were made and unmade. In this context, it is interesting that


possibly the only two monuments to females of this period which give a cause of the death of the women in question record deaths in childbirth.92

Virtue, a word which probably above all implied chastity, was also vitally important in that a woman’s sexual reputation reflected also on her hus-band – impropriety on her behalf reflected on his abilities, and duty, to control and chastise her.93 Jeneta is also praised for her ‘happy piety’, espe-cially important in a cleric’s wife. Piety is one of the most usual virtues attibuted to women in their memorials. Finally, Jeneta is praised for her ‘simplicity. . . breeding, voice . . . look, bearing’. Moderation and modesty were the external signs of goodness and chastity. As suited the didactic intent of the genre, the life of Jeneta Houston is presented as an example from which others might learn. It is not accidental that the examples cited come from Protestant settlers, as Protestants seem to be more inclined to commemorate women in this manner. Catholic women meriting memorials on their own, or placed central to memorials, tend to be those who defied definition, those such as Jenet Sarsfield (already mentioned) who married six times, or powerful noblewomen such as Gráinne O’Malley, the ‘pirate queen’.94 Virginity too could set a Catholic woman apart. For example, Margaret Archer, a ‘pious virgin’ and a Franciscan Tertiary merited her own tombstone in St Patrick’s church, Kilkenny.95

Women thus took their place in society from that of their families and their husbands, a place that was complemented by adherence to the societal ideals of virtue, piety, compliance, motherhood and good household management. But this is only part of the picture. The women we find described on monuments, to a greater extent than their menfolk, are pre-sented as paragons, a convention which suited the moralising nature of funerary architecture, but which seemingly does not give us much of a sense of the reality of their daily lives. However, the words used do tell us much about ideals of women’s behaviour during the period in question. Furthermore, while the epitaphs may seem uninformative to us, to contem-poraries ‘these stock phrases were cues that unlocked a whole store of specific images’ relating to their understanding of the roles held by women in early modern society.96

Funerary monuments, therefore, were an important voice in the reflection and, indeed, creation of earthly reputations and therefore have much to say about the construction of ideas about ‘honour’ in early modern Ireland. Even when they are so idealised as to seem to obscure all trace of the real person, the verbal and visual statements of memorials can reveal much about how their patrons wished to be perceived. This interconnection of monuments and identity is perhaps revealed most starkly in reactions to their occasional molestation or destruction during this period. The most famous example of this is Lord Deputy Wentworth’s insistence in the 1630s, as part of his campaign to humiliate the Earl of Cork, that Boyle’s St Patrick’s cathedral tomb be moved from its original site behind the altar to a humbler


and less obtrusive position.97 Raymond Gillespie cites an incident in March 1643 when

Sir Thomas Meridith smashed the tomb of a Mr. Eustace at Castlemartin in County Kildare. His ensign, Edward Roe, later deposed that he did this because ‘Mr Eustace of Castlemartin had burnt the house of Sir Robert Meridith, who was brother to the said Sir Thomas and sayeth that the said Sir Thomas sayeth further that that he knows this [the destruction of the tomb] would vex the said Mr. Eustace more than anything else he could do unto him’.98

Meredith knew that Eustace would be vexed not only at the destruction of his property, but also at the insult to his family and to the position that they held in society. Such destruction was usually far from indiscriminate. So, for example, in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny, while many monuments seem to have been damaged or dismantled during Cromwellian tenure of the town, most of the church’s Catholic iconography survived. One monument that didn’t, however, was that of the tenth Earl of Ormond, whose relationship to the Royalist Duke of Ormond made his tomb a legitimate target. Another memorial that was later tampered with was that of David Rothe, Catholic Bishop of Ossory, where a statement to the effect that he had restored the building ‘to its pristine worship, cleansing it from heresy and schism’ was apparently later erased.99 Even today, incidents of vandalism of gravestones still have the power to disturb us in a way other forms of destruction of property cannot.100

Attitudes to death

Despite the pride in one’s identity and achievements displayed by funerary memorials, a note of caution was frequently sounded, reminding the viewer that the ultimate purpose of the tomb was to preserve the memory of some-one whose dead body was lying, or would eventually lie, underneath or nearby:

Not virtue, piety, age, prudence, sex Protect against the certain condition of death

warns one Kinsale example.101 This consciousness of the fact of death and its uncompromising words and visual symbolism often seem entirely alien, even repugnant, to modern sensibilities. But, as already noted, discussions of such themes were commonplace in late medieval and early modern Europe. Statements about death on tombstones indicate that meditations on this subject had pervaded the consciousness of many in Ireland, both Catholic and Protestant. The call ‘memento mori’ (remember death), a


staple of the ars moriendi tradition, is frequently repeated. The Lynch wall slab at St Nicholas’ church, Galway, displays a skull and crossbones and the inscription ‘Remember Deathe 1624 – Vaniti of Vaniti and all is but Vaniti’.102 The Barnewall/Netterville stone in Robertstown, Co. Meath (1618) also displays the death’s head, and the legend ‘Respice Finem’ (Consider the end).103 The Nagle/Coppinger slab in Youghal proclaimed ‘O man remember that hier is deth’.104 The Burke tomb in Glankeen, Co. Tipperary, asked that onlookers ‘disce vivere, disce mori’ – learn to live, learn to die.105

Death was primarily an end to being, a departure from a life that was at best transitory and uncertain. God alone knew what amount of time had been allocated to each individual, a fact frequently alluded to in wills such as that of Alderman Edward Ball of Dublin:

for as much as itt hath pleased Almightie god to Creat man to liv for a tym how longe or how short according as his heavenlie maiestie hath apointed and hath required Abraham to sett his howse in order nott knowing how longe he should live.106

At any age one might be taken away by death: ‘By death falls the boy, the youth, the man in his prime, the aged’, is the inscription on the grave in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny, of two children who died in the 1580s.107

Death comes to both weak and strong (‘debilis et fortis’) warns a Considine tomb (1631) in Ennis abbey.108 This equality of all in the face of death was a frequent theme of late medieval and early modern literature and art. In the danse macabre, people from all ranks were drawn in to dance with the grin-ning corpses of the dead.109 Regret is frequently expressed on memorials that people could be stolen away before they had completed their work or realised their full potential. ‘I was hurried away at an unseasonable time’, proclaims the tomb of a child.110 The ‘address to the dead’ on the Walsh tomb in Abington (1618) laments that:

Thou hadst lived long enough, O Walsh, for thy death snatched thee away from earth, on thy birthday to enjoy Heaven. It was not long enough for the poor, nor for thy friends, for it snatched away great riches from both.111

This idea of a predetermined but undisclosed span on earth is also suggested in an example from Clonoulty, Co. Tipperary, where the Dwyer tomb (1635) refers to the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Vigilance is necessary, ‘for you know not the day nor the hour’.112 Literary conventions were alluded to on the Bishop tomb in St Michael’s church, Dublin, which warned, in language which echoed contemporary playwrights: ‘This life is to each man a Pilgrimage Or as a scene acted on the stage’.113


The theme of the transience of life was also expressed symbolically. Urns, hourglasses, books, flowers and fruit (which wither and rot), worms, dart or arrow of death, scythe, spade and skull, frequently appear on both Catholic and Protestant memorials. Examples include the O’Connor tomb in Sligo abbey (1623) which displays skulls, an open book, a spade and torch and a large winged hourglass, symbol of the swift passage of time. The inscription added to the effect, mentioning the ‘shining urn’ and the ‘ashes’ of those buried in that ‘profound tomb’.114 The Cole slab in Enniskillen (1627) includes an ‘upright hour-glass, and the emblems of mortality – coffin, skull and crossbones, with [an] hour-glass lying on its side, signifying that life’s sands have run out’.115 Many other examples might also be cited.116

More dramatic images of the dead and of the figure of death itself also appeared on Irish funerary sculpture. Helen Roe studied examples of ‘cadaver effigial monuments’ in Ireland. These range from representations of the Transi motif, popular in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which depict the rotting corpse in its shroud, crawling with worms and other flesh-devouring beasts, to later, less repulsive, shrouded and skeletal figures.117

Those pieces falling within the period treated of here show shrouded skel-etons, clear of flesh and of the vermin of earlier examples (see Figure 1). One interesting specimen is the gravestone of Thomas Ronan (1569) in Christchurch, Cork.118 The image of Death himself appears on the Cusack monument (1571) at Trevet, directing his arrow at the figure of Sir Thomas Cusack, who is represented again as a shrouded corpse.119 At Gowran, Death holds his scythe and arrow, while at Kilmallock he grasps a spade in his right hand and points his arrow at a figure in an open shroud lying beside a grave.120 It must be noted that Roe neglected some less important examples of this type and the motif is more widespread than might be indicated by her article. Take, for instance, the incised skeletons on the Miagh monu-ment at St Mary’s church, Youghal (c.1633) and the Fitzgerald monument in Cloyne cathedral, Co. Cork.121 Death with his arrow and spade appears on the front of the Neale tomb (1624) in Callan.122 An unidentified memorial, now lost, dating probably to the early to mid-seventeenth century was illus-trated in the Monumenta Elblanae manuscript. It showed two completely shrouded figures covered with a floral and foliage motif representing flow-ers sown into the shroud.123 A Sedgrave memorial illustrated in the same manuscript exhibited a shrouded corpse below a shield of arms supported by the figures of Death and Justice, while the tablets commemorating two sons of Lord Grey de Wilton, in Christ Church, Dublin, include representations of a swaddled infant and a naked figure in separate coffins.124

Indeed, the incidence of such monuments should be considered to be far more widespread, since the spirit of the transi image could be expressed in words. The call to the onlooker to remember that ‘Such as thou art, some-time was I / Such as I am, such shalt thou be’,125 like the image, prompted the onlooker to contemplate his or her own demise and decay. The


Wogan/Fitzgerald/Sutton slab in Kildare cathedral (1618) includes the plea: ‘Pity me, pity me . . . For today to me, tomorrow to you’.126 The O’Toole way-side cross runs: ‘for as you are soe weare wee and as [wee ar]e soe shall you [bee]’.127 Two seventeenth-century tombs from Tullow, Co. Carlow, express a related sentiment: ‘I once was earth, I am earth again. I am nothing else. Farewell frail earth. Hail, O worms, I lay me down’.128 Thus in such cases where space, skill of sculptor, or other factors may have been lacking, the shrouded or skeletal figures were optional and a verbal expression of the same theme could be included instead.

The words and images discussed thus far demonstrate the didactic intent of most medieval and early modern statements about death. They do not merely announce the facts that life is short and all must die. They also warn the living to make the best use of the time they have left, in order that they may be prepared for death and judgement. The creators of these tombs, then, cast themselves in a moralising role. From the simplest ‘memento mori’ inscription, to elaborate representations of decay, they urged others to contemplate their own mortality and to display the appropriate behaviour. The O’Kennedy memorial in the Dominican abbey in Lorrha, Co. Tipperary (1620s?) is a particularly good example:

If you, who will presently die, should chance to ask the sepulchre what is the end of life, behold the end of thine . . . If the fates can conquer the just man therefore be up and doing, spurn the delirium of our human life, at the same time let thy spirit rejoice in prayer.129

Prayer would be more useful at the end of one’s life than any of the other achievements or trappings of humanity.

Those approaching death were expected to be prepared for it and to show the necessary resignation to their fate. At a time when, as we have seen, death was a public event, the behaviour of the dying individual could edify and instruct onlookers. Death should be viewed as a happy and fortunate event. The plaintive epitaph of Arthur Chichester, the infant son of the Lord Deputy of the same name, in Christ Church, Dublin, explained that:

. . . happy, happy was the boy For of his life the long and tedious race He hath it run in less than two month space A blessed soul to whom such grace was given To make so short a voyage back to Heaven.130

Tombstones and monuments were naturally suitable places where the soci-etal ideal of acceptance of death could be expressed. ‘[N]on mors mihi terror’ – death does not frighten me – proclaims the tomb of George Verdon in Kilmallock.131 The resignation of Thomas a Kempis ‘Sic transit gloria


mundi’ (Thus the glory of the world passes away) is invoked on the Fitzgerald/Fitzharris tomb, also in Kilmallock, and on the 1615 tomb of John White, first mayor of Clonmel.132 The monument of a Scottish settler in Co. Tyrone proclaims: ‘I commit my work to God. Death to the Faithful is a happy respite from toil’.133 Trust in God and in Jesus was essential to such resignation. ‘Lord, into thy hands I commend my soule Lord Jesus receive my spirit’, declares a Protestant gravestone from Enniskillen.134 ‘We commend our souls into the saving hands of our Lord Jesus Christ’, is inscribed on the Catholic monument to John Lee and Amy Fitzgerald in Kildare.135

The sentiment expressed in the Tyrone example is echoed in many other inscriptions. Death could be accepted, and indeed welcomed, within the context of a conviction that it was not an end to life, but a passage from one type of life to another. Resurrection was anticipated by believers, Catholic and Protestant alike. It would be churlish not to resign oneself to death, when it was merely a gateway to better things. This paradox was expressed in various ways. In Kilkea, a Fitzgerald tomb proclaims:

I dead still alive, the words create surprise! I died on earth to live again in heaven. My former life was nought but tears and sighs, But now to me are pomp and glory given.136

A 1635 example from Tallow, Co. Waterford, puts the contradiction more succinctly: ‘Though life hath thee left yet livest thou ever and deth hath his du yet diest thou never’.137 Other epitaphs effectively juxtapose the frailty and transience of earthly things, however glorious, with the eternal glory of heaven. Virtue is the only worldy currency which is accepted in the world to come:

My vertve death heere seemes to ouers[way] My vertve’s frvit by death will nere deca[y]

is the boast of a Cullon/Langton mural monument (1646) in Kilkenny.138

Early modern people are generally credited with a much healthier atti-tude to death than is evident in the modern world. Their acceptance of the uncertainty and transience of life; their resignation to death and desire to bring others to the same frame of mind; their belief that death was not an end to life, but a passage to another type of existence which overcame the regret they might feel on leaving earthly comforts, are stressed by histori-ans. These sentiments certainly seem to be reflected in the Irish material that has been considered here. But to what extent do these statements mislead investigators of such attitudes, and obscure rather than clarify the issue? For while monuments are erected in the expectation or the


aftermath of death, does their very nature make them ill-qualified to com-ment objectively on the subject? After all, a tombstone was expected to last a long time and perhaps true feelings would have occasionally been unsuited to the genre. In England it has been suggested that certain patrons of cadaver monuments were following fashion, and that their choice of monument could have ‘more to do with whom they knew and where they had been, than with their reading, devotions or contempla-tions of the final end’.139 Another question might be whether early modern people living in Ireland attempted to sanitise death and to deny its horrors? If so, to what extent does the action of sanitising death enable people to hide from its reality? And if they hide from death, or deny it, can their attitudes be said to be any different from the fear of death prevailing in today’s society?

Given the scarcity of other sources of information it is largely difficult to answer these questions. In the case of the examples cited, it is difficult to imagine that the statements they make they do not reflect genuine views. Formulae of the ‘as you are now’ type are used to some degree, but most depart sufficiently from the formulaic to indicate a considerable involve-ment on the part of the patrons in the design of their own tombs. However, in a sense, these are sanitised words and images. The skeletons are clean of flesh and thus of corruption; the figure of Death indicates a view of death coming from without rather than from within. It is the hand of fate, or of God, rather than the physical death from bodily disease or spiritual death resulting from the antics of a sinful body as invoked by moralists such as Ussher.140 Death is easy, orderly and calm, and eternal life is assured to those who have trusted in God. People could learn to die and learn from death. We thus see a societal ideal in action. It is an ideal to which many subscribed wholeheartedly, as evidence from deathbed scenes and other sources prove. There is no doubt that people practised what they preached, but there is conversely little evidence about the views of those who may not have been able to believe in their salvation, or accept their fate in an ‘appropriate’ manner. Doubt has no history, and the history of fear is only beginning to be written.

Thus funerary monuments are complicated and often paradoxical docu-ments, which must, at times, be approached with caution. This paradox is centred on the tension they exhibit between ideal and reality. For no matter what they can tell us about people and their views on various matters, the fact that they were always designed as public documents, however inscrutable to certain observers, meant that they tend to present reality as it should be, rather than as it was actually lived. Monuments exude antiquity, but were often the fancies of the parvenu classes. Statements on death are confident and moralising, but we cannot know if this advice was put into practice. Families are displayed eternally strong and united; the inevitable and ubiquitous conflicts, divisions and separations are smoothed over. Men


are important, women are chaste, failure is unheard of: all are honourable. The stories that monuments tell us are essentially fictitious and are forever incomplete, frozen in time. Yet they give the impression of absolute truth and total finality. They tell us about the past, but some elements of this past may never have existed, except in people’s imaginations. It is this curious mixture of reality and falsehood which make them such a valuable resource for the historian.

8 Afterlives

A final important facet of early modern Irish experiences of death has been hinted at many times already in this book. What did people believe hap-pened to themselves and to others, whether loved or despised, after death? To what extent did Christian beliefs in the immortality of the soul and its reward or punishment after death impinge on the consciousness and actions of the living? This chapter is largely based on sources which reveal personal ideas on the topics of people’s hopes for arrival in Heaven and their strate-gies to avoid the torments of Hell, rather than the deliberation of theolo-gians on either side. The discussion is somewhat lopsided, since the sections on beliefs about the destination of souls after death and the roles of both Hell and Purgatory largely concentrate on Catholic belief, while Protestant ideas are more strongly represented in a study of ideas about Heaven. This, as usual, is more a reflection of the relative production and survival rates of suitable sources, than of depth of belief. Despite these shortcomings, how-ever, the sources highlight several aspects of religious belief and interaction, as well as holding further clues to the nature and progress of denomina-tional interaction in early modern Ireland.

Hell

There are comparatively few references in Irish sources from the period in question to the location, nature and inhabitants of Hell.1 While few Catholics or Protestants expressed worries about ending up in Hell, this is, as seen in the previous chapter, not an adequate indication of belief, since fear of Hell may have been hidden, not suitable for expression in funerary monuments or wills. It may also have been assumed that people knew something of the ‘geography’ and character of Hell, and that no further explanation was neces-sary. However, some ideas can be gleaned. An inscription and a poem cited below both describe Hell as located in a ‘pit’. Elsewhere it was characterised as a ‘coal-black dungeon’. Likewise, one of the 1641 deponents identified the location of Hell as being below ground, describing how Protestant corpses had

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been placed face downwards, ‘to the intent they might only have a prospect and sight of hell’.2 Medieval and early modern Irish sources expressed the con-ventional opinion that Hell was a place of great heat and torment and the less conventional idea that it also had areas of extreme cold.3 An account of a Catholic ‘vision of Hell’ from 1666 also stressed the torments of the place, describing its inhabitants as being boiled, crushed, cut with scissors and shot at by cannons.4 James Ussher, Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, likewise spoke in sermons of Hell as a prison where the damned would be subject to painful and fiery torment and torture on the rack.5

There seem to have been strong ideas regarding the Devil as the ruler of Hell.6 In contemplating his own death, one Gaelic poet complained that ‘There are three who await my death . . . Devil, Family, Maggot’. Each wanted one of the three things he possessed – his family wanted his wealth, the maggot his body, and the Devil his soul.7 Good deaths were often described in the Irish Annals as victories over ‘the world, death, and the devil’, who lay in wait to drag the dying into Hell.8 It was rumoured, for example, that on his deathbed Lord Justice Drury, whose fate had been predicted by Bishop O’Healy, whom he had recently sentenced to death, was ‘perpetually tormented by wicked devils’.9 Similar devils might possess those not in danger of death, necessitating exorcism or miraculous intervention. Thomas O’Herlihy, Bishop of Ross, allegedly exorcised a demon or spirit troubling a girl, the ritual including the repetition of the Apostle’s Creed, confession and communion, after which she recovered both her spiritual and bodily health.10 The Devil, in the form of a dragon, is occasionally depicted in Irish sculpture being slain by Saint Michael the Archangel.11 In Kilkenny, the Corpus Christi miracle plays also included a tableau of St Michael and the Devil.12

Tales circulated of people who made pacts with the Devil. In 1617 the East Munster Jesuits described their success with a gambler who had supposedly renounced God and made an agreement with the Devil in order to improve his success at dice and cards. They had even obtained details of the ritual whereby the bargain was made:

Three times at sunrise he went alone into the fields; each time he took off his clothes and hung them on a thorn. Then he walked naked into a standing pool, until by degrees the water came up to his neck; pausing there for a while he thrice renounced his baptism, its vow, and its virtue; three times he plunged his whole body, head and all, below the water in the name of the devil and the demons to whom he devoted himself . . . [H]e served the devil for some years; but he was none the richer. . . until he was reconciled by God’s holy mysteries.13

Cautionary tales about heretics and blasphemers might feature pacts with the Devil, or his appearance. Sir John Norris, Lord President of Munster, was

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alleged by O’Sullivan Beare to have had an agreement with the Devil, who subsequently came to claim his payment:

It is said that as he was amusing himself by night at Mallow, a person of black visage and garments suddenly entered the room, with whom Norris, leaving his game, retired into his bedroom, whence all witnesses were excluded, except one boy, who concealed himself near the door. . . ‘It is time’, said the black one, ‘for us to put the finishing touch to our plans’. ‘I don’t wish to do it’, said Norris, ‘until we have wound up the Irish war’. ‘On no account’, said the other, ‘will I wait longer than the appointed day which is now come’. Suddenly a great uproar was heard . . . those at play and the servants forced the door and burst in to the room, when the Black one, who undoubtedly was the Devil, was nowhere to be found, but Norris was on his knees with his neck and shoulders so twisted that the top of his chest and his face were over his back. He was, however, still living and ordered the trumpeters and drummers to be called to sound his death-knell, and whilst they were clamouring, he died about midnight.

On this evidence, O’Sullivan claimed that God had been on O’Neill’s side when he had defeated Norris, thereby ‘conquering the Devil himself, who it is thought agreed to help Norris’.14 A Protestant mayor of Drogheda in the ‘yeare of persecution’ (1606), Mr Alcock, also had an encounter with the Devil. He himself told the story of how the Devil had come to him at night, and led him into the garden of his house: ‘he tould him when he should dy and brought him bak againe to his bed and in his hand he left the sine of his thomb as blak as ani inke’.15

Protestantism was often associated with Hell by Catholics. An Irish satire-poem of 1577 on ‘The Apostasy of Myler Magrath’, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh, and others who acquired benefices under Elizabeth, has several references to their fate. One Master Sheyn was warned ‘You have lost heaven with your vow’. Beelzebub, not God was their King. While oth-ers were enjoying Heaven, Magrath, Sheyn, their wives and other bishops would be punished on Judgement Day and suffer ‘eternal torments’. The Hell into which Myler would descend was variously described as ‘The house of Lucifer – the putrid pit . . . a bitter prison . . . Nought but ever bitter ever-lasting fire . . . the bottomless pit of hell’. There the clergymen and their wives would howl and wail ‘In pain and lingering torments’.16

During the 1640s Protestants frequently reported that Catholic rebels had called them ‘devils’ destined for Hell. For example, Henry Robinson described how the people of Kilkenny labelled the Protestants living there ‘heritikes and devills’, saying that ‘the Deuill did helpe & feed them’.17

Thomas Makgill, Vicar of Killarney, Co. Louth, describing the deaths of eigh-teen of his parishioners on 2 January 1642, continued that the perpetrators


told him ‘that they had sent [them] to hell and they wold send [thither this depont.] by burning [him] with fyer’ (the usual method of disposing of heretics). In this context, the frequent equation, both verbally and symbol-ically, by Catholics of Protestants with ‘dogs’ is also relevant. One deponent reported that Protestants were called ‘puritant doggs and hereticks trayters to god & the king’,18 while Thomas Fleetwood described the creation of a bonfire to burn Protestant corpses, an Irish commander encouraging his troops to ‘ffling the English doggs into the fyre and burne them’.19

Elsewhere, as has been seen, it was claimed that Protestants were buried ‘like dogs’ in holes on unconsecrated ground or in ditches. While rudimentary burial for sanitary purposes might be accorded to dogs (as the only domes-tic animal not generally used for food or skins) the book of Revelation excludes dogs from resurrection, therefore they, like Protestants, were believed to go to Hell.20 The language of insult of the 1640s, then, went far further than mere denigration. In it we, very literally, hear the demonisation of opponents that is integral to guilt-free destruction. The Protestant group responded in similar kind, characterising the Irish as wicked, savage, cruel, bloody, unChristian and barbarous. That the Irish largely couched the conflict in religious terms while the settlers expressed it through the language of colonialism should not go unremarked.21

Purgatory

While most Irish Catholics do not seem to have countenanced the possibil-ity of their own arrival in Hell, there was widespread expectation of spend-ing time in Purgatory before their admittance to Heaven. This factor galvanised many into action to reduce their own sentences, or to release those already suffering. The thinking of the early Church whereby the penalty for sin, even sin repented and confessed, could be remitted through the performance of long and arduous penitential exercises during life, had gradually developed in response to changed social and economic circum-stances. By the twelfth century, the severity of earthly penances had been much reduced, and St Augustine’s doctrine of ‘purifying and expiatory pain between death and judgment’ had been developed further. While confession and absolution on earth removed the guilt (culpa) which was the conse-quence of sin, the necessary punishment (poena) was increasingly projected on to the next life. Ideas of Purgatory were to be much elaborated in the following centuries, but were in essence simple: ‘any reasonably repentant, reasonably obedient sinner could hope to go to Heaven via Purgatory’. The torments anticipated in Purgatory were lovingly described by various authors, but belief that these agonies were not eternal awoke hope amongst the faithful that they could eventually reach heaven. There were also oppor-tunities for evasive action. Souls in Purgatory could benefit from the prayers of the living, and those who could afford it took care to ensure that prayers

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and masses would be said on their behalf. This could be done through pay-ment for masses and intercession, construction of memorials to move passers-by to pity and prayer, appeals to Jesus and the saints for mercy, and reliance on affective bonds to ensure remembrance and intercession. This latter category included family obligations to deceased ancestors, as well as artificially created groups such as religious guilds and confraternities, a great proportion of whose responsibilities concerned the welfare of dead members. Sacrifices made during life out of a spirit of true faith such as char-itable works, contributions to church building, repair and upkeep, bridge and road building, and the provision of hospitals and almshouses, were also central to this system. Finally, certain devotional activities were believed to earn ‘indulgences’, or remission of specified periods of purgation. Analysis of the workings of these strategies reveals much about the realities of living as a Catholic in Ireland during the post-Reformation period, and the neces-sary accommodations and evasions which this involved.22

The funeral provided an initial opportunity to amass prayers. The larger the funeral the better, and poor people often were hired to increase the numbers present, being rewarded with clothing or money. The number of poor employed also reflected on the testator’s wealth and charity, and for this reason the custom continued amongst Protestants after the Reformation. Catholics considered the prayers of the poor particularly effi-cacious.23 Attendance at Month’s and Year’s Minds, repetitions of the funeral service held at these intervals after the death of an individual, were important in parts of the country. These services indicate a continuing awareness of the dead as a community still so close to the living that certain actions could have a bearing on their comfort. They were primarily a means of reminding the living of the need the dead might have of their prayers.24

Their more convivial aspect is seen in the provisions ordered by Richard Netterville of ‘the Corballies’, Co. Dublin, in his will of 1607:

I will and my will is that my funeralls monthe and yeares mynde or mem-ory be kept in good sorte for such friends as shalbe theare present and specially for the relife of the poore. The whole charge where of to be upon my executor howshould provisione viz: Breide, drinke, Beefe, mutton, porke, and such other [illegible] as is [necessary?] breade aboute the house onely excepted which I will to be provided by my wife at her charge.25

The accounts of Peter Lewys also stress the importance of communal meals to these occasions. In 1564 and 1565 Lewys was given ‘halfe a befe’ by Richard Fyan ‘for Sir Cheiptoffer Rathe is soule’, to be eaten by the masons employed in Christ Church, Dublin, in return for the bells of the cathedral being rung.26

Prayers might also be solicited on less formal occasions. For example, one fairly stable formula for Roman Catholic tomb inscriptions before and


during this period was to request the onlooker or passer-by to pray for the deceased there interred. A large number of inscriptions contain elements such as ‘Orate pro anima(bus)’ (Pray for the soul(s) of). One of the many such examples is at Knockainey, Co. Limerick, and reads ‘Orate pro ani-mabus Mathei Grady et Johane ini Aedn vxors eivs qvi me fieri fecerunt 16 octobris 1599’ (Pray for the souls of Matthew Grady and Johanna Ní Aedn his wife who had me [i.e. this stone] made 16 October 1599).27 The Piers wall tomb in Templecross, Co. Westmeath, includes the plea: ‘Help his soul reader by your prayers’.28 A more elaborate statement of belief is found on the MacMahon slab (1575) in Kilmore, Co. Meath:

God expects that everyone who reads this and understands that the pains of purgatory are the shorter and the mercy of God the more speedy for the prayers of Christians, to offer a prayer of charity for the soul of him who wrote this and for whom it was written, namely Rory bui MacMahon.29

On certain tombs particular prayers were requested. A ‘Pater and Ave’ (Our Father and Hail Mary) are specified on the Stor and Butler tomb in Kilcooley Abbey, Co. Tipperary,30 and on the Brennagh tomb in St Muncheon’s, Limerick (1594).31 The Ronan transi slab in Christ Church, Cork (1569), is more ambitious, asking for a Creed and ‘de Profundis’ (Psalm 130) in addi-tion to the Pater and Ave.32 It seems, however, that by the mid-sixteenth century the associated practice of promising specific indulgences to those who prayed for the dead had died out, perhaps due to official control.33

The custom that prevailed in various parts of the country of erecting wayside and churchyard crosses was an extension of this system of eliciting intercession on behalf of those commemorated, while simultaneously celebrating their achievements and piety (Figure 6).34 Heather King has pub-lished an inventory of 100 Irish wayside and churchyard crosses from the period 1600–1700, as well as detailed descriptions of all of the late-medieval crosses found in Co. Meath, nine of which belong to the period c.1470–1519, and thirteen belonging to the years 1554–1635.35 Significantly, the early to mid-seventeenth century saw the erection of at least seventy-eight crosses in sixteen different Irish counties. If it is considered further that many examples were probably destroyed before they were recorded, and that it seems that others were made of perishable wood, it is obvious that there existed a pow-erful and dynamic lay piety centred on the desire to reduce the penalties in store after death. Furthermore, these monuments indicate that in large parts of the country belief in the disputed doctrine of Purgatory was being uncom-promisingly displayed even alongside the King’s highways.

Appeals were also made to heavenly beings, particularly Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the saints, to intercede with God on one’s behalf. Thus a large number of Catholic wills contain statements similar to that of Robert Walsh of Waterford in 1629, who commended his soul to the Trinity and to ‘the

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Figure 6 Wayside cross with crucifixion, Dunsany, Co. Meath.

unspotted virgin Mary Mother of God [and] unto all the saints in Heaven my special patrons and advocators’.36 In 1630, Thomas Goulde of Cork called on Saints Mary, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, Michael ‘And all the blessed Companie of Heaven to pray [to] God for mee’.37 As already noted,


certain religious orders, especially the Franciscans, promoted the wearing of their habits by the dying and dead, in the expectation that the patrons of these orders would take care of those so identified as their servants. Gaelic poets used their own medium to appeal for aid, in particular from Mary. Aonghus Fionn O’Dalaigh wrote, ‘Though I have defence enough in the sav-ing power of the five wounds [of Jesus], I cling to maiden Mary beyond all hearts that have helped me’.38 The expansion of the Rosary devotion, which calls on Mary to ‘pray for us now and at the hour of our death’, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries indicates her popularity as an interces-sor.39 Particular ‘specialist’ saints were also specifically called on, the Archangel Michael, weigher of souls and slayer of the Devil, being an obvi-ous choice. Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn solicited aid from the saint, claiming: ‘Him whose hour is furthest from death, and him whose fate is at hand, Michael is equally ready to assist’.40 As already noted, representations on funerary monuments and wayside crosses of Jesus and the other saints, or symbols associated with them, provided both evidence of piety and a means of dedicating the patron of the work to the prayers of the heavenly patrons represented. Numerous pieces of such sculpture may be found, from simple representations of the cross and IHS as symbols of Jesus, to more elaborate depictions of crucifixion scenes and apostles.41

Charitable donations to those less well off than oneself were also impor-tant to the system of avoiding Purgatory. Donations to the poor at funerals have already been mentioned, and this charity might continue at intervals after death. Good works, such as the provision or improvement of facilities such as roads, bridges and almshouses were in late medieval Europe also very much seen as expressions of charity.42 Irish wills sometimes throw light on such donations. For example, Thomas Elliot of Balsoon, Co. Meath, ordered his executor to see to the repair and re-roofing of the church there ‘in discharg of my conscience’.43 Pious intentions are further reflected in some of the archaeological evidence that remains of them. Near Holy Cross abbey, Co. Tipperary, a flourishing place of pilgrimage during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, a bridge bore the arms of the barons of Dunboyne and the O’Briens. The inscription ran:

To the traveller Nicholas Cowli constructed me James Butler, Baron of Dunboyne, and the Lady Margaret Brien, his wife, rebuilt this bridge which had fallen and ornamented it with their arms in the year of our Lord 1626. Say, I pray you, before you go away, this short prayer: May the two who built it escape the pit of hell.44

At Abbey Owney (Abington), Co. Limerick, a similar inscription read:

The arms of Sr Edmund Walsh knight and hys wife Ellyce Walsh, als Grace who erected this bridge after the Death of her husband for

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Devotione and Charitie prayinge passengers to pray for the rest of their Soules in Heaven.

1621 Patricius Kearin me fabricavit.45

The Piers tomb at Templecross, Co. Westmeath, mentions that Henry Piers ‘a personage distinguished for piety’, had ‘constructed this tomb for himself, after he had restored these sacred buildings and laid out the adjoining road’, but does not explicitly demand a reward.46

The foundation and maintenance of hospitals and almshouses was another way of demonstrating concern towards one’s fellow men. For Catholics, the value of such worthy acts was increased by the expectation that their poor inmates would express their gratitude in the form of prayer. Only the very wealthy could afford to institute or maintain such founda-tions, but any contributions would have been welcomed. In Kilkenny, Sir Richard Shee provided in his will (1603, codicil 1604) for maintaining and obtaining a grant of incorporation for the hospital in the town which he founded in the 1580s.47 Maurice Uniacke of Youghal in a will dated 1646 declared ‘I doe bequeath and leave unto the Almes Houses in Youghall by the Keay, the summe of twenty shillings sterling for ten years to come to be paid every Easter day’.48 Nicholas Ley of Waterford in 1580 left twenty shillings to the repair of the ‘House or Hosptall of the Holy Ghost’, and five pounds to be divided amongst its inhabitants.49 Ten years later Francis Lombard left ten pounds to the same establishment ‘for my soul’, and five pounds ‘to all other the poor hospitals and houses in the city of Waterford for my soul’.50 Richard Wadding, also of Waterford, in 1626 bequeathed five pounds yearly to the ‘hospital of our Ladie in St. Johns’, advising his son to continue his charity to the poor ‘without regarde of his owne melius esse in the world . . . his melius esse for the world shall never be ympared [impaired] or lessed by this but rather much encreased’.51

Protestant church and civil authorities frequently viewed such founda-tions with suspicion. A letter of 1600 from the Privy Council to Sir George Carew commented on correspondence from the Archbishop of Cashel, who:

avoweth unto us that in Waterford there are certain buildings erected under colour and pretence of almshouses and hospitals, but that the same are in very deed intended and publicly professed to be used for monasteries and such like houses of religion, and that friars and popish priests are openly received and maintained in them.52

It certainly seems, if we read between the lines, that such foundations were frequently fronts for Catholic chantries and religious confraternities. If we refer back to our Waterford testators, for example Francis Lombard’s declaration that he was leaving money to various hospitals ‘for my soul’, we begin to suspect the possibility of such a situation. This suspicion is


increased by a list of ‘sundrie priests and friers’, thirty in all, living in Waterford in 1610, which included one Richard Walsh, resident in ‘the poore howse’, in other words, the Holy Ghost hospital.53 Elsewhere it also seems that the charge that friars and priests were ‘openly received and main-tained’ in such foundations was true. In Kilkenny, Sir Richard Shee in his will charged his chaplain, Teige Duyin, ‘to have a care of the poor in my hospital’.54 Robert Rothe ordered the re-edification of his grandfather’s poor-house, which was to include a chamber for ‘an honest and discreet man who shall serve God and have care of the said poor people from tyme to tyme’.55

In a letter of 1628, David Rothe, Catholic Bishop of Ossory reminded Walter, Earl of Ormond, that his uncle, Thomas Butler, the tenth Earl, had requested the erection of a hospital in Kilkenny. He urged the implementation of the plan ‘to the end that the soul of the founder and his ancestors should not be deprived of the prayers, suffrages and devotions which were intended in that erection’.56

J. B. Cullen identified one better-documented case of concealment in NewRoss, suspecting that St Saviour’s chapel in the town, described as a ‘chantry’ in 1566, continued as such under the guise of the ‘Hospital of the Holy Trinity’ which operated on the same site until the late seventeenth century. The hospital chaplain was probably a chantry priest, employed to say mass for the souls of the founders of the guild or confraternity involved, their suc-cessors and associates. The fact that, in 1587, the hospital was given the chapels of St Saviour and St Michael, ‘as the master and brethren require[d] a convenient place “to repayre unto for public and divine service”’, indicates that guild or confraternity activity was definitely going on in the town.57 In 1610 James Duff of New Ross bequeathed some ex-monastic property, as well as corn and oats, to ‘the Hospitall or Trinitie House in Ross’. He also mentioned the legacies left by his father and grandfather to the same estab-lishment. This testator did not mention whether he expected prayers in return, though he did ask for the prayers of the nuns of the town, to whom he had left ten pounds.58

The word ‘chantry’ in this period refers to the provision of a privately paid priest to say mass for the benefit of a person or group. Most chantry priests operated from special altars or chapels within parish churches, though such provisions were not essential. Confraternities and guilds in this period fre-quently maintained chaplains in accordance with their perception of their special obligation towards the spiritual welfare of deceased members.59 The main difficulty, however, with the study of such foundations in Ireland is the circumspection of the sources. Those involved in these institutions were unlikely to commit much to paper, and that which was written down was phrased in such a way as to say as little as possible about real intentions. Recent work by Colm Lennon and others regarding religious fraternities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially in Dublin, demonstrates this difficulty with the few remaining sources. While it would seem that

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three main religious fraternities – the guilds of St Anne, St Sythe and Corpus Christi – survived in Dublin into the seventeenth century, and despite the fact that a number of documents relating to these organisations survive, little can be positively known about their day-to-day religious activities.60

Even less is known of parochial commemoration of the dead in the early modern period: a few lists of late medieval ‘obits’, recording the names and dates of death of benefactors of the church for use in commemorative serves survive from Dublin and some of the religious houses do, however, survive.61

Even smaller towns may have supported chantries, and in certain areas it seems that the Reformation made little difference to their activities. For example, documents suggest the existence of two chantries in the town of Callan, Co. Kilkenny, supporting at least two chaplains or ‘chantors’. A lease of 1563 mentions Trinity chapel and St Katherine’s chapel, along with the ‘Trinity Land’ and ‘St. Katherine’s land’, land with which the chantries would have been endowed to provide funds towards wages and the mainte-nance of the chapels. The Trinity chaplain is named as Sir James Arthor, who was still there the following year, and Sir Nicholas Archdekyn was the St Katherine’s chaplain. Sir Edmund Barre ‘a priest’, is also mentioned. In 1569 this Sir Edmund Barry was the chantry priest of St Katherine’s chapel. Patrick Phelan and Thomas Comerforde are subsequently named, in 1583 and 1607 respectively, as chaplains of Trinity chapel in Callan, and it seems that both of the chantries still held their lands at this later date. The most fascinating reference comes in 1594:

Simon Nugent of Callan grants to Thomas Merry a messuage in the West street of Callan . . . to hold to the said Thomas, his heirs and assigns for-ever, paying yearly to the priests and clerks of St. Katherine’s chapel 2s. current money of Ireland towards the anniversary of Nicholas Sowlown, John Moledi, Megina Bussher and Johan Moledi.62

So not only did the Callan chantries hold on to their land, and continue to support priests, but even at the end of the sixteenth century and possibly subsequently, the system whereby the dead were annually commemorated in special masses was still a matter of course. Two years later, in 1596, the Protestant Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, William Lyon, was complain-ing that, unlike in England, the lands belonging to the Irish chantries had never been granted to the sovereign, and that those not repossessed by the families which had initially donated them were still being used to maintain ‘massing priests’.63

Wills provide the main evidence for the provision in this period of outright payments by individuals to priests for prayers and masses for souls.64 The will of Peter Lynch (1553) provided for his burial before the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the church of Laracor, and continued: ‘I wyll my wyff shall fynd a preyst upon my goods and leacis, during her lyff to pray for hir and me and


our posteritie and all Christian soules’.65 James Sherlock in c.1583 left money ‘to the keep of a Chaplain for praying for me and for my first wife Rose Shee, for my father and mother and all my ancestors’.66 Obviously it did not do to be too selective in deciding who were to be the beneficiaries of such interces-sions.67 Lisagh O’Connor left his watch to Peter Geoghegan, on condition that the latter had 100 masses said for his soul.68 In 1592 William Daton of Kildaton ‘chief of his name’ left the traditional one-third of his goods ‘to my soule’,69

while in Gaelic areas livestock might be used as the currency of salvation. In 1590, Sir John Cochlan ‘bequeathed for the benefit of his soul to the church of Cluain mc Nois a cow. Item to John, son of Hugh . . . for a Mass-offering . . . a cow’. The churches of Galine, Fuire, Techsaran and Ranach were left two cows apiece, and the church of Liamanach a cow in calf.70

However, a number of wills also throw light on their own probable inad-equacy as a register of this aspect of Roman Catholic belief and practice. In 1610, Lady Mary, Dowager Baroness of Delvin, left ‘£15 for pious uses, and £30 for godly uses, as she will declare in a letter to her son the Lord of Delvin’.71 Since probate of wills had to be obtained from the church author-ities, necessitating, depending on the location and extent of the deceased’s estates, a suit before the local episcopal or archiepiscopal court,72 it is easy to see how the display of overt Catholicism could hinder the speedy settle-ment of affairs or draw unwelcome attention. It is therefore likely that many people who wished to make provisions for intercession on behalf of their souls following their deaths did so privately in separate arrangements with their executors. Thus, in the case of the Dowager Baroness Delvin, her detailed instructions regarding the exact distribution of the money left for ‘pious’ and ‘godly’ uses were conveyed privately to her son, leaving in the text of her will only an ambiguous confirmation of her intentions.

The will of Gerald Fitzgerald of Killmaoge, Co. Kildare, written in 1611, is similarly mysterious. It mentions bequests of £40 ‘to be given to poore friends of myne’, and £30 ‘to a poore Scholar a Kinsman of myne owne’, whose iden-tities had been revealed to Gerald’s nephew, Walter Fitzgerald.73 Were these poor people priests, one of whom was studying in a seminary on the Continent? Patrick, the fifth son of Murrough O’Flaherty, is described as a ‘scholler’ in his father’s 1626 will: we know he eventually became an Augustinian friar.74 The vague language employed by Richard Neterville of ‘the Corballies’, Co. Dublin, in his will of 1607, is similarly evasive. He left the huge sum of £200 ‘to be ymployed for suche Godly uses as my. . . overseers shall thincke fitt’, and another £100 towards the erection of a hospital to lodge twelve men in Balrothery, leaving it to his heirs to choose their identity. He also stipulated that his overseers could divert the funds for the hospital ‘to some other good and Godly worke or use yf they shall thinke the same more fitt’.75 Surely no one would really leave £300 on such vague terms? Netterville must have been confident in the knowledge that he had given these overseers precise instructions in some other way. Sir Gerald Aylmer of Donadea, Co.

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Kildare, making his will in 1632, similarly mentioned that £200 should be given to the Countess of Kildare ‘to bee disposed to such use and intent as I have declared unto her and parte of my overseers’.76

There were occasional attempts by the authorities to retrieve money left to Catholic religious causes. In 1585 the Lord Deputy and Council inter-vened in a dispute over a will in Waterford, awarding half of the money which Sir John Wise had ‘devised . . . under a secret trust for a superstitious use’, to the corporation ‘for founding a free school’, and the rest to Maurice Wise, a relative of the deceased.77 The tone of this case is substantially dif-ferent to that taken by the then Lord Deputy fifty years later, in 1634, when one Lofthouse [Loftus?], a Roman Catholic, bequeathed an £81 annuity to ‘the Catholic bishop of Limerick’. The money was neatly waylaid, Wentworth writing, with tongue firmly in cheek, that ‘we hold ours the catholic Bishop, and therefore have rectified the knowledge of the donor and applied it to the right Bishop indeed’.78 Another point to be remem-bered in this context is that: ‘Wills fail to tell us about a testator’s good works made during his lifetime, many of which were probably more important than the provisions finally made in the will, especially if property was involved’.79 In this regard we might consider Wentworth’s concern in the 1630s that about £1000 had been donated for the education ‘of youths in Popish Schooles abroad’, £600 of which had been given by a single donor ‘in his lyfe tyme’.80 The result of the Lord Deputy’s attempts to retrieve this £600 sum and put it to use in Ireland were not recorded, but may indicate how the executive may have decided to divert such donations which they decided were worth their notice.81 As usual, the limitations imposed on the analysis of Irish wills in this period largely preclude statistical development of this point. However, what are we to conclude from indications that Catholic testators were increasingly circumspect in the 1630s and early 1640s with regard to mention of charitable donations and bequests for the health of their souls? Had increasingly stringent government policies pushed such activities further underground? If so, it seems likely that even further investigation of religious affairs during this period may never reveal anything like the full story.

Pious donations of ecclesiastical equipment, especially of chalices, can be seen as one way in which people in this period could endow the Catholic church with objects which contributed to the religious life of the community, but which could be easily concealed in times of crisis. Furthermore, by caus-ing their names to be carved on these items, donors could again ensure the continuance of intercession on their behalf, while associating themselves with the most important ritual of Catholicism. The large number of surviv-ing chalices testifies to the popularity of this way of endowing the church and of the dynamism of lay piety. The number of chalices produced each decade between the 1600s and 1640s rises so rapidly that it is probably correct to surmise that this was a powerful response to the propagation of


Counter-Reformation tenets, demonstrating the increasing organisation and expansion of the Catholic church in Ireland.82 Certain liturgical items might be held privately, as indicated in the will of Walter Burke of Borrisoleigh who in 1623 left ‘unto the Chapter House of Borres the altar raiments and Mass book, saving only that I am pleased that my wife Elizabeth Dwyer, may enjoye the same during her life’.83 To reserve the rights of ownership of such objects was a way of underlining the interdependence of clergy and donor.

Many chalices were also made as the personal property of individual cler-ics, either commissioned by themselves or on their behalf by family mem-bers or other patrons. For example, one chalice reads: ‘Joan French caused me to be made for the use of her son Father Gregory French of the Order of Preachers 1634’.84 Others were made for specific churches, chapels, monas-teries or orders, giving clues as to other aspects of Catholic religious life during this period, such as the places where people worshipped and the rise of new devotions. The number of chalices dedicated to altars of the Virgin Mary throughout the country, for example, indicates the success in certain areas of Counter-Reformation propagation of the cult of the mother of Jesus.85 Like tombstones and monuments, many chalices enjoin the reader to ‘pray for the soul’ of the patron. One reads: ‘I will accept the chalice of salvation and I will call upon the name of the Lord Anno 1626. The Lady Moriarty Pray for James Rice’.86 The Stoneyford chalice is inscribed ‘The Lady Cecilia Fitzgerald caused me to be made in the year of our Lord 1631. May God have mercy on her soul’.87 But the symbolism of chalice donation went further even than the possibility of intercession. The sacrifice of the mass was, and is, central to Roman Catholic belief and practice, with the moment of the elevation of the host and the wine and its transformation into the body and blood of Jesus being the pivotal point of the ritual.88 By providing the church with such vessels, Catholic donors connected them-selves with those holiest of substances, the body and blood of Christ, ensuring their own symbolic participation in the ritual even after death.

There is some evidence in Irish sources to suggest belief in the potency of indulgences as a means of reducing time in Purgatory after death. The term ‘indulgence’ is defined in the Catholic Encyclopedia as:

the extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment due, in God’s justice, to sin that has been forgiven, which remission is granted by the church in the exercise of the power of the keys, through the applica-tion of the superabundant merits of Christ and of the saints, and for some just and reasonable motive.89

Indulgences may be classified either as plenary (a full remission of all penal-ties), or partial (remission of a number of a specified period in Purgatory). Clerics arriving in Ireland from abroad in this period are occasionally described as carrying indulgences. One document, for example, refers to

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‘a seminary priest called Sir James Brenagh alias Walsh of late come out of Spain [in 1593] with an abundance of letters, riches and indulgences’.90 In 1572, a Dominican friar was reported to have come from Spain: ‘he brought indulgences and the rest from the Pope and published the same in Sligo’.91

Indulgences usually were dependent on the completion of certain devo-tional exercises. For example, Hugh MacCaughwell, Archbishop of Armagh, who died in 1626, had shortly before been granted the privilege ‘that a ple-nary indulgence could be gained once a year by the faithful if they visited any of the churches dedicated to Saints Patrick, Brigid or Columcille’.92

While these examples testify that certain indulgences were advertised in Ireland in this period, it is very difficult to discern the extent to which ordi-nary people understood the rationale behind them, or whether they approached them in the state of mind required by the propagators of Counter-Reformation doctrine. Take, for example, a 1617 Jesuit account:

at the four stated times of indulgences, namely the feasts of St. Patrick, St. Malachy, St. Columbia, and Brigit the Virgin, so great a multitude of persons for confession flocked together, not only at home, but in the coun-try, too, that it was necessary to spend four whole days, with supplements from the nights, in hearing them, and then the task was not finished.

At first this might give a favourable impression of Irish piety. However, the writer continues: ‘I do not speak of quarterly, half-yearly, and yearly confessions, many went over a whole life from the beginning’.93 The synod of Drogheda three years previously had warned the clergy of the diocese of Armagh against the overuse of indulgences, which might be abused by ‘the uninstructed, who do not understand fully the dispositions necessary to gain them’. It seems that the concerns of the clergy on this occasion were based on experience, since it was claimed that many people believed, and had been led by their pastors to believe, that indulgences served to ‘remit the guilt and punishment’ of even the most ‘grievous’ of sins. It was also hinted that the worst abuses occurred when indulgences were proclaimed before large audiences, when the numbers present meant that the resources of the clergy were unequal to the task of properly explaining the basis of the doctrine.94 Thus, while it would seem that these missionary priests had con-vinced their flock of the necessity and benefits of confession and of special devotional activities, it is difficult to assess the extent of ordinary laypeople’s understanding of the niceties of the indulgence system, or even of the abstract thought behind the doctrine of Purgatory itself.

A final comment must be made regarding the fact that Irish Catholics claimed a special connection with Purgatory. A cave on an island in Lough Derg in the north of the country was believed to be an entrance to ‘St Patrick’s Purgatory’, and a large body of folklore and literature had grown up regarding visions of the torments of the afterlife seen by pilgrims there.95


The island’s reputation continued to grow throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries despite, or perhaps because of, occasional attempts by the civil authorities to suppress the pilgrimage, the most determined of which involved the destruction of the ‘vaults, beds and other houses and buildings’ on the site in 1632.96 Interest in the Purgatory was an interna-tional phenomenon, and the attempts of Counter-Reformation clergy to regulate the conduct of the pilgrimage in the early to mid-seventeenth cen-tury indicate its continuing hold over the imaginations of very many peo-ple.97 The purpose of the pilgrimage, then as now, was penitential. The discomforts of the site and the reminder of the proximity of death, Judgement, and Purgatory, aimed to make pilgrims conscious of their sins, and to encourage repentance. A number of poems concentrate on this aspect. ‘Remember that death is busy upon thee; be not drowsy, O body; thy bed of death is near; use the time of penance’, wrote Feargal Ó Higgin, while others called on Patrick (the ‘Apostle of Ireland’, and judge of the Irish on the Last Day) and other saints to intercede on their behalf.98 Preparation for, and avoidance of, Purgatory thus could be more than an ‘armchair activity’. Difficult devotional exercise could also shorten one’s time there.

It seems clear, therefore, that Irish Catholics held strong ideas about Purgatory, and avoidance of Purgatory. At the same time there is little evidence of the kind of tensions which the doctrine had produced in certain parts of Europe, where the living had been prompted to shrug off the weight of their suffering dead, and to challenge the rationale behind the exactions they demanded.99 Perhaps those still looking for reasons as to ‘why the Reformation failed in Ireland’ should look more closely at aspects of doctrine, in conjunction with better-charted political, economic and practical factors, to divine why Catholic doctrine on Purgatory remained relevant in early modern Ireland. Further investigation of the late medieval period would, I suspect, demonstrate that the dead did not constitute as great a burden on the living as was the case elsewhere. Those wills which survive from the fifteenth century, for example, though a tiny body of evidence, indicate a considerable variety of pious bequests options, for the gilding of chalices, to small legacies to churches, religious houses and priests, to practical arrange-ments such as William ‘the Sythelor’s’ 1492 bequest of lands to maintain a chantry chaplain ‘so long as the freehold will bear the charges’.100 Another part of the answer relates to the success with which, as we have seen, the Catholic dead could become invisible to those who might have diverted their resources. Unfortunately, this also means that their story is correspondingly difficult to reconstruct.

Heaven and the Resurrection

Putting such debates aside momentarily, it is clear that the destination which early modern Irish people aspired eventually to reach, directly or

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indirectly, was Heaven. The Heaven they imagined seems to have combined both the Renaissance idea of reunion with loved ones beyond the grave as well as the Reformation and Counter-Reformation ideal of ‘theocentric heaven’, where ‘a distant majestic God [was] the sole focus of eternal life’.101

The blending of these ideas is expressed in the 1617 inscription on the tomb of Gerald Grace and his wife Mary Hartpole:

Here each with each in mingling dust reclines, Yet each with Christ a spotless angel shines.102

Certain Irish poets described Heaven in a traditional manner, as a castle or other ‘big house’ owned by the ‘Supreme King’ where mirth and feasting were presided over by the Virgin Mary, who even had the power to ‘[snatch] souls from the devil as a reward for. . . devotion to her’.103 The ‘Lament for Uaithne Ó Lochlainn’ (1617), envisaged its subject’s journey ‘to that abode where you will encounter neither peril nor anxiety. The great son of the Virgin will meet you in no surly fashion since you were lavish with what you got’.104

The ‘Apostasy of Miler Magrath’, contrasted the torments of Hell, already described, with the comfort and hospitality of Heaven.105 However, more may be gleaned about the ideas of Irish Protestants about their expectations of their experiences of the place itself, perhaps because of the starker choice with which they were faced on death. Having rejected the doctrine of Purgatory, how did they rate their chances as they stood on their merits before Jesus?

To judge by religious statements in Protestant tombstone inscriptions and wills, they seem to have been fairly optimistic. Strong hopes that the souls of loved ones would arrive in the presence of God in Heaven were a frequent theme of inscriptions in particular. For example, the funerary brass (c.1579) of Sir Edward Fitton in St Patrick’s cathedral, referring to his deceased wife, reads: ‘Her body slepeth under this stone, and her soule is returned to God yt gave yt, and there remayneth in kepinge of Christe Jesus, her only Saviour’.106

Dame Mary St Leger’s monument in the same cathedral declares her family’s certainty that her ‘soule (noe doubt) resteth in all joyfull blessedness in ye heavens with her Savioure Jesus Christe’.107 The Chichester memorial in Carrickfergus (c.1625) declared the hope of the Lord Deputy and his wife that:

they. . . shall here rest in peace untill the second coming of their crucified Redeemer whome theye most constantly believe then to behold with their bodily eyes to their endless Blessedness & everlasting comfort.108

Outright rejections of intercession for the souls of the dead and affirma-tions of belief in the saving grace of Jesus also occur. Bishop Lyon of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, whose attempts to bring the people of Cork to conformity largely met with failure, declared a strong Protestant belief on his unorna-mented tombstone: ‘I do believe oneli to be saved be the merites of [Jesus]


Christ our savioure’.109 The very simple tomb-slab of Mary Smith in St Mary’s church, Youghal, (c.1637), included a crudely poetic version of such ideas:

Look! O but cease your tears and do not weep: My Death, no Death is, but a pleasant sleep. O blessed Sleep to me that am both free From Sting of Death and from Death’s Victory. O Death! Where is thy Sting? O Grave, thy power? I do triumph in Christ my Saviour. Cease to lament, sith I am now in bliss, Though here entombed my soul in Heaven is.110

This central Protestant tenet that faith in Christ was the only means of salvation, and the concomitant rejection of Catholic belief in the efficacy of the intercession of the saints, prayers for souls, and charitable works, is reflected also in wills. Adam Loftus, as might be expected given his role as Chancellor of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin, included a comprehensive and theologically sound expression of Protestant belief in his will of 1604, which is worth quoting at length:

I bequeath my soul into the hands of Almighty God who . . . has called me to be a member of the misticall body of his Holy Church and in the mer-its and passion of Christ Jesus my only Saviour and Redeemer who fully having satisfied his infinite justice for the sins of all mankind by his last sacrifice upon the Cross hath blotted out all my sins . . . fully assuring me that by that means only and in him I am reconciled unto God without having any respect unto my own merits or any kind of works proceeding from myself which are not neither by any possibility can be able or of suf-ficient virtue to satisfie for the great and heynous offences which I have committed against his Infinite Majesty renouncing all other helps invoca-tions assistance merit and prayers of Saints and Angels or any other crea-tures and only relying on Christ Jesus my only Saviour and Redeemer.111

Alderman Walter Ball of Dublin expressed similar sentiments more simply in his will of 1598, commending his soul:

which I faythfully beleve to be saved by the pretious death and blood sheddinge of my dear Savior Jesus Christ without any worthinis or merite of mine owne . . . to the holy hands of mine Eternall God to receve that Eternall Crowne of Glory which He hath promised to thos that die in His favour and fear.112

Ball’s sons, Robert and Edward, couched their wills in similarly Protestant terms. Robert’s runs ‘I bequeath my soule to God my Maker Jesus Christ

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my Redeemer and the holie Ghost my sanctifier from whom and by whom I only trust to be saved & my bodie to be buried in St. Audoen’s Church . . . expecting through the mercies in Christ a joyfull resurrection’.113

Edward’s will also reflects on the Trinity, and continues with a meditation on the uncertainty of life.114

Some historians have argued that the abolition of the doctrine of Purgatory at the Reformation resulted in an increase of Protestant anxiety about death. The ‘safety net’ between Hell and Heaven had been removed, and those who may have doubted their membership of the elect, but who at the same time doubted that Hell could be their destination, awaited with dread the moment of death and judgement. Others dispute this conclusion, claiming that the loss of Purgatory only served to render the likelihood of suffering in the next world increasingly remote.115 It would seem that the tone of the monuments and wills cited here would support this latter case. No hesitations or qualifi-cations are expressed in declarations of the certainty of everlasting life. Post-death experiences were not envisaged as traumatic, but as calm and blissful.

Another aspect of Protestant belief regarding the Resurrection is reflected in the examples cited. Resurrection was visualised as a two-stage process, with an increasing amount of emphasis laid on the contrasting locations of body and soul in the period before the Day of Judgement. David Hickman has suggested that, in England, ‘the abolition of purgatory placed a much sharper divide between the dead and the living’, and that this fact was increasingly expressed on tombstones.116 We have already noticed that the families of the Fittons, Mary St Leger and Mary Smith expected that the souls of those individuals had gone directly to God at their deaths. Sir Arthur Chichester, in his will of 1621, wrote of his belief that his ‘sinnes and offences’ would be washed away by the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, and that he would appear before God ‘this life ended that I shall have the full and perfecte fruction of eternall glory with the holie angells ever-livinge Sainct[s] and blessed martirs in that place of happiness which God hath appointed’.117 However, the inscription on his tomb indicated that the Chichesters believed they would eventually see Christ ‘with their bodily eyes’.118 An inscription on another Protestant tomb from Youghal (1637) similarly states ‘Lowe here is our home till troump doth sound and Christ for us doth call to rise to live and dye no more at all’, again a reference to the resurrection of the body.119 The will of Sir Edmond Stafford of Mount Stafford, Co. Antrim (1644) presents an explanation of the difference between spiritual and bodily resurrection. Leaving his soul in the hands of God, he expressed the hope that

it shall rest with the blesed trenitie in peace amongst the soule[s] of the faithfull departed and at the second coming of my adored Saviour Jesus Christ that my soule and my body shall be Joyned together and rise againe to Eternall life.120


So it would seem that, following death, the soul would depart to heaven, leaving the transfigured body to follow on the day of the Last Judgement. James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, asserted that the dead bodies of those faithful who ‘had tasted of the first resurrection of the soul from sin’ would be raised at the sound of the voice of the Son of God at ‘the second resur-rection’.121

Irish Catholics like Nicholas Ball also subscribed to the hope that ‘bothe soule and body’ would ‘Aryse and Rest in him [Jesus] everlastinglie’.122 Two Catholic monuments in St Canice’s cathedral, Kilkenny, used the same quo-tation from Job as the Chichesters, ‘in my flesh I shall see God . . . with my bodily eyes’.123 However, the question of when this would happen is left open, to allow for the requisite time in Purgatory. These examples clearly illustrate the problematical nature of statements about the ‘separation’ of the living and the dead at the Reformation, however. For both Catholics and Protestants the body awaited its eventual transfiguration in the grave, while the soul travelled beyond to Purgatory, Hell or Heaven. True, the dead in Purgatory might be helped while, conversely, in places such as Germany the abolition of Purgatory helped to precipitate the physical separation of the dead from the living as burial was removed from urban areas.124 However, in other places and ways the dead remained as close as ever: Protestants in Ireland and Britain largely continued to be buried with family and friends on traditional sites, in France the separation of Huguenots from such sites was a painful business, while in Germany the creation of ‘epitaph monu-ments’ and the explosion in popularity of printed funeral sermons and poetry served to bring closer those who were now more physically distant as well as being beyond human aid.125

Apparitions and ghosts, a short note

Were there any circumstances under which the dead could return to earth? Dead saints certainly could, and some Irish accounts of the apparition of heavenly beings begin to occur at the end of the period in question.126 For example, in 1651, several people in Limerick claimed that they had seen St Mary, accompanied by Saints Francis and Dominick and other ‘heavenly beings’, appear above the church dedicated to her, the group then proceed-ing to the Franciscan and Dominican convents.127 O’Daly interpreted the apparition as a warning of the defeat to be suffered by the Catholic side ‘in the late war’. Two other accounts refer to apparitions of supernatural women in 1649 and 1650, which may have been identified by contemporaries as sightings of the Virgin Mary, though those recounting the tales did not make this identification.128 But these were not real ghosts, and few ‘ghost stories’ are preserved in the Irish sources from this period.129 I suspect that this is not wholly the fault of the sources, since even later Irish tradition is low on ghosts, with most supernatural phenomena, including appearances

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of the dead (or supposedly dead), largely attributed to the activities of mali-cious fairies.130 Most Irish accounts of ghosts from the hundred years prior to 1650 do not mention the return of identifiable or even individual dead people. A mass of indignant or admonitory spectres is more likely to be por-trayed, like those who appeared after a group of Protestants was drowned at Portadown in 1641, and others who haunted the profaners of the habits of friars killed in Drogheda in 1649 and the occupiers of their convent.131 The increased occurrence of ‘ghost’ stories in the later seventeenth century may in fact indicate the increasing cultural influence of English and Scots migrants.132 This, however, is a subject which remains to be explored.

Despite occasional glimpses of sectarian ideas about the devotees of the Devil, or the practicalities of the resurrection of the body, it is difficult to get a full picture of beliefs about the afterlives of the early modern Irish dead. But this chapter has not merely concerned itself with beliefs, and the result is a series of snapshots of aspects of religious industriousness and denomina-tional interaction. For example, in Catholic reactions to the expectation of Purgatory, we see the practical side to religiosity, its performance in everyday life, and in expectation of death, and the ability to adapt to often less than ideal circumstances. Furthermore, it seems that concealment and subterfuge were frequent reactions by Catholics to avert or avoid the search-lamps of the Reformation. Various legal and illegal fictions probably enabled Catholic activity to continue fairly normally in many parts of the country, despite Protestant complaints. However, one of the problems raised is the question of the nature of people’s understanding of complex theological issues, reminding us that the picture painted here may be false, or at least unrepre-sentative of sections of the population. Once again, there is no record of doubters, and little to separate deeply held religious conviction from last-minute recognition of spiritual expediency. The question of the nature and extent of belief in the return of the dead and other supernatural phenomena is another aspect of the difficulty of uncovering people’s ideas about the realm of the dead. Maybe the dead returned more often than they were given credit for in written sources, but did these wandering spirits reside in Purgatory or with the fairies, or had they any home at all? And meanwhile, as the worthy dead feasted in Heaven, and the unworthy howled in Hell, their earthly counterparts were left to debate their disparate definitions of worth, and sometimes to carry these debates to a bloody conclusion.

9 Conclusion

On the south wall of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin is the monument to Francis Agard and his daughter, Cecilia Harrington (Figure 7).1 Two fam-ily groups face one another across their prayer desks. On the right hand side are Francis, his wife Jacoba de Brett, their daughters, and their infant son. Opposite are Cecilia and her two sons, James and John. The three shields of arms that originally surmounted the tomb have disappeared, but the complicated heraldic achievements on them are shown on a seventeenth-century drawing. Underneath is a lengthy Latin and English inscription, explaining that Cecilia’s husband, Sir Henry Harrington, had created the monument, ‘att his owne charges’. Harrington’s likeness does not appear on the monument, nor is he mentioned until the second half of the inscription. Yet what the monument shows us is his perspective. Francis Agard’s long and distinguished military career is rehearsed and he is shown in his armour and with his sword by his side. He is described as ‘a most sagacious Councillor of the Kingdom of Ireland for twenty-six years’ until his death in 1577, while his friendship with Sir Henry Sidney is also mentioned. Behind him kneels his infant son, Thomas, who holds a skull in his hands, a sym-bol of death. These two deaths may have been crucial to Henry Harrington’s career, the first since he inherited his father-in-law’s ‘office’, as well as his connections; the second since it left Harrington’s wife, whom he married either shortly before or after Agard’s death, as one of the latter’s co-heirs. Furthermore, Cecilia Harrington had been a dear, loving and virtuous wife, dutifully producing two sons, the future of the dynasty, before dying on 8 September 1584. Though ostensibly about the dead, in common with the examples already discussed, the monument tells us as much about the living. Death is such a significant event that statements about it or attempts to control or interpret it can say much more about a society than might be immediately obvious. The words spoken or written about the dying and the dead, and the treatment of their corpses, provide a unique glimpse of the personal, political and religious concerns of early modern populations.

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Figure 7 Agard monument, Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin.

The study of death intersects with so many historical and personal con-cerns that it is impossible fully to separate the layers of enquiry. The layer which has formed the basis of this book is a consideration of the practicali-ties of death, the disposal of the corpse, and commemoration. Who attended, prepared and buried the dead, and how did they do so? What transactions went into this and into the purchase of items such as funeral goods, graves and permanent commemoration? Who, for example, made funerary monuments, and what other factors influenced their creation? But to look at these processes in isolation from their emotional context is impossible. Death, and how it comes, arouses many emotions amongst bystanders – grief, anger, fear, and so on – that have to be recognised and dealt with. Many of these emotions focus on the body of the deceased, which upon death assumes a heightened symbolic character and is therefore open to the imposition of diverse, even conflicting, interpretations. Each acquaintance would have mourned (or maybe not mourned) a different aspect of someone they knew during life. Forms of mourning are socially constructed, and we have come across diverse symbolic ways of exhibiting and acknowledging social and personal grief, from the controversial keen to formulaic elegies (both of which might also be designed to elicit reward).

Moreover, much can be done to manipulate to one’s own ends the ritual disposal and public commemoration of an individual. The upwardly mobile and ambitious amongst Ireland’s native and, especially, new inhabitants used many strategies to maximise the impact of funeral ritual and burial and


commemorative options to give the best impression possible of the wealth, status and positive qualities of the deceased and, by connection, themselves. The importance of such displays is indicated in the sums spent, with families even impoverishing themselves in their enactment. At the same time, descriptions of funerals and places of burial, as well as funerary monuments, can tell us much about other social realities, interactions and personal concerns.

For, in a period that saw Reformation, Counter-Reformation, brutal revolts, repression and reconquest, administrative change, plantation and immigration, and other social and economic transformations, the rituals of death, burial and commemoration could take on an additional symbolic character. Conflict might be inscribed on the bodies of the dead, or expressed by means of the disruption of burial rituals. But conversely, against this back-drop of contention, what often surprises is the extent of the operation of Scribner’s ‘tolerance of practical rationality’, despite instances of violently expressed intolerance. It reminds us that disturbance was not constant or evenly spread, and highlights the capacity of groups to adapt to change, and to reach calculated and workable accommodations on essential points. Concentration on conflict in all spheres in early modern Ireland obscures the extent to which conflict was avoided, and the ways in which diverse opin-ions could be put across in ostensibly peaceful ways. Of course, disagree-ment, and even hostility and sectarianism still existed, but could be placed secondary to the fact of close daily contact and, in particular, the necessity for economic interaction. Consider, to give one example, the Protestant set-tlers who had extensive dealings with their Catholic neighbours prior to their ejection in the 1640s from their businesses and lands.2 Such break-downs often transformed the landscape of the dead, just as they affected the mental and physical landscapes of the living. But it was always necessary to adjust to change. Indeed, death demanded rapid and decisive adjustments, since (highly corruptible) corpses do not easily fit in with any agenda. This study has therefore highlighted some of the symbolic and practical aspects of community interaction which often go unnoticed, but which were of the utmost importance to the everyday experience of contemporaries.

Indeed, in pointing up ways in which the history of death intersects with the history of Protestantism and Catholicism, this study has ultimately shed light on the perennial question of the impact of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the Irish context.3 It was still possible to work for the dead and to provide for one’s own death – to die in religious habit, thereby ensuring the patronage of a saint, to purchase prayers and masses, to hold month’s and year’s minds, to express aspects of religious faith on tombs and other memorials. Many continued to bury their Catholic dead on supposedly Protestant soil, staking a claim in hopes of its eventual return to Catholic ownership. Therefore questions of the resources and personnel of churches are only part of the story of religious changes, since there were

Conclusion 159

other aspects as well to people’s lived experiences of these changes. The posi-tion of the Catholic dead was little challenged in early modern Ireland, and this was one significant factor in the living’s disinclination to embrace Protestantism.4

A period of one hundred years is short in comparison with other histories of death, but is long compared with most studies of early modern Ireland, and is justified given the momentous event of that period. Much remains to be done, particularly to contextualise this study in terms of the events of the preceding and subsequent centuries. It is clear also that studies of specific events (for example, individual deaths and funerals) and locations (churches and cemeteries), as well as local and regional studies of particular phenom-ena and sources have the potential to elaborate upon many of the points raised here. There is, for example, much potential for greater co-operation between history and disciplines such as archaeology and folklore. The place of this study in terms of the religious history of early modern Ireland has been stressed throughout. However, the history of death also has implica-tions for the political history of the period, whose chroniclers, perhaps by reason of present realities, have tended to represent conflict in terms of mil-itary campaigns, strategies and battles, being reluctant to engage with the realities of violent and imposed deaths and the sometimes fatal conse-quences of low-level disputes and sectarianism. This point in particular has significance for histories of certain other European countries as well. Take, for example, the very homogeneous impression of society given by many studies of English death, despite the parallel prevalence of analyses of battles, executions and riotous behaviour, not to mention their complete omission of comparative studies examining more ‘peripheral’ areas ruled from London (Ireland included).

The landscape of death and the dead has changed much over the 350 years that separate us from the subjects of this book. In Ireland, as elsewhere in Europe and North America, the removal of death from the home and into hospitals and other institutions, the professionalisation of the funeral trade and the rise of the undertaker, the gradual movement of burial from churches and even churchyards, and corresponding causative and conse-quential changes in ‘attitudes’ have transformed our experiences.

Yet, when they stop to think about it, Irish people often draw attention to, and congratulate themselves on, the differences between their reactions to death, and those of the populations of other industrialised Western coun-tries. Huge numbers of people will still attend the funerals even of individ-uals they hardly know, or whom they have never met, in order to show solidarity with bereaved friends and acquaintances. The ‘removal’ of the remains of a deceased individual to the church on the day before the funeral often attracts an equal or greater number of participants. The communal aspect of funerals has been retained, as has their religious element, a fact that has led to some recent challenges to church ordinances regarding


aspects such as the delivery of eulogies about the deceased. There is little demand for secular or humanist funerals, or for disposal of remains outside of consecrated ground. The first of the Republic of Ireland’s three cremato-ria was built in 1963. All are concentrated in Dublin (at the moment their activities account for 5 per cent of funerals), and Northern Ireland’s one is in Belfast, so that burial remains the norm throughout most of the island.5

Despite such differences from northern European trends, however, it is clear that the main distinctive elements so often associated with Irish death – wakes, keening, banshees and so on – have almost totally disappeared, or have changed hugely in character. The vast range of other past folkloric beliefs and practices relating to the dead should, however, be mentioned, from calendar customs, particularly those connected with Samhain (Halloween), to the practices followed during the period while the corpse remained in the house and at the funeral, to beliefs in the magical and curative properties of the skin, hands, bones and nails of the dead, to ideas about death omens, ghosts and spirits from Purgatory.6 While little has been written about the develop-ment of funeral customs from the late seventeenth century on, it is clear that the main trend was the very gradual extension of control, particularly on the part of the Catholic Church, over popular practices. Though for a long period death and the preparation of corpses for burial remained very much a domestic activity in many places, the comprehensive transfer of such responsibilities into the hands of undertakers was finally effected in the later twentieth century, another factor influencing the demise of traditional practices. For certain groups, the practice of burial outside consecrated ground continued up until the 1960s, and there has been some recent discussion of and concern for preservation of the cillinigh which hold the remains of strangers and children, and mass graves, particularly those dating from the Great Famine of the 1840s. Many other sites on the landscape were associated with the named and unnamed dead, and supposed graves were carefully preserved along with sites associated with the fairies, until a decline in beliefs and changes in farming methods removed the rationale for conservation.7

The location of burial in general has changed as well, and investigation reveals some of the different types of burial grounds used in the interval. Sites centred on parish churches continued in use, and in many rural areas the renovation or rebuilding of Protestant churches on these sites con-tributed to widespread instances of uncontested cointerment of Catholics and Protestants on ostensibly Protestant sites (even at times when later ordi-nances forbid the attendance of Catholics at Protestant services). There are hints of tension as well, however, in Dublin particularly, where rising Catholic resentment against the payment of burial fees to Protestant parishes, and against restrictions on Catholic burial services was harnessed in the early nineteenth century by Daniel O’Connell in connection with his drive for Catholic emancipation.8 Problems like this, as well as familial

Conclusion 161

attachments, ensured that the burial grounds of the ancient monasteries held a strong attraction for Catholics. Meanwhile immigrant religious groups such as the Society of Friends (Quakers), Huguenots and the Jewish community established their own graveyards in or near the towns and cities where they were predominantly concentrated. Larger Presbyterian grave-yards were also established in the north of the country: Presbyterians located in more southern areas are likely to have practised cointerment to a greater degree. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Catholic religious orders also tended to establish private burial grounds, as did some of the country’s wealthier families, who also constructed private vaults and mausolea of varying degrees of elaboration both within graveyards and on private estates.9 Indeed, the reorganisation of Catholic parish boundaries and the tendency to build new churches without adjoining graveyards has, to some extent, turned them also into private burial grounds for their parish priests: a modern separation of the living and the dead.10 The privatisation of burial space has also extended to more humble graves, expressed in the familiar layout of defined burial plots. Perhaps largely because of the removal of burial from the vicinity of churches there has been widespread abandonment of previously cherished burial customs, such as the east–west orientation of graves.

Overcrowding in more traditional burial sites has led to the periodic open-ing (and, in turn, the closing) of new graveyards, some on a massive scale, particularly in urban areas. The nineteenth-century cemeteries of Glasnevin, Goldenbridge and Mount Jerome in Dublin might be mentioned in particu-lar.11 Separate sections in graveyards chart their gradual extension over time, the rapid filling of more recent plots indicating an extravagant use of space which will not long be sustainable. As many graveyards approach full capac-ity, rising land prices and expanding population (including a population of migrants with different religious and cultural backgrounds), particularly in urban areas, will inevitably have an impact on the disposal of the dead.

Commemoration too has changed in character in the last few centuries. While elaborate tombs influenced by European and especially English fash-ions continued to be commissioned by the wealthy, especially in the eigh-teenth and nineteenth centuries, the freestanding gravestone is now practically the only type of funerary monument created.12 The modest gravestones of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many of whose iconography reflects the pious concerns of the time, gradually gave way to a wider range of monuments, a change in part made possible by new production methods. The rise of nationalist consciousness, and the fashion for ‘Celtic’ themes (particularly the high cross) is evident everywhere.13

Indeed, the changing patronage and meaning of gravestones will doubtless prove invaluable in future investigations of the concerns of Catholic popu-lation in particular during this later period. Some aspects of the symbolism of non-funerary monumental and other forms of commemoration of


prominent individuals involved in the nationalist cause and certain mythol-ogised events (such as the 1798 rebellion) have already yielded important insights into the mobilisation of a nationalist ideology that was closely tied to Catholicism.14 More recently, the murals of Belfast produced by both sides of the political divide and which are often commemorative in nature have become familiar to international television audiences.15

This point leads us to another oft-cited aspect to Irish reactions to death, burial and commemoration. This is the continued mobilisation of the recent and the historic dead for political and religious, even sectarian, purposes.16

In the treatment and commemoration of these dead, many aspects of the manipulation of the dead traced in this study continue to be important. So, for example, statesmen are still honoured by state funerals (for example, that in 2000 of former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, in Cork). We see the deaths of patriot-‘martyrs’ (Wolfe Tone, republicans of 1916–23, Bobby Sands, to take examples from nationalist tradition) recounted and mythologised in attempts to discredit opponents. Their ghosts return, metaphorically, to accuse, their graves and monuments becoming pilgrimage-sites for their self-styled political ‘descendants’ (and disinterment and reburial, under the supervision of the National Graves Association, continue to provide new ‘sacred’ places).17 The dead continue to be the focus of opposing interpreta-tions, and disagreement persists over their significance and their legacies as seen, for example, in the different ceremonies held to commemorate the same dead of 1916 by diverse political parties, and recent tussles over the ownership of Michael Collins.18 Further, the remembering of certain groups of dead has as its corollary the forgetting of others, so that those dead who do not fit into prevailing interpretations are as quickly marginalised and for-gotten – even violently done away with – as with the Irish casualties of the World Wars, and the fate of many of the statues of British monarchs and heroes of Empire.19

Ireland has been construed as a place where the dead are ever-present, and the Irish as a people with a ‘death fixation’, a ‘funerary culture’.20 Such inter-pretations overstate the case. Though the communal Irish reaction to death may be unusual, colourful and commendable, I doubt that psychologists or sociologists would say that Irish people cope with death any better than any other population. And while some groups of the dead continue to be harnessed as symbols to the advantage of political factions, perhaps this indicates more than anything the uses to which the dead can be put and, ultimately, that the history of death is relevant to all ages, holding implica-tions for our understanding of the present as well as of the past.

Notes

1 Introduction

1 Mems Dead, 1, p. 328. The monument gives the year 1647 (probably old-style dating).

2 See especially A. van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, trans. M. B. Vizedom and G. L. Caffee (London, 1960 [1908]); R. Hertz, Death and the Right Hand, trans. R. and C. Needham (London, 1960 [1907]); J. Goody, Death, Property and the Ancestors (Stanford, 1962); G. Gorer, Death, Grief and Mourning in Contemporary Britain (1963); E. Kübler-Ross, On Death and Dying (New York, 1969); J. Mitford, The American Way of Death (New York, 1963); F. Lebrun, Les Hommes et la Mort en Anjou aux 17e et 18e Siècles (Paris, 1971); M. Vovelle, ‘Les attitudes devant la mort: problémes de méth-ode, approches et lectures difféntes’, and other essays in Annales, 31(1) (1976); Ideologies and Mentalities , trans. E. O’Flaherty (Cambridge, 1990 [1982]).

3 P. Ariès, The Hour of Our Death, trans. H. Weaver (Oxford, 1991 [1979]); Western Attitudes Towards Death from the Middle Ages to the Present (London, 1976 [1974]); Images of Man and Death (Cambridge, Mass., 1985). For discussions of Ariès and others, see A. Mitchell, ‘Philippe Ariès and the French Way of Death’, French Historical Studies, 10 (1978), pp. 684–95; S. Wilson, ‘Death and the Social Historians: Some Recent Books in French and English’, Social History, 5 (1980), pp. 435–51; J. MacManners, ‘Death and the French Historians’, in J. Whaley, Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death (London, 1981), pp. 106–30; V. Harding, ‘Research Priorities: an Historian’s Perspective’, in M. Cox (ed.), Grave Concerns: Death and Burial in England 1700–1850 (York, 1998), pp. 205–12; C. M. Koslofsky, The Reformation of the Dead: Death and Ritual in Early Modern Germany, 1450–1700 (London, 2000), chapter 1.

4 For example, R. Houlbrooke (ed.), Death, Ritual and Bereavement (London, 1989); Death, Religion and the Family in England, 1480–1750 (Oxford, 1998); S. Bassett, Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead 100–1600 (Leicester, 1992); N. Llewellyn, The Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death Ritual (London, 1991); D. Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997); C. Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England 1066–1550 (London, 1997); Whaley, Mirrors of Mortality; J. Woodward, The Theatre of Death: the Ritual Management of Royal Funerals in Renaissance England 1570–1625 (Woodbridge, 1997); P. Jupp and C. Gittings, Death in England: an Illustrated History (Manchester, 1999).

5 See M. Parker Pearson, The Archaeology of Death and Burial (Stroud, 1999), also S. Tarlow, Bereavement and Commemoration: an Archaeology of Mortality (Oxford, 1999); J. Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk before 1850: an Archaeology of Commemoration (Oxford, 2000), for recent overviews of developments in the archaeology of death. For anthropology, R. Huntington and P. Metcalf, Celebrations of Death: the Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (Cambridge, 1979); M. Bloch and J. Parry (eds), Death and the Regeneration of Life (Cambridge, 1982); L. J. Taylor, ‘Introduction: the Uses of Death in Europe’, Anthropological Quarterly, 62 (4) (1989), pp. 149–54. For sociology, see work by G. Howarth, P. Jupp, T. Walter, C. Seale and others, and the journals Death Studies and Mortality. For Ireland, see

163


C. Keane (ed.), Death and Dying (Cork and Dublin, 1995). For a comparative perspective, see S. C. Humphreys, The Family, Women and Death: Comparative Studies (Ann Arbor, 1993).

6 See E. Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997) for a review of the theory and practice of ritual in contemporary Europe.

7 The main exceptions are S. L. Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland 900–1500 (Dublin, 1999) and R. Gillespie, ‘Funerals and Society in Early Seventeenth Century Ireland’, JRSAI, 115 (1985), pp. 86–91; ‘Irish Funeral Monuments and Social Change 1500–1700: Perceptions of Death’, in Gillespie and B. P. Kennedy (eds), Ireland Art into History (Dublin, 1994), pp. 155–68.

8 Both of these terms are problematic, useful only as approximate distinguishing labels. The ‘Old English’ (or, more problematically, ‘Anglo-Irish’ or ‘Gaill’) were descendants of Norman and subsequent settlers, largely English-speaking or bilingual in Irish and English. They followed English law and custom and were based mainly in and around the larger towns and in parts of the provinces of Leinster and Munster. ‘Gaelic’ (‘Old’) Irish families predominated in the rest of the island, in highly fragmented, militarised and unstable lordships where the crown had little or no practical influence. They were Irish-speaking and subject to traditional law and customs. The terms cannot be construed as being mutu-ally exclusive, as they conceal a considerable amount of interaction, interhabi-tation and intermarriage, as well as a general ‘gaelicisation’ prior to the sixteenth century. Both groups largely retained their Catholicism following the Reformation. ‘New English’ refers to the later settlers, most of whom were adher-ents of the Church of England. A significant group of Scots Presbyterians migrated to Ulster, and a number of English Catholics also seem to have sought refuge from religious laws in Ireland. For overviews of debates on these terms, see K. Nicholls, ‘Worlds Apart? The Ellis Two-Nation Theory on Late Medieval Ireland’, History Ireland, 7 (2) (1999), pp. 22–6; V. Carey, ‘“Neither good English nor good Irish”: Bi-lingualism and Identity Formation in Sixteenth-century Ireland’, in H. Morgan (ed.), Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 45–61. See also S. G. Ellis, Tudor Ireland: Crown, Community and the Conflict of Cultures 1470–1603 (London, 1985); Ireland in the Age of the Tudors 1447–1603 (London, 1999).

9 Plantation involved the confiscation of large tracts of land and their allocation to new owners, often in reward for military or other government service, on the understanding that they would in turn be leased to loyal subjects (this did not necessarily work in practice). The main plantations occurred in Laois/Offaly, Munster and Ulster. See especially N. Canny, Making Ireland British, 1580–1650 (Oxford, 2001).

10 For overviews, see C. Lennon, Sixteenth Century Ireland: the Incomplete Conquest (Dublin, 1994); B. Fitzpatrick, Seventeenth Century Ireland: the War of Religions (Dublin, 1998); T. W. Moody. F. X. Martin and F. J. Byrne (eds), New History of Ireland III: Early Modern Ireland, 1534–1641 (Oxford, 1976); C. Brady and R. Gillespie, Natives and Newcomers: the Making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534–1641 (Dublin, 1986); N. Canny, From Reformation to Restoration: Ireland, 1534–1660 (Dublin, 1987); Making Ireland British; Ellis, Tudor Ireland; Ireland in the Age of the Tudors; R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (London, 1988); (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland (Oxford, 1989); R. Gillespie, The Transformation of the Irish Economy 1550–1700 (Dublin, 1998).

Notes 165

11 See A. Ford, ‘“Standing One’s Ground”: Religion, Polemic and Irish History since the Reformation’, in Ford, J. McGuire and K. Milne (eds), As by Law Established: the Church of Ireland since the Reformation (Dublin, 1995), pp. 1–14.

12 See especially N. Canny, ‘Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland: Une Question Mal Posée’, JEH, 30 (1979); K. Bottigsheimer, ‘The Failure of the Reformation in Ireland: Une Question Bien Poseé’, JEH, 36 (1985); S. G. Ellis, ‘Economic Problems of the Church: Why the Reformation Failed in Ireland’, JEH, 41 (1990); A. Ford, The Protestant Reformation in Ireland 1590–1641 (Dublin, 1997); J. Leichty, ‘The Popular Reformation Comes to Ireland: the Case of John Walker and the Foundation of the Church of God, 1804’, in R. V. Comerford et al. (eds), Religion, Conflict and Coexistence (Dublin, 1990); S. Meigs, The Reformations in Ireland: Tradition and Confessionalism, 1400–1690 (Dublin, 1997); J. McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester: Lord Deputy of Ireland 1605–16 (Belfast, 1998), especially chapter 7; B. Bradshaw, ‘The Edwardian Reformation in Ireland’, Archivium Hibernicum, 34 (1977); ‘Sword, Word and Strategy in the Reformation in Ireland’, The Historical Journal, 21 (3) (1978); ‘The Reformation in the Cities: Cork, Limerick and Galway, 1534–1603’, in J. Bradley (ed.), Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland (Kilkenny, 1988); ‘The English Reformation and Identity Formation in Wales and Ireland’, in Bradshaw and P. Roberts (eds), British Consciousness and Identity: the Making of Britain, 1533–1707 (Cambridge, 1998); J. Murray, ‘The Church of Ireland: a Critical Bibliography, 1536–1992. Part I: 1536–1603’, IHS, 28 (1993); ‘The Diocese of Dublin in the Sixteenth Century: Clerical Opposition and the Failure of the Reformation’, in J. Kelly and D. Keogh, History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Dublin, 2000); H. A. Jefferies, ‘The Early Tudor Reformations in the Irish Pale’, JEH, 52 (2001).

13 R. Gillespie, Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland (Manchester, 1997).

2 Dying Well

1 See Humphreys, Family, Women and Death, p. 175. 2 Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 106–38; R. Chartier, ‘Les arts de mourir,

1450–1600’, Annales, 31(1) (1976), pp. 51–75; E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (London, 1992), pp. 313–27; N. L. Beaty, The Craft of Dying: a Study in the Literary Tradition of the Ars Moriendi in England (New Haven, 1970); T. S. Boase, Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment and Remembrance (London, 1972); P. Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (New York, 1996).

3 For the good death in England, see L. McCray Beier, ‘The Good Death in Seventeenth Century England’, in Houlbrooke, Death, Ritual and Bereavement, pp. 43–60; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 389–93; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 57–219. For Germany, S. Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual: an Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (London and New York, 1997), pp. 138–70; J. Bepler, Women in German Funeral Sermons: Models of Virtue or Slice of Life?’, German Life and Letters, 44 (5) (1991), pp. 392–403; Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead. For Europe more generally J. Delumeau, Sin and Fear: the Emergence of a Western Guilt Culture trans. E. Nicholson (New York, 1990); Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, pp. 44–5.

4 See Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland. 5 J. A. Glynn, ‘Knockmoy Abbey, County Galway’, JRSAI, 34 (1904), p. 242. 6 A. Dooley, ‘Maelmhuire Ó Leannáin’s Peacach ar Síol ’nar Sluaghaibh: Source and

Content’, Celtica, 17 (1985), pp. 145–7.


7 O. Bergin, Irish Bardic Poetry, ed. D. Greene, F. Kelly (Dublin, 1974), p. 276. 8 Cathal Ó Háinle, ‘Congaibh ort, a Mhacaoimh Mná (DG 103): Content and

Form’, Éigse, 32 (2000), pp. 47–58; T. Ó Rathile, Dánta Grádha (Cork, 1976 [1925]), pp.131–43; S. Céitinn, Trí bior-ghaoithe an bháis, ed. R. Atkinson (Dublin, 1890).

9 NAI, RC 5/1–30 and RC 10/1–12 are the main collections Irish will transcripts, otherwise the researcher must rely on scattered surviving and published wills, and on later abstracts, which often preserve only selected information. C. O’Scea, ‘The Devotional World of the Irish Catholic Exile in Early-modern Galicia, 1598–1666’, in T. O’Connor (ed.), The Irish in Europe 1580–1815 (Dublin, 2001), pp. 27–48, deals with the wills of Irish emigrants to Spain.

10 On the potential and problems of wills, and on will-making more generally, see Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, pp. 17, 20, 92; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 81–146; M. Spufford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 319–35; G. H. Williams, ‘Some Notes on Burial Customs in Seventeenth Century Caernarfonshire’, Folklife, 17 (1979), p. 60; ‘Probate Records: a Source for Folk Life Studies’, Folklife 20 (1981–2), p. 7; W. J. Pugh, ‘Catholics, Protestants, and Testamentary Charity in Seventeenth-Century Lyon and Nimes’, French Historical Studies, 11 (1980), pp. 479–502; S. Coppel, ‘Willmaking on the Deathbed’, Local Population Studies, 39 (1988), pp. 37–45; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 86–94; C. Burgess, ‘Late Medieval Wills and Pious Convention; Testamentary Evidence Reconsidered’, in M. Hicks (ed.), Profit, Piety and the Professions in Later Medieval Europe (Gloucester, 1990), pp. 14–33; Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 188–93; D. Beaver, ‘“Sown in dishonour, raised in glory”: Death, Ritual and Social Organization in Northern Gloucestershire, 1590–1690’, Social History, 17 (1992), pp. 392–401; Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 1590–1690 (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1998), chapter 3; A. D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1995), pp. 21–5; C. M. N. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory: the Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth Century Spain (Cambridge, 1995), especially pp. 34–43; D. Hickman, ‘From Catholic to Protestant: the Changing Meaning of Testamentary Religious Provisions in Elizabethan London’, in N. Tyacke (ed.), England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800 (London, 1998), pp. 117–39.

11 E. Barry, ‘Barrymore’, JCHAS, 7 (1901), pp. 77–9. 12 J. Ainsworth (ed.), The Inchiquin Manuscripts (IMC, Dublin, 1961), pp. 505–6. 13 Houlbrooke, ‘Death, Church and the Family’, pp. 28–33; Beaver, ‘“Sown in

dishonour, raised in glory”’, pp. 392–401. 14 J. J. Fitzgerald, ‘A Cork Will of 1583’, JCHAS, 49 (1944), p. 31. 15 NAI RC 5/4, f. 276; RC 5/5, f. 457. 16 NAI, RC 5/19, f. 2. 17 W. Carrigan, History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory (4 vols, Dublin, 1905),

2, p. 205. 18 NAI, RC 5/8, ff. 75, 84. Dillon also passed over his eldest son, who was disabled

(f. 79). 19 NAI, RC 5/18, f. 442. 20 ’Proceedings’, JRSAI, 15 (1879–82), pp. 269–73. 21 Llewellyn, Art of Death, p. 95; M. Abbott, Life Cycles in England 1560–1720: Cradle

to Grave (London and New York, 1996), p. 43. Houlbrooke suggests that ‘the growth of private rites of commemoration and the increasing popularity of personal mementoes of the dead such as rings and lockets’ stemmed in part from the ‘gap left by the abolition of Catholic intercessory rites’. This is clearly

Notes 167

over-simplistic in the Irish case. Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 254. One (undated) ring of this type is illustrated in JCHAS, 16 (1911), p. 179.

22 R. Hayes, ‘Some Old Limerick Wills’, NMAJ, 1 (1936–9), p. 164. Clearly, as in England, it was not appropriate to treat recipients of unequal status equally. Llewellyn, Art of Death, p. 86.

23 W. FitzGerald, ‘Prerogative Will of Lisagh O’Connor’, JKAS, 6 (1909–11), p. 243. 24 NAI, RC 5/5, f. 73. 25 NAI, RC 5/4, f. 99. 26 NAI, RC 5/21, f. 79. 27 J. F. Ainsworth and E. MacLysaght, ‘Survey of Documents in Private Keeping:

Second Series’, Anal. Hib., 20 (1958), p. 229. 28 NAI, RC 5/2, ff. 502–3. 29 NAI, RC 5/8, f. 392. This testator also left six pounds for rings with his arms for

his cousins Nicholas and David Dowdall. It was not unusual for household uten-sils to be inscribed with such messages: the ‘Kearney mortar’ was decorated with small crosses, the initials of its owners, the letters I.H.S. (for ‘Jesus’), and the leg-end ‘In God is all my trust’. R. Sainthill, An Olla Podrida, or Scraps, Numismatic, Antiquarian and Literary (2 volumes, London, 1853), 2, pp. 437–8.

30 See S. T Strocchia, ‘Remembering the Family: Women, Kin, and Commemorative Masses in Renaissance Florence’, Renaissance Quarterly, 42 (1989), pp. 635–54; J. S. W. Helt, ‘Women, Memory and Will-making in Elizabethan England’, in B. Gordon and P. Marshall, The Place of the Dead (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 188–205.

31 G. Kew, The Irish Sections of Fynes Moryson’s Unpublished Itinerary (Dublin, 1998), pp. 109–10; Anal. Hib., 37 (1998), pp. 109–110.

32 A. Laurence, ‘The Cradle to the Grave: English Observations of Irish Social Customs in the Seventeenth Century’, Seventeenth Century, 3 (1988), pp. 78–9.

33 W. M. Hennessy (ed.), The Annals of Loch Cé (2 volumes, London, 1871), 2, p. 401. 34 Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 106–9; Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 33–47. 35 AFM, 3, p. 2219. 36 AFM, 3, p. 2223. 37 AFM, 3, pp. 2235–7. 38 Annals of Loch Cé, 2, pp. 517–19; B. Cunningham and R. Gillespie, ‘Englishmen

in Sixteenth-Century Irish Annals’, Ir. Econ. Soc. Hist, 17 (1990), p. 21. 39 On the techniques of ‘professional managers of souls’, see R. C. Trexler, Public Life

in Renaissance Florence (New York and London, 1980), chapter 7. 40 L. F. Renehan, Collections on Irish Church History (Dublin, 1861), p. 435. 41 ‘Letter sent in 1617 from the East Munster (Ormond) Residence of the Jesuits’,

JWSEAS, 6 (1900), p. 118. Several other parts of this letter emphasise the sacra-ments – pp. 104, 107, 109, 116–22.

42 J. White, ‘The Irish Catholics After the Death of Queen Elizabeth’, Duffy’s Irish Magazine (November 1848), p. 271.

43 ‘Letter sent in 1617’, pp. 102–3. 44 R. Houlbrooke, ‘The Puritan Death-bed, c.1560-c.1660’, in C. Durston and J. Eales

(eds), The Culture of English Puritanism 1560–1700 (London, 1996), p. 124; Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 157–82; M. C. Cross, ‘The Third Earl of Huntingdon’s Death-bed: a Calvinist Example of the Ars Moriendi’, Northern History, 21 (1985), pp. 80–107. In Lutheran Germany the pastor ‘was virtually indispensable’. Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, pp. 162–70.

45 Lismore Papers, II, iii, p. 80, also p. 91. 46 C. J. (ed.), The Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton (Surtees Society, 62, 1875),

pp. 19–26.


47 NLI Ms. 16,085, ff. 85, 143. 48 T. Wharton Jones (ed.), A True Relation of the Life and Death of William Bedell, Lord

Bishop of Kilmore in Ireland (Camden Society, 1872), pp. 78–80. The same text (1 Cor. 3:22) is referred to by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh in a letter (1630) which mentions a recent illness during which he found himself near death. C. McNeill (ed.), The Tanner Letters: Original Documents and Notices of Irish Affairs in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Dublin, 1943), p. 92.

49 Mems Dead, 1, p. 328. 50 Houlbrooke, ‘The Puritan Death-bed’, pp. 140–2; Death, Religion and the Family,

pp. 185–8; ‘Death in Childhood: the Practice of the “Good Death” in James Janeway’s A Token for Children’, in A. Fletcher and S. Hussey (eds), Childhood in Question: Children, Parents and the State (Manchester, 1999), pp. 37–56; Abbott, Life Cycles in England, pp. 31–2, 64–5; M. E. Lamb, ‘The Countess of Pembroke and the Art of Dying’, in M. B. Rose (ed.), Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Literary and Historical Perspectives (Syracuse, 1986), pp. 207–26. For Germany, Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, pp. 160–2; Bepler, ‘Women in German Funeral Sermons’.

51 C. Moore, ‘A Side-Light on Irish Clerical Life in the Seventeenth Century’, JCHAS, 12 (1906), p. 89; M. Hickson, Ireland in the Seventeenth Century or the Irish Massacres of 1641–2 (2 volumes, London, 1884), 2, p. 385.

52 Glasgow University Library, Ms. Murray 70, ff. 171–87; J. S. Reid, History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (Belfast, 1867), 1, pp. 210–11.

53 Houlbrooke, ‘The Puritan Death-bed’, pp. 122–44; Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 159–66, 176–7.

54 W. McD., ‘The Irish Ecclesiastical Colleges Since the Reformation’, IER, 10 (1874), p. 462; E. Hogan, Ibernia Ignatiana seu Ibernorum Societatis Iesu Patrum Monumenta (Dublin, 1880), p. 240.

55 McD., ‘Irish Ecclesiastical Colleges’, pp. 459–61. 56 M. Questier, Conversion, Politics and Religion in England, 1580–1525 (Cambridge,

1996), especially pp. 191–200. 57 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, p. 81; P. F. Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense (3 vol-

umes, Dublin, 1874), 1, pp. 116–17; W. Healy, History and Antiquities of Kilkenny (Kilkenny, 1893), pp. 134–40.

58 D. Edwards, ‘The Ormond Lordship in County Kilkenny, 1515–1642’ (unpub-lished PhD thesis, TCD, 1998); D. Rothe, The Analecta of David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory, ed. P. F. Moran (Dublin, 1884), pp. 44–5; D. O’Daly, The Rise, Increase and Exit of the Geraldines and their Persecution after their Fall, trans. C. P. Meehan (Dublin, 1878), p. 186.

59 E. Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen of the Sixteenth Century (Dublin, 1894), pp. 417, 483, 484–6.

60 Kew, Fynes Moryson’s Unpublished Itinerary, p. 92. See Questier, Conversion, pp. 193–9. 61 P. H. Hore, History of the Town and County of Wexford (6 volumes, London,

1911), 6, p. 309; Cal. S. P. Ire. 1647–1660, p. 300; Ford, Protestant Reformation, p. 118.

62 Barnaby Rich claimed that while Walsh attended church, his wife was Catholic and he was ‘suspected to be a papyst and a secret frend to assyst popery’. C. L. Falkiner, ‘Barnaby Rich’s “Remembrances of the State of Ireland, 1612”’, PRIA, 26 (1906), p. 131.

63 ‘Documents Relating to the History of Waterford’, JWSEAS, 8 (1903), p. 108; NLI Ms. 643, ff. 15v-16; Rothe, Analecta, p. 45; C. Lennon, ‘Political Thought of Irish Counter-Reformation Churchmen: the Testimony of the “Analecta” of Bishop

Notes 169

David Rothe’, in Morgan, Political Ideology in Ireland, p. 195. On the conversions of Walsh and Ormond see P. J. Corish, The Irish Catholic Experience: a Historical Survey (Dublin, 1985), p. 89; D. O’Sullivan, ‘The Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary’s de Fonte Vivo, Diocese of Ross, Co. Cork’, JCHAS, 49 (1944), p. 4.

64 NLI Ms. 643, ff. 15v-16; Rothe, Analecta, p. 44; Lennon, ‘Political Thought’, p. 195. 65 SPI 63/257, 45; Cal. S. P. Ire. 1633–1641, pp. 227–8, 304. On the Sextons, see my

‘A Trusty and Wellbeloved Servant: the Career and Disinterment of Edmond Sexton of Limerick, d.1554’, Arch. Hib. (2002); C. Lennon, An Irish Prisoner of Conscience in the Tudor Era: Archbishop Richard Creagh of Armagh, 1523–86 (Dublin, 2000); The Urban Patriciates of Early Modern Ireland: a Case-study of Limerick (Maynooth, 1999).

66 M. Hartry, Triumphalia Chronologigica Monasterii Sanctae Crucis in Hibernia, ed. D. Murphy (Dublin, 1895), pp. 289–91.

67 Triumphalia, pp. 271–3; D. Weinstein and R. M. Bell, Saints and Society: the Two Worlds of Western Christendom 1000–1700 (Chicago, 1982), p. 147.

68 It is impossible fully to list the literature here. See my ‘Adored for Saints: Catholic Martyrdom in Ireland c.1560–1655’, Journal of Early Modern History, 5 (2001), pp. 128–59; A. Ford, ‘Martyrdom, History and Memory in Early Modern Ireland’, in I. McBride (ed.), History and Memory in Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2001), pp. 43–66; C. Lennon, ‘Taking Sides: the Emergence of Irish Catholic Ideology’, in V. Carey and U. Lotz-Heumann, Taking Sides: Essays in Honour of Karl Bottigheimer (forth-coming, 2002). On Europe see B. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge Mass and London, 1999).

69 P. F. Moran, Historical Sketch of the Persecutions Suffered by the Catholics of Ireland (Dublin, 1907), pp. 118–19; M. O’Reilly, Memorials of Those who Suffered for the Catholic Faith in Ireland (London, 1868), p. 228.

70 Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, p. 157. 71 Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 47–50. 72 On plague and disease, see A. Wear, ‘Medicine in Early Modern Europe,

1500–1700’, in L. I. Conrad et al., The Western Medical Tradition 800BC to AD1800 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 215–50; A. Cunningham and O. P. Grell, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 274–95.

73 J. T. Gilbert, Calendar of the Ancient Records of Dublin (Dublin, 1891–2), 2, pp. 99, 111, 304; 3, pp. 501, 536–8.

74 J. Ainsworth (ed.), ‘Corporation Book of the Irishtown of Kilkenny 1537–1628’, Anal. Hib., 28 (1978), p. 54.

75 J. G. A. Prim, ‘Memorials of the Family of Langton, of Kilkenny’, JRSAI, 8 (1864–66), p. 89.

76 On plague and burial in England, see D. Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year (Harmondsworth, 1986 [1722]), pp. 61–2, 77–81, 240–3; F. P. Wilson, The Plague in Shakespeare’s London (Oxford, 1999 [1927]), pp. 40–8; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 78–80; P. Slack, The Impact of Plague in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1985).

77 Prim, ‘Memorials of the Family of Langton’, pp. 93, 95. 78 J. Mills (ed.), The Registers of St. John, Dublin 1619–1699 (Dublin, 1906), p. 266. 79 J. T. Gilbert (ed.), ‘Statute Book of the Town of Galway, A.D.1485–1710’, HMC

Tenth Report, Part V (London, 1885), p. 500. 80 AFM, 3, p. 1681. 81 On providence, M. Caball, ‘Providence and Exile in Early Seventeenth Century

Ireland’, IHS, 29 (1994), pp. 174–88; Gillespie, Devoted People.


82 E. R. McC. Dix, ‘List of 17th and 18th Century Cork-Printed Books’, JCHAS, 6 (1901), p. 173.

83 Quoted in Moran, Historical Sketch, p. 171. 84 G. D. Burtchaell and J. M. Rigg (eds), Report on Franciscan Manuscripts (HMC,

Dublin, 1906), p. 80. 85 J. Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, ed. M. Kelly (3 volumes, Dublin, 1848–51), 3,

p. 101. 86 See Gillespie, Devoted People, p. 44. 87 N. Barnard, Some Memorials of the Life and Penitent Death of Dr. John Atherton,

Bishop of Waterford in Ireland (London, n/d); The Penitent Death of a Woefull Sinner or the Penitent Death of John Atherton Executed at Dublin the 5 of December 1640 (Dublin, 1641). See A. Clarke, ‘The Atherton Files’, Decies, 11 (1979), pp. 45–54.

88 On execution and martyrdom, see J. A. Sharpe, ‘“Last Dying Speeches”: Religion, Ideology and Public Execution in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past and Present, 107 (1985), pp. 144–66; D. Nicholls, ‘The Theatre of Martyrdom in the French Reformation’, Past and Present, 121 (1989), pp. 49–73; R. McGowen, ‘The Body and Punishment in Eighteenth-Century England’, Journal of Modern History, 59 (1987), pp. 651–79; T. W. Laqueur, ‘Crowds, Carnival and the State in English Executions, 1604–1868’, in A. Beier, D. Cannadine and J. Rosenheim (eds.), The First Modern Society: Essays on English History (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 305–55; V. A. C Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770–1868 (Oxford, 1994); P. Lake and M. Questier, ‘Agency, Appropriation and Rhetoric Under the Gallows: Puritans, Romanists and the State in Early Modern England’, Past and Present, 153 (1995), pp. 64–107; S. D. Amussen, ‘Punishment, Discipline, and Power: the Social Meanings of Violence in Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies, 34 (1995), pp. 1–34; Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence, pp. 197–211; L. Puppi, Torment in Art: Pain, Violence and Martyrdom (New York, 1991).

89 D. Edwards, ‘Beyond Reform: Martial Law and the Tudor Reconquest of Ireland’, History Ireland, 5 (2) (1997), pp. 16–21; ‘Ideology and Experience: Spenser’s View and Martial Law in Ireland’, in Morgan, Political Ideology in Ireland, pp. 127–57; J. Bellamy, The Tudor Law of Treason: an Introduction (London, 1979), pp. 228–35.

90 See W. Harrison, Elizabethan England, ed. F. J. Furnivall (London, n/d), pp. 237–47. 91 GO Ms. 66, f. 21. 92 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, p. 18; Cal. Carew Mss. 1578–1588, p. 144. This

document describes executions throughout the south (pp. 140–5). 93 Hartry, Triumphalia, pp. 135, 155. On the pardoning of those who revived from

execution, see R. C. Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion: Social Ideals and Death Rituals in the Later Middle Ages’, in Whaley, Mirrors of Mortality, pp. 49–50; J. Hanska, ‘The Hanging of William Cragh: Anatomy of a Miracle’, Journal of Medieval History, 27 (2001), pp. 121–38; Abbott, Life Cycles in England, pp. 29–30. The idea of placing an offering in the mouth may be related to a medieval cus-tom of ‘putting a penny in [a] dead person’s mouth to give to St. Peter’. Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 343. See also van Gennep, Rites of Passage, p. 154.

94 Lismore Papers, I, i, pp. 178, 205; ii, pp. 237, 253; iii, p. 275; II, v, p. 242. 95 S. C. Lomas (ed.), Report on the Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont (HMC, London,

1905), 1, pp. 11–12, 15. 96 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1633–36, pp. 26–31.

Notes 171

97 On the depositions as evidence, see A. Clarke, ‘The 1641 Depositions’, in P. Fox (ed.), Treasures of the Library (Dublin, 1986), pp. 111–22. N. Canny, ‘Migration and Opportunity: Britain, Ireland and the New World’, Ir. Econ. Soc. Hist., 12 (1985), pp. 7–32; R. Gillespie, ‘Migration and Opportunity: a Comment’, Ir. Econ. Soc. Hist., 13 (1986), pp. 90–5; N. Canny, ‘A Reply’, Ir. Econ, Soc. Hist., 13 (1986), pp. 96–100; M. Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Migration and Opportunity: a Further Comment’, Ir. Econ. Soc. Hist., 14 (1987), pp. 59–61; ‘The Ulster Rising of 1641, and the Depositions’, IHS, 21 (1978), pp. 144–67. N. Canny, ‘The 1641 Depositions: a Source for Social and Cultural History’, History Ireland, 1 (1993); ‘The 1641 Depositions as a Source for the Writing of Social History: County Cork as a Case Study’, in P. O’Flanagan and N. Buttimer (eds), Cork: History and Society (Dublin, 1993), pp. 249–307; Kingdom and Colony: Ireland in the Atlantic World 1560–1800 (Baltimore and London, 1988), pp. 62–102; Making Ireland British, chapter 8.

98 R. Clifton, ‘“An Indiscriminate Blackness”? Massacre, Counter-Massacre, and Ethnic Cleansing in Ireland, 1640–1660’, in M. Levene and P. Roberts (eds), The Massacre in History (New York and Oxford, 1999), pp. 107–26.

99 T. Fitzpatrick, The Bloody Bridge and Other Papers Relating to the Insurrection of 1641 (Dublin, 1903), pp. 89, 138. During Cahir O’Doherty’s rebellion, certain old women near Newry were executed for supposedly eating children. J. K. O’Doherty, ‘Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s Rebellion: Its Causes and Consequences’, IER, 4th ser. 8 (1900), pp. 325–6. Writers from Strabo and Cambrensis on had alleged instances of cannibalism amongst the Irish. Keating found it necessary to refute such claims. S. Céitinn (G. Keating), Fóras Feasa ar Éirinn (2 volumes, Dublin, 1982), 1, p. 9.

100 M. MacDonald and T. Murphy, Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1994); A. Murray, Suicide in the Middle Ages: I The Violent against Themselves (Oxford, 1998); Suicide in the Middle Ages: II The Curse on Self-Murder (Oxford, 2000).

101 Lismore Papers, I, i, p. 48; ii, p. 90; iv, p. 109. 102 The Irish Fiants of the Tudor Sovereigns (4 volumes, Dublin, 1994), 3, no. 6002. 103 McNeill, The Tanner Letters, p. 1. 104 J. Mockler, ‘The City of Waterford in the Seventeenth Century’, JWSEAS, 6

(1900). 105 Franciscan Mss, pp. 98–9; B. Jennings (ed.), Wadding Papers 1614–38 (IMC,

Dublin, 1953), pp. 238–9. 106 NLI Ms. 16,085, ff. 51–2, 54. 107 On death at sea, see T. Pollard, ‘The Drowned and the Saved: Archaeological

Perspectives on the Sea as Grave’, in J. Downes and Pollard (eds), The Loved Body’s Corruption: Archaeological Contributions to the Study of Human Mortality (Glasgow, 1999), pp. 30–51.

108 NAI, RC 5/23, f. 60. 109 NAI, RC 5/5, f. 527. 110 NAI, RC 5/16, f. 264. 111 F. Pollock and F. W. Maitland, The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward

I (2 volumes, Cambridge, 1968), 2, p. 473. 112 Lismore Papers, I, i, p. 241; ii, pp. 84, 222. 113 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1633–36, pp. 72–3. 114 See Delumeau, Sin and Fear, p. 61. 115 W. McD., ‘Irish Ecclesiastical Colleges Since the Reformation’, IER, 10 (1874),

p. 202.


116 Quoted in D. Murphy, Our Martyrs: a Record of those who Suffered for the Catholic Faith Under the Penal Laws (Dublin, 1896), pp. 313–14.

117 R. Walsh, ‘Miscellaneous Documents: A Letter about the Massacre in Cashel Cathedral’, Arch. Hib., 6 (1917), p. 73, translated in D. Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland (Dublin, 1883), p. 391.

118 Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, 3, p. 101. 119 O’Daly, Rise, Increase and Exit, p. 205; J. O’Heyne, The Irish Dominicans of the

Seventeenth Century, ed. A. Coleman (Dundalk, 1902), p. 85. 120 M. Comerford, Collections Relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin (Dublin,

1883), pp. 30–5; T. S. Flynn, The Irish Dominicans, 1536–1641 (Dublin, 1993), pp. 166–80.

121 H. Fenning, ‘Brevis et Summaria Relatio: an Unpublished Account of Dominican Martyrs and Exiles, 1656’, Collectanea Hibernica, 34–5 (1992–3), p. 45.

122 TCD Mss 809–40, ‘1641 Depositions’: Ms. 813, f. 307. 123 Hickson, Ireland, 2, pp. 37–8. 124 MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls, p. 60. 125 See M. Gaskill, ‘Reporting Murder: Fiction in the Archives in Early Modern

England’, Social History, 23 (1998), pp. 1–30. 126 On this subject see especially A. Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England

(Oxford, 1999). 127 Whaley, Mirrors of Mortality, p. 14. 128 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 221–5; ‘Civility and Civil

Observances in the Early Modern English Funeral’, in B. Harrison and P. Slack (eds), Civil Histories: Essays Presented to Sir Keith Thomas (Oxford, 2000), pp. 71–2. See M. L. King, The Death of the Child Valerio Marcello (Chicago and London, 1994), for an example of ‘excessive’ grief.

129 Jennings, Wadding Papers, p. 299. 130 Lismore Papers, I, iii, p. 199. 131 Lismore Papers, II, i, p. 250; see also pp. 248–51; ii, pp. 5–10. 132 Lomas, Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont, 1, p. 102. 133 W. C. Trevelyn and C. E. Trevelyn, Trevelyn Papers: Part III (Camden Society,

London, 1872), p. 126. 134 AFM, 3, p. 1777; In seventeenth-century England, grief might also be cited as a

cause of death: A. Laurence, ‘Godly Grief: Individual Responses to Death in Seventeenth Century Britain’, in Houlbrooke, Death, Ritual and Bereavement, p. 75.

135 J. J. Gilbert, History of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland 1641–1643 (6 volumes, Dublin, 1882), 1, p. 170.

136 Some people also supposedly died of grief caused by personal disappointment. See W. Camden, The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth (London, 1688), pp. 49, 217, 543.

137 K. Simms, ‘Poems of Consolation Addressed to Women in Gaelic Ireland’, paper read at ‘Women at home, women abroad in medieval and early modern Europe’ conference, TCD, 24 February 2001. Similar themes appear in Scottish Gaelic poetry. See A. I. Macinnes, ‘Death and Mourning in Early Modern Scottish Gealdom’, in T. Riis (ed.), Death and Mourning in the North Sea and Baltic States (forthcoming).

138 Lismore Papers, II, iii, pp. 127–8. 139 Lismore Papers, I, iv, p. 71. 140 See M. Caball, Poets and Politics: Continuity and Reaction in Irish Poetry, 1558–1625

(Cork, 1998), for a discussion of recent literature on Gaelic poetry.

Notes 173

141 B. Ó Cuiv, ‘An Elegy on Donncadh Ó Briain, Fourth Earl of Thomond’, Celtica, 16 (1984), pp. 87–105, quotes pp. 93 and 97.

142 Hill, The Montgomery Manuscripts, p. 143. 143 N. Canny, The Upstart Earl (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 169–73. 144 BM Add. Ms. 19,863, ff. 26–26v. 145 Leicestershire Record Office, DG5/970. 146 On the changing character of seventeenth-century elegies and inscriptions,

see C. Gittings, ‘Expressions of Loss in Early Seventeenth-Century England’, in P. C. Jupp and G. Howarth, The Changing Face of Death: Historical Accounts of Death and Disposal (Basingstoke and New York, 1997), pp. 19–33.

3 From Death to Burial

1 See van Gennep, Rites of Passage, pp. 146–65. 2 B. MacCuarta, ‘A Planter’s Funeral, Legacies, and Inventory: Sir Matthew de Renzy

(1577–1634)’, JRSAI, 127 (1996), pp. 20, 27. On English bellringing, Beaver, Parish Communities, p. 99; F. Peacock, ‘Church Bells: When and Why they were Rung’; E. Howlett, ‘Burial Customs’, both in A. Andrews (ed.), Curious Church Customs (Hull, 1895), pp. 33–48, 128–31.

3 Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 124–6. 4 L. M. Ballard, ‘Dressing for Death’, NMAJ, 34 (1992), pp. 88–90 on ‘laying out’ in

the nineteenth century. 5 H. F. Berry, ‘The Merchant Tailors’ Gild – that of St. John the Baptist, Dublin,

1418–1841’, JRSAI, 48 (1918), p. 25. 6 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1633–1647, pp. 26–31. 7 Hore, Wexford, 6, p. 493. David Cressy notes that in England poor women were often

paid to watch the dying and to lay out the dead: Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 429. 8 See illustrations in H. Roe, ‘Cadaver Effigial Monuments in Ireland’, JRSAI, 99

(1969); also pl.VIIIb, in R. Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials to the Dead in Early Seventeenth Century Ireland: a Survey from Monumenta Eblanae and Other Sources’, PRIA, 81 (1981). Other illustrations of shrouded figures occur in GO Ms. 68, f.1 and GO Ms. 15, ‘Monumenta Eblanae’, ff. 73, 177.

9 For examples see M. F. Hurley et al. (eds), Late Viking and Medieval Waterford Excavations 1686–1992 (Waterford, 1992), p. 215; F. M. Hurley, ‘St. Francis’s Abbey, King’s Island, Limerick’, in I. Bennett (ed.), Excavations 1996 (Bray, 1997), pp. 69–70.

10 A. Brosnan, ‘Mortuary Practices in the Cathedral Cemetery, Ardfert, Co. Kerry: a Preliminary Assessment’ (unpublished MA thesis, Department of Archaeology, UCC, 1993), pp. 43, 126–8.

11 GO Ms. 15, ‘Monumenta Eblanae’, f. 177. 12 See S. Oosterwijk, ‘Chrysoms, Shrouds and Infants on English Tomb Monuments:

a Question of Terminology?’, Church Monuments, 15 (2000), pp. 44–64; W. Coster, ‘Tokens of Innocence: Infant Baptism, Death and Burial in Early Modern England’, in Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 266–87.

13 Hurley, Waterford Excavations, pp. 215, 221; Brosnan, ‘Mortuary Practices’, pp. 99–106; also Roe’s illustrations in ‘Cadaver Monuments’.

14 See Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials to the Dead’, pl. VIII, where flowers protrude from shrouds. Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 428, 454; M. Cox, ‘Eschatology, Burial Practice and Continuity: a Retrospection from Christ Church, Spitalfields’, in Grave Concerns, p. 116; Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, p. 126.


15 J. McLean (ed.), The Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew (London, 1857), p. 107; P. O’Sullivan, Ireland Under Elizabeth, ed. M. J. Byrne (New York and London, 1970), p. 98; Prim, ‘Memorials of the Family of Langton’, p. 86; G. Hill (ed.), The Montgomery Manuscripts (Belfast, 1869), p. 130; Gillespie, ‘Funerals and Society’; J., Autobiography of Alice Thornton, p. 25.

16 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 342; J., Autobiography of Alice Thornton, p. 25. There is little other evidence for autopsies in Ireland during this period. See J. Fleetwood, The Irish Body Snatchers (Dublin, 1988).

17 Camden, History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth, p. 217. 18 Lismore Papers, I, i, pp. 114–5; I, iii, p. 18; R. D. (ed.), ‘Memoir of the Great Earl of

Cork’, JCHAS, I (1892), pp. 92–3. 19 Clare Gittings links this development more to a vaguely defined ‘rise of indi-

vidualism’, but does mention that funerals might occur around an effigy instead of a body. Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 167, 190; ‘Urban Funerals in Late Medieval and Reformation England’, in Bassett, Death in Towns, p. 181. Other reasons for avoidance of embalming may relate to fears of dissection (though see note 16). K. Park, ‘The Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy’, Renaissance Quarterly, 47 (1994), pp. 1–33.

20 D. Townshend, The Life and Letters of the Great Earl of Cork (London, 1904), p. 271. 21 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, p. 112. 22 R. Fitzgerald-Uniacke, ‘Some Old County Cork Families I. The Uniackes of

Youghal’, JCHAS, 3a (1894 ), p. 151. See Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 158–63. 23 C. P. Meehan, The Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries (Dublin, 1872),

p. 386.24 Hurley et al., Waterford Excavations, pp. 220–1. See W. Rodwell, Church Archaeology

(London, 1989), p. 166. On reasons for coffin burial, see Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 338–41.

25 Hurley, ‘St. Francis’s Abbey’, p. 70; Brosnan, ‘Mortuary Practices’, p. 125. Fry uncovered little evidence of medieval coffin burial: Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 126–9.

26 Lismore Papers, I, iii, pp. 174–5. 27 Mems Dead, 11, pp. 117–19. On lead coffins, see Rodwell, Church Archaeology,

p. 166; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 427, 434–5; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 339–40.

28 For English biers, see A. D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1995), p. 100; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 432. On medieval Irish prac-tice, Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 112–13.

29 GO Ms 66, n/f. The structure resembles a 1611 English bier illustrated in Llewellyn, Art of Death, p. 64.

30 R. Gillespie (ed.), The Vestry Records of the Parish of St. John the Evangelist, Dublin, 1595–1658 (Dublin, 2002), pp. 30, 44, 187. A fifteenth-century bardic poem describes a corpse carried on a bier ‘feet foremost . . .Two planks on either side, he himself on a narrow hurdle; two men behind him, two in front’. Bergin, Irish Bardic Poetry, p. 304.

31 Prim, ‘Memorials of the Family of Langton’, pp. 86–7. 32 Lismore Papers, I, ii, p. 138. 33 Meehan, Rise and Fall, pp. 55–6. 34 S. Ó Súilleabháin, Irish Wake Amusements (Cork and Dublin, 1976); G. O’Crualaoich,

‘Contest in the Cosmology and the Ritual of the Irish “Merry Wake”’, Cosmos, 6 (1990), pp. 145–60; ‘The Production and Consumption of Sacred Substances in Irish

Notes 175

Funerary Tradition’, in H. Huttunen and R. Latvio (eds), Entering the Arena: Presenting Celtic Studies in Finland (Turku, 1993); ‘The “Merry Wake”’, in J. S. Donnolly and K. A. Miller (eds), Irish Popular Culture 1650–1850 (Dublin, 1998), pp. 173–200; S. J. Connolly, Priests and People in Pre-Famine Ireland 1780–1845 (Dublin, 1982), pp. 148–65. On medieval wakes, Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 79–84.

35 P. F. Moran, History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin (Dublin, 1864), p. 274; Renehan, Collections on Irish Church History, pp. 144–5; Ó Súilleabháin, Wake Amusements, p. 146.

36 Ó Súilleabháin, Wake Amusements, pp. 19–23, 147–54; J. Bossy, ‘The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Ireland, 1596–1641’, Historical Studies, 8 (Dublin, 1971), pp. 163–5; Corish, The Irish Catholic Experience, pp. 107–8; A. Forrestal, Catholic Synods in Ireland, 1600–1690 (Dublin, 1998), pp. 21–2, 152; Meigs, Reformations in Ireland, pp. 135–8. Later seventeenth-century accounts include NLI Ms 392, T. Dineley, ‘Observations on a Voyage Through the Kingdom of Ireland’, f. 266; T. Monk, ‘A Descriptive Account of the County of Kildare in 1682’, JKAS, 6 (1909–11), p. 346; J. Buckley, ‘A Tour in Ireland in 1672–4’, JCHAS, 10 (1904), p. 98; C. Ó Danachair, ‘A Record of Some Beliefs and Customs of the Seventeenth Century’, Béaloideas, 14 (1944), p. 288.

37 Hogan, Distinguished Irishmen, p. 483. 38 Ó Súilleabháin, Wake Amusements, p. 17; J. G. A. Prim, ‘Ancient Civic Enactments

for Restraining Gossiping and Feasting’, JRSAI, 1 (1849–51), p. 439; ‘Olden Popular Pastimes in Kilkenny’, JRSAI, 2 (1852–3), p. 333.

39 The keen or caoineadh was a usually extempore lament, half-sung, half-spoken, performed by female relatives or hired mourners. See Ó Súilleabháin, Wake Amusements, pp. 130–45; R. Bromwich, ‘The Keen for Art O’Leary, its Background and its Place in the Tradition of Gaelic Keening’, Éigse, 5 (1945–7), pp. 236–52; A. Partridge [Bourke], ‘Wild Men and Wailing Women’, Éigse, 18 (1980–81), pp. 25–37; A. Bourke, ‘The Irish Traditional Lament and the Grieving Process’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 11 (4) (1988), pp. 287–91; ‘More in Anger than in Sorrow: Irish Women’s Lament Poetry’, in J. N. Radner (ed.), Feminist Messages: Coding Strategies in Women’s Folklore (Chicago, 1992), pp. 160–82; ‘Caoineadh na Marbh’, Oghma, 4 (1992), pp. 3–12; J. K. Marren, ‘From Bean Chaointe to Fear Léinn: the Lament for Art O’Leary’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 13 (1993), pp. 49–53; Connolly, Priests and People, pp. 157–8. See Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 84–8. On Scotland, MacInnes, ‘Death and Mourning’. On Greek laments, see M. Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge, 1974); L. M. Danforth and A. Tsiaras, The Death Rituals of Rural Greece (Princeton, 1982); A. Caraveli, ‘The Bitter Wounding: the Lament as Social Protest’, in J. Dubisch (ed.), Gender and Power in Rural Greece (Princeton, 1986), pp. 169–94.

40 W. Brereton, Travels in Holland and the United Provinces, England, Scotland and Ireland (Chetham Society, 1844), pp. 142, 155.

41 E. Spenser, A View of the State of Ireland, ed. A. Hadfield and W. Maley (Oxford, 1997), p. 66; J. P. Myers (ed.), Elizabethan Ireland: a Selection of Writings by Elizabethan Writers on Ireland (Connecticut, 1983), p. 101, also p. 94. For drinking of blood and keening, see Partridge, ‘Wild Men and Wailing Women’, pp. 30–1; B. Ó Cuív, ‘The Romance of Mis and Dubh Ruis’, Celtica, 2 (1954), pp. 325–33. Thanks to Salvador Ryan for discussing this with me.

42 Kew, Fynes Moryson’s Unpublished Itinerary, p. 110. 43 R. Stanihurst, ‘On Ireland’s Past: De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis’, in C. Lennon,

Richard Stanihurst the Dubliner (Dublin, 1981), pp. 156–7. See Meigs, The Reformations


in Ireland for other commentators; also Monk, ‘Kildare in 1682’, p. 346; E. Campion, ‘A History of Ireland (1571)’, in Myers, Elizabethan Ireland, p. 24.

44 B. Rich, A New Description of Ireland (London, 1610), pp. 12–13; The Irish Hubbub (London, 1622), p. 2.

45 See P. Lysaght, The Banshee: the Irish Supernatural Death Messenger (Dublin, 1996) and ‘An Bhean Chaointe: the Supernatural Woman in Irish Folklore’, Éire-Ireland, 14 (4) (1979), pp. 7–29; B. N. Kimpton, ‘“Blow the House Down”: Coding, the Banshee, and Woman’s Place’, Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, 13 (1993), pp. 39–47, for later traditions.

46 M. L. Coolahan, ‘Caitlín Dubh’s keens: Literary Negotiations in Early Modern Ireland’, in V. Burke and J. Gibson (eds), Early Modern Women’s Manuscript Writing (forthcoming). Many thanks to Marie Louise for giving me a copy of this article.

47 A. Fanshawe, Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe (London, 1829), pp. 83–6; Gillespie, Devoted People, p. 117. Later tradition also associated the O’Briens with a banshee. H. Glassie (ed.), Irish Folktales (Dublin, 1993), p. 123.

48 Lysaght, ‘An Bhean Chaointe’, pp. 9, 11–12. 49 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1611–1614, p. 193. 50 Gilbert, ‘Statute Book of the Town of Galway’, p. 473. 51 Prim, ‘Ancient Civic Enactments’, pp. 438–9. 52 Renehan, Collections on Irish Church History, p. 491. 53 Ó’Súilleabháin, Wake Amusements, pp. 138–42. 54 See Huntingdon and Metcalf, Celebrations of Death, pp. 24–7; Bourke, ‘Caoineadh

na Marbh’. 55 Houlbrooke, ‘Civility and Civil Observances’, pp. 71–2. 56 On clerical involvement, Ó Súilleabháin, Wake Amusements, pp. 138–43; Bourke,

‘More in Anger’; Ariès, Hour of Our Death, p. 165; L. J. Taylor, ‘Bás in Éirinn: Cultural Constructions of Death in Ireland’, Anthropological Quarterly, 62 (1989), pp. 175–87.

57 See N. Barley, Dancing on the Grave: Encounters with Death (London, 1995), p. 107. On women as guardians of mourning techniques in Italy, see S. T. Strocchia, Death and Ritual in Renaissance Florence (Baltimore and London, 1992), pp. 10–11. On Scotland, MacInnes, ‘Death and Mourning’.

58 Bourke, ‘More in Anger’ deals with keening as an expression of resistance to ‘male domination’. Caraveli, ‘The Bitter Wounding’, deals with Greek women’s laments as protests against various grievances.

59 L. P. Ó Murchú, ‘Caoineadh ar Uaithne Ó Lochlainn, 1617’, Éigse, 26–7 (1993), pp. 67–79.

60 TCD Ms. 813, f. 130v. 61 P. Ferritar, ‘Bean Chaointe a Cosaint Fein’, Éigse, 1 (1939), p. 222. Ó Súilleabháin,

Wake Amusements, pp. 141–3; Bourke, ‘More in Anger’ give other examples. 62 Quoted in Canny, Making Ireland British, p. 447. 63 Cressy gives 2–3 days as the English average: Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 426.

Houlbrooke claims, ‘Burial usually occurred very soon after death’: the same day or the day after in Yorkshire, or less than three days after in prosperous parts of London: Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 342–3. In late seventeenth-century London, about 70 per cent of corpses were buried within two days, while in Paris between 1550 and 1670 ‘24 per cent were buried on the day of death, 50 per cent on the day after, and 16.5 per cent on the third day’. V. Harding, ‘Whose Body? A Study of Attitudes Towards the Dead Body in Early Modern Paris’, in Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 176–7.

Notes 177

64 Lismore Papers, I, ii, p. 135. 65 Lismore Papers, I, ii, p. 194. 66 Lismore Papers, I, iv, pp. 153–4. 67 Funeral Entries, pp. 134–5, 122–4. 68 J. G. A. Prim, ‘The Way-side Crosses of Kilkenny’, JRSAI, 1 (1849–51), p. 177. 69 H. F. Berry (ed.), The Registers of the Church of St. Michan, Dublin, 1636 to 1685

(Dublin, 1937), p. 21. 70 See, for example, T. Walter (ed.), The Mourning for Diana (London, 1999). 71 See E. H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: a Study in Medieval Political Theology

(Princeton, 1957); Huntingdon and Metcalf, Celebrations of Death, pp. 63–7, 122–82; Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 58–63; Muir, Ritual in Early-Modern Europe, pp. 249–54; R. Giesey, The Royal Funeral Ceremony in Renaissance France (Geneva, 1960); A. Ben-Amos, Funeral, Politics, and Memory in Modern France, 1789–1996 (Oxford, 2000); M. J. Gill, ‘Death and the Cardinal: the Two Bodies of Guillame d’Estouteville’, Renaissance Quarterly, 54 (2001), pp. 347–88.

72 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, especially pp. 164–200; ‘Urban Funerals’, pp. 170–83; P. S. Fritz, ‘From “Public” to “Private”: the Royal Funerals in England, 1500–1830’, in Whaley, Mirrors of Mortality, pp. 61–79; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 449–50. Woodward, The Theatre of Death, discusses heraldic and royal funerals, and critiques some of Gittings’ arguments.

73 McLean, Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew, pp. 107–9. 74 T. F. McCarthy, ‘Ulster Office 1552–1800’ (unpublished MA thesis, Queen’s

University, Belfast, 1983); GO Mss 64–79. 75 See GO Ms. 2 ff. 7–8, 11–27. Fees ranged from £1 to £12 10s. 8d. Cal. S. P. Ire.

1625–32, p. 223. GO Ms. 68 includes several notes of fees remaining unpaid. 76 For example, A. Martin Freeman (ed. and trans.), Annála Connacht, the Annals of

Connacht (Dublin, 1970), p. 445. See Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, chapter 3. 77 Annála Connacht, p. 499. 78 On gallowglasses, see K. Nicholls, Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland in the Middle Ages

(Dublin, 1972), pp. 87–90. 79 Annála Connacht, p. 525; ‘The Annals of Ireland from 1443–1468, trans-

lated . . . by Dudley Firbise . . . for Sir James Ware, in the Year 1606’, The Miscellany of the Irish Archaeological Society, 1 (Dublin, 1896), p. 255. Thanks to Raymond Gillespie for drawing my attention to these examples. This idea of predicting one’s own death or salvation continued as a reasonably common theme in later years: P. Lenihan, Confederate Catholics at War 1641–9 (Cork, 2001), pp. 203–4; L. McManus, ‘Folk-Tales from Western Ireland’, Journal of the Ivernian Society, 6 (1913–14), p. 246.

80 On succession, Nicholls, Gaelic and Gaelicised Ireland, pp. 25–30. On inauguration, K. Simms, From Kings to Warlords: the Changing Political Structure of Gaelic Ireland in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1987); E. Fitzpatrick, ‘The Practice and Siting of Royal Inauguration in Medieval Ireland’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Medieval History, TCD, 1997).

81 Annála Connacht, p. 395; AFM, 4, pp. 985–6, 1001. 82 J. C. Cox, ‘Armour in Churches’, in Andrews, Church Customs, pp. 174–81. 83 E. Curtis (ed.), ‘Extracts out of the Heralds’ Books in Trinity College, Dublin’,

JRSAI, 62 (1932), pp. 41–3. For the stages of the heraldic funeral, see Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 164–85; Woodward, The Theatre of Death, pp. 15–60. For Burgundy, see M. Vale, ‘A Burgundian Funeral Ceremony: Olivier de la Marche, and the Obsequies of Adolf of Cleves, Lord of Ravenstein’, English Historical Review, 111 (1996), pp. 920–38.


84 D. d’Avray, ‘The Comparative Study of Memorial Preaching’, TRHS, 5th series, 40 (1990); F. B. Tromley, ‘“Accordinge to sounde religion”: the Elizabethan Controversy over the Funeral Sermon’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 13 (1983), pp. 293–312; R. Houlbrooke, ‘Funeral Services and Assurance of Salvation: Conviction and Persuasion in the Case of William Lord Russell of Thornhaugh’, Reformation, 4 (1999), pp. 119–38.

85 For England see especially Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 295–330, 386–7; ‘Funeral Services and Assurance of Salvation’, pp. 119–38. Numerous German Lutheran funeral sermon texts survive. See Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, pp. 155–62; Bepler, ‘Women in German Funeral Sermons’, pp. 292–303.

86 J., Autobiography of Alice Thornton, p. 25. 87 Anon., True Intelligence from Ireland Relating many Passages of Consequences

betweene the Protestants and the Rebells (London, 1642), p. 2 88 Lismore Papers, I, ii, p. 194. 89 Barnard, The Penitent death of a Woefull Sinner; Clarke, ‘The Atherton Files’,

pp. 45–54. 90 Barnard, Some Memorials of the Life and Penitent Death of Dr. John Atherton,

pp. 22–3. 91 L. J. Taylor, ‘Funeral Sermons and Orations as Religious Propaganda in Sixteenth-

century France’, in Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 224–39; Houlbrooke, ‘Funeral Sermons and Assurance of Salvation’, pp. 120, 126–33. See B. Cunningham, ‘“Lust for God and for Souls”: Counter-Reformation Preachingin Early Seventeenth-century Ireland’, in A. J. Fletcher and R. Gillespie (eds), Irish Preaching 700–1700 (Dublin, 2001), pp. 108–26.

92 Gillespie, ‘Funerals and Society’, p. 86; MacCuarta, ‘A Planter’s Funeral’, pp. 20–3.

93 See Strocchia, Death and Ritual. 94 Funeral Entries, pp. 134–5; C. R. Mayes, ‘The Early Stuarts and the Irish Peerage’,

English Historical Review, 73 (1958), p. 241; McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester. 95 Funeral Entries, pp. 127–8; GO Ms. 68, f. 89. 96 Funeral Entries, pp. 144–6; GO Ms. 68, ff. 151–3. 97 G. Slevin, ‘Funeral Entries from County Clare in the Seventeenth Century’,

NMAJ, 17 (1975), pp. 63–7. 98 McCarthy, ‘Ulster Office’, pp. 263, 282. 99 See Funeral Entries.

100 Funeral Entries, p. 158. 101 Funeral Entries, p. 146. 102 Funeral Entries, p. 124. 103 B. Ó’Dálaigh, ‘An Inventory of the Contents of Bunratty Castle and the Will of

Henry, Fifth Earl of Thomond, 1639’, NMAJ, 36 (1995). 104 J., Autobiography of Alice Thornton, p. 26. 105 Woodward discusses the actors in the heraldic funeral: The Theatre of Death,

pp. 9–13, 23–8. 106 E. Peacock, ‘Hearse: How a Word has Changed its Meaning’, in W. Andrews (ed.),

Curious Church Gleanings (Hull, 1896), pp. 209–23. 107 GO Ms. 64, f. 45a. Transcribed in McCarthy, ‘Ulster Office’, p. 156. 108 Gillespie, Vestry Records, pp. 44, 52, 100. 109 J., Autobiography of Alice Thornton, p. 26. 110 GO Ms. 64, ff. 31–4.

Notes 179

111 ‘The Mss of Philip Bryan Davies Cooke, Esquire, of Owston, co. York, and of Gwnsaney, co. Flint, North Wales’, HMC Sixth Report (London, 1877), pp. 424–5.

112 Lismore Papers, I, iii, pp. 19–20. 113 Detailed accounts also survive for the 1634 funeral of Matthew de Renzy, for

which £247 was spent on food, clothes and the heralds. MacCuarta, ‘A Planter’s Funeral’, pp. 18–33.

114 NAI, RC 5/15, f. 394. 115 NAI, RC 5/21, f. 338. 116 K. W. Nicholls, The O Doyne (Ó Duinn) Manuscripts (Dublin, 1983), p. 170. 117 ‘Old Waterford Wills’, JWSEAS, 9 (1906), p. 152. 118 ‘Three McSwiney Wills’, JCHAS, 34 (1928), pp. 117–8. 119 NAI, RC 5/2, f. 249. 120 Fitzgerald, ‘Prerogative Will of Lisagh O’Connor’, p. 242. 121 NAI, 999/525 (1). 122 NAI, RC 5/2, p. 607; ‘Testamentary Records from Lettice Evoryna O’Hanlon of

Onor’, The Irish Genealogist, 2 (1948), p. 180; GO Ms. 68, ff. 192–3; Funeral Entries, pp. 159–60; F. E. Ball, The Judges in Ireland, 1221–1921 (2 volumes, London, 1926), 1, pp. 244–5.

123 For England, Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family; Beaver, Parish Communities, pp. 107–8. For America, D. E. Stannard, The Puritan Way of Death (Oxford, 1977). For Germany, Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead.

124 Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 412–16. 125 NAI, RC 5/18, p. 336. 126 J. Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts of Seventeenth Century Irish Wills in the Prerogative

Court of Canterbury’, JRSAI, 78 (1948), pp. 27–8. 127 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 186–200. For alternative interpre-

tations, see Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 450; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 270–5. Night funerals also became popular in Germany. Koslofsky, The Reformation of the Dead, pp. 133–52.

128 GO Ms. 68, f. 88; Funeral Entries, p. 127. 129 NLI Ms. 392, f. 296. 130 Hore, Wexford, 6, pp. 308–9. Also p. 282 for similar complaints from the bishop

of Ferns and Leighlin. 131 Lismore Papers, II, iii, p. 118. 132 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1625–1632, p. 337. 133 McNeill, Tanner Letters, p. 69. 134 B. MacCuarta, ‘Mathew de Renzy’s Letters on Irish Affairs 1613–1620’, Anal. Hib.,

34 (1987), p. 131. 135 P. Dwyer, The Diocese of Killaloe from the Reformation to the Close of the Eighteenth

Century (Dublin, 1878), p. 146. 136 Hore, Wexford, 6, pp. 317–20. 137 Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 21, and see charges throughout. 138 J. Murray, ‘The Sources of Clerical Income in the Tudor Diocese of Dublin,

c.1530–1600’, Arch. Hib., 46 (1991–2), p. 154; H. A. Jefferies, Priests and Prelates of Armagh in the Age of Reformations, 1518–1558 (Dublin, 1997), p. 31. On English fees, see Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 457; D. Crouch, ‘Death in Medieval Scarborough’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 72 (2000), p. 58.

139 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1625–32, p. 643. 140 Entries for the 1650s, Gillespie, Vestry Records. See also Mills, Register of St. John. 141 W. P. Burke, ‘The Diocese of Derry in 1631’, Arch. Hib., 5 (1916), p. 4.


142 Hore, Wexford, 6, p. 318. 143 In the clerical situation mortuaries might also be termed herriots, as in the inves-

tigation of the rights of the bishops of Waterford in the 1660s: ‘The Lord Bishop had all waifs, strays, Deodands, felons goods, Heriots, wardships, marriages, relieves and other royalties’. W. H. Rennison, ‘Joshua Boyle’s Accompt of the Temporalities of the Bishopricks of Waterford’, JCHAS, 32 (1927), p. 43.

144 Lismore Papers, I, ii, p. 36. See also pp. 36, 48, 71, 84, 98, 135, 211, 241, 256; I, v, pp. 29, 95, 217. In these cases it seems that the herriot was usually an animal, though money might be accepted in lieu.

145 Berry, ‘Merchant Tailors’ Gild’, p. 25. 146 M. V. Ronan, ‘Religious Customs of the Dublin Medieval Guilds’, IER, 26 (1925),

pp. 232–3; E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven and London, 1992), pp. 143–4; M. Wilks (ed.), Prophecy and Eschatology (Studies in Church History, Subsidia, 10, Oxford, 1994), pp. 187–97; N. Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 68–82. On guild activity, see chapter 8.

147 E. Ledwich, ‘The History and Antiquities of Irishtown and Kilkenny from Original Records and Authentic Documents’, in C. Vallancey, Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicus (4 volumes, Dublin, 1788), 2, pp. 394–5. See Healy, History and Antiquities of Kilkenny, 1, p. 207, who explains the disappearance of the documents used by Ledwich.

148 Gilbert, ‘Statute Book of Galway’, p. 496. 149 Prim, ‘Ancient Civic Enactments’, p. 439; Gilbert, ‘Statute Book of Galway’,

p. 473. 150 Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 443–7; F. Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern

England (Oxford, 1990); ‘Concepts of Generosity in Early Modern England’, in C. Lennon and J. Hill (eds), Luxury and Austerity: Historical Studies XXI (Dublin, 1999), pp. 30–45.

151 G. O’Brien (ed.), Advertisements for Ireland: Being a Description of the State of Ireland in the Reign of James I (Dublin, 1923), p. 44.

152 Moran, Catholic Archbishops of Dublin, p. 274. 153 Hore, Wexford, 6, p. 308. 154 R. J. Hunter, ‘Catholicism in Meath c.1622’, Collectanea Hibernica, 14 (1971),

p. 9; Canny, Making Ireland British, p. 446. 155 Canny, Making Ireland British, pp. 446–8. 156 J. Mockler, ‘The City of Waterford in the Seventeenth Century’, JWSEAS, 6

(1900), p. 29. 157 Quoted in M. V. Ronan, The Reformation in Ireland Under Elizabeth (London,

1930), p. 655; Cal. S. P. Ire. 1574–1585, p. 229. 158 A. Walsh, ‘A Memorial Presented to the King of Spain on Behalf of the Irish

Catholics AD 1619’, Arch. Hib., 6 (1917), p. 50. 159 See W. J. Fitzpatrick, History of the Dublin Catholic Cemeteries (Dublin, 1900),

pp. 1–8. In one Co. Cork parish, a rock called Lúbín na gCorp marked the point where Catholic funeral processions stopped for the service. JCHAS, 14 (1918), pp. 10–11. It is worth noting that in early modern England funeral ceremonies did not necessarily take place in church. See Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 397.

160 AFM, 3, p. 1773. 161 For post-Reformation changes in the burial liturgy, see Woodward, The Theatre

of Death, pp. 37–60, especially pp. 42–3. 162 Hartry, Triumphalia, p. 75.

Notes 181

163 A. J. Sheehan, ‘The Recusancy Revolt of 1603; a Re-interpretation’, Arch. Hib., 38 (1983).

164 Lismore Papers, II, i, pp. 55–7; J. C., ‘Notes and Queries: the Cork Recusants of 1606’, JCHAS, 16 (1910).

165 Lismore Papers, II, iii, p. 86. 166 See Tait, ‘Adored for Saints’. 167 R. Gillespie, ‘Destabalizing Ulster, 1641–2’, in B. MacCuarta (ed.), Ulster 1641:

Aspects of the Rising (Belfast, 1997), p. 111; Fitzpatrick, Seventeenth-Century Ireland, pp. 109–32.

168 Falkiner, ‘Barneby Rich’s Remembrances of the State of Ireland 1612’, p. 140; E. M. Hinton, ‘Rych’s Anatomy of Ireland, with an Account of the Author’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 55 (1940), pp. 84–5; J. Brady, ‘Funeral Customs of the Past’, IER, 78 (1952), p. 331.

169 O’Sullivan, Ireland Under Elizabeth, pp. 45–6; Brady, ‘Funeral Customs’, p. 330. 170 Lomas, Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont, 1, p. 33. This incident may equate with

that described by Rich. 171 Brady, ‘Funeral Customs’, pp. 331–2; Cal S. P. Ire. 1615–1625, pp. 429–30. 172 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1625–32, pp. 500–1, 504, 521–2; Jennings, Wadding Papers, pp. 333,

337, 341; G. A. Little, ‘The Jesuit University of Dublin (c.)1627’, Dublin Historical Record, 13 (1952), pp. 35–45; The Manuscripts of the Earl Cowper, K. G., Preserved at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire (HMC, London, 1888), pp. 398–9; S. C. Lomas (ed.), Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu (HMC, London, 1900), p. 112. The Protestant clergy frequently complained that while some men were conformable, women often refused to attend services: see Cal. S. P. Ire. 1574–1585, p. 130; Cal. S. P. Ire. 1596-July 1597, p. 14. Also P. Kilroy, ‘Women and the Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Ireland’, and P. J. Corish, ‘Women and Religious Practice’, both in M. MacCurtain and M. O’Dowd (eds), Women in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin, 1991), pp. 179–96, 213–20. On ‘riotous women’, see O. H. Hufton, The Prospect Before Her: a History of Women in Western Europe (London, 1995), pp. 458–86.

173 On medieval precedents, see Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 111–12. 174 Quoted in M. Donnelly, Short Histories of Dublin Parishes: Part VIII. Parishes

of St. Audeon and St. Michael (Dublin, 1911), p. 169. The pulpit may have been portable or makeshift, or there may have been a private chapel in the house.

175 Wadding Papers, pp. 446–50. The date is queried in the transcription. 176 B. Millett (ed.), ‘Calendar of volume 1 (1625–68) of the collection Scritture

riferite nei congressi, Irlanda, in Propaganda Archives’, Collectanea Hibernica, 6–7 (1963–4), pp. 46–50.

177 M. Olden, ‘Counter-Reformation Problems: Munster’, IER, 104 (1964), pp. 48–9; A. Bolster, A History of the Diocese of Cork From the Reformation to the Penal Era (3 volumes, Cork, 1982), 2, pp. 165–9, 179, 185–8; Jennings, Wadding Papers, 119, 341–2, 398–401, 451, 632–3. See also Moran, Catholic Archbishops of Dublin, pp. 371–2; H. F. Kearney, ‘Ecclesiastical Politics and the Counter Reformation in Ireland, 1618–1648’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2 (1960), pp. 202–12; G. Rice, ‘Attitudes to the Counter-Reformation in Meath’, Ríocht na Midhe, 5 (1972), pp. 54–63.

178 See Forrestal, Catholic Synods, pp. 53–4, 153, 163, 166, for the controversial enactments.

179 On clerical disputes at funerals in fifteenth-century Florence, see Strocchia, Death and Ritual, chapter 5.


4 Burial Location and Society

1 J. H. Lawrence Archer, ‘An Inquiry into the Origin of the Family of Archer in Kilkenny, with Notices of other Families of the Name’, JRSAI, 9 (1867), p. 229; Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, p. 212.

2 See especially Jefferies, ‘Early Tudor Reformations’, pp. 34–62; Priests and Prelates. The quotation is from A. Lynch, ‘Religion in Late Medieval Ireland’, Arch. Hib., 36 (1981), p. 3.

3 For example, H. F. Berry (ed.), Register of Wills and Inventories of the Diocese of Dublin 1457–1483 (Dublin, 1898), pp. 12, 16–17, 23, 26, 33, 64, 98, 104, 111, 115, 150; E. Curtis, Calendar of Ormond Deeds 3, 1413–1509 (Dublin, 1935), pp. 273, 305; H. A. Jefferies, ‘The Role of the Laity in the Parishes of Armagh Inter Anglicos, 1518–1553’, Arch. Hib., 52 (1998), p. 80; ‘Early Tudor Reformations, p. 39.

4 L. P. Murray, ‘The Ancient Chantries in Co. Louth’, JCLAS, 9 (3) (1939), pp. 181–208; A. Cogan, The Diocese of Meath: Ancient and Modern (3 volumes, Dublin, 1862), 1, especially pp. 333–63; M. A. Lyons, Church and Society in County Kildare, c.1470–1547 (Dublin, 2000), pp. 79–96; Jefferies, Priests and Prelates, pp. 24–6, 66–8; ‘Derry Diocese on the Eve of the Plantation’, in G. O’Brien (ed.), Derry and Londonderry: History and Society (Dublin, 1999), p. 183. See chapter 7 for the post-Reformation situation.

5 See especially Parker Pearson, Archaeology of Death, chapter 6. Also G. Rosser, ‘Parochial Conformity and Voluntary Religion in Late-Medieval England’, TRHS, 6th ser., 1 (1991), pp. 187–9.

6 NAI, RC 5/7, f. 353. 7 See V. Harding, ‘Burial on the Margin: Distance and Discrimination in Early

Modern London’, in Cox, Grave Concerns, p. 57; S. J. Wright (ed.), Parish, Church and People: Local Studies in Lay Religion 1350–1750 (London, 1988).

8 NAI, RC 5/30, f. 112. 9 R. O’Flaherty, A Chorographical Description of West or Hiar Connaught, ed. J. Hardiman

(Dublin, 1846), pp. 236–7. It is unclear how this payment related to the ‘mortuaries’ described in chapter 2.

10 Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 46–50; Daniell, Death and Burial in Early Modern England, pp. 96–101; Beaver, ‘ “Sown in dishonour, raised in glory”’, p. 402; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 460–1.

11 Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, p. 99. 12 M. Devitt, ‘Summerhill Co. Meath and its Neighbourhood’, JKAS, 6 (1909–11),

p. 277; W. Fitzgerald, ‘The Will of Peter Lynch, of the Knock, County Meath, dated 12th June, 1553’, JKAS, 6 (1909–11), p. 358.

13 T. J. McKenna and C. V. Moore, The Modest Men of Christ Church, Cork (Naas, 1970), p. 19.

14 H. F. Berry, ‘The Old Youghal Family of Stout’, JCHAS, 23 (1917), p. 52. 15 For Spanish parallels, see Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, p. 94. For overcrowding

in London burial grounds, see V. Harding, ‘And one more may be laid there: the Location of Burials in Early Modern London’, London Journal, 14(2) (1989), pp. 116–19.

16 R. Gillespie (ed.), The First Chapter Act Book of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 1574–1634 (Dublin, 1997), p. 150.

17 Harding, ‘And one more may be laid there’, p. 117. 18 W. P. Burke, History of Clonmel (Kilkenny, 1983 [1907]), p. 306. In this context, the

fact that the Archer tomb referred to at the beginning of the chapter was also on the site of an altar is interesting.

Notes 183

19 Hartry, Triumphalia, p. 53. 20 G. Seaver, ‘The Seavers of Lusk and Rogerstown, Co. Dublin’, JRSAI, 72 (1942), p. 17. 21 Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 163–9; Barley, Dancing on the Grave, p. 138. In

Muckross Abbey in the eighteenth century only soldiers, strangers and unbap-tised children were buried to the north and west of the church. J. Stevenson (ed.), A Frenchman’s Walk Through Ireland 1796–7 (Dublin, 1984 [1917]), p. 101.

22 Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 465–6. 23 Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts of Seventeenth Century Irish Wills’, pp. 28–9. 24 R. Dinn, ‘“Monuments Answerable to Mens Worth”: Burial Patterns, Social Status

and Gender in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds’, JEH, 46 (1995), pp. 244–7. 25 Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 66. 26 Kew, Fynes Moryson’s Unpublished Itinerary, p. 110. 27 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1574–1585, p. 229; Ronan, Reformation in Ireland Under Elizabeth,

p. 655; E. Downey, The Story of Waterford (Waterford, 1914), p. 75; Monk, ‘Kildare in 1682’, gives a later account of such commemorations. S. Brandes, ‘Sugar, Colonialism and Death: On the Origins of Mexico’s Day of the Dead’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 39 (1997), pp. 281–4, discusses their wider context.

28 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 332–3; E. Musgrave, ‘Memento Mori: the Function and Meaning of Breton Ossuaries 1450–1750’, in Jupp and Howarth, The Changing Face of Death, pp. 42–75; Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, pp. 176–8.

29 Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 68–72; McKenna and Moore, Modest Men, p. 30. See Mems Dead, 1, p. 50, for another example.

30 Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 52. See Dinn, ‘Monuments Answerable’, p. 246. 31 J. W. Hopkins, ‘St Multose Church, Kinsale’, JCHAS, 2a (1893), p. 37; J. Lindsey

Darling, ‘St. Multose’s Church, Kinsale’, JCHAS, 2a (1893), p. 74. The church itself was full of burials. In 1858 ‘The aisle of the church was excavated to depth of about four feet; the entire area beneath was a series of stone cists, containing skeletons . . . all the remains were swept out’. R. Day, ‘The Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork’, JCHAS, 1a (1892), p. 230.

32 Hurley et al., Late Viking and Medieval Waterford, pp. 215 (fig.7:16), 220 (fig.7:20). Graphic accounts of nineteenth-century overcrowding come from Kilcrea Abbey, Co. Cork, and Muckross Abbey. In 1797 in the latter graveyard there was ‘hardly earth enough to cover the dead’. R. Cochrane, ‘Notes on the Structures in the County of Cork vested in the Board of Works for Preservation as Ancient Monuments’, JCHAS, 18 (1912), pp. 60–2; Stevenson, A Frenchman’s Walk, pp. 101–2; D. J. O’Donoghue (ed.), Sir Walter Scott’s Tour in Ireland in 1825 (Glasgow and Dublin, 1905), p. 76.

33 Mills, Registers of St. John; Gillespie, Vestry Records. These are amongst the earliest such records surviving in Ireland.

34 Mills, Registers of St. John, pp. 54–5 35 Mills, Registers of St. John, pp. 56–9. In January 1642 there were up to four burials

a day. A similar upsurge can be seen in the registers of St Michan’s church, Dublin, and Derry cathedral. Burials in St Michan’s rose from 117 in 1640, to 136 in 1641 and over 200 in 1642 (152 names are given, but over three months’ worth of entries are missing). In Derry, burials rose to 42 in June 1642, but the highest monthly total in 1643 is 13 (April). The recording system in the church of St Thomas, Lisnagarvey, Co. Antrim, broke down totally between late 1641 and early 1643. Berry, Registers of the Church of St. Michan, pp. 14–31; R. Hayes, The Register of Derry Cathedral (S. Columb’s), Parish of Templemore, Londonderry, 1642–1703 (Dublin, 1910), pp. 3–11; R. Refaussé, Register of the Church of St. Thomas, Lisnagarvey, Co. Antrim 1637–1646 (Dublin, 1996), p. 25.


36 Mills, Registers of St. John, pp. 87–113; Gillespie, Vestry Records. One entry reads ‘James Whites child nothing’: no fee had been paid (p. 161).

37 If so, such studies may have a impact on estimations of population size. If, as one author suggests, we take an estimate ‘that from a population of 200 over 1,000 years there would be 6,000 burials’, a population producing 10,000 burials over 100 years could be estimated at roughly 3,400. The problems with such an approach are obvious, especially in an urban area where migration and epidemics would have affected population levels. Sheehan suggests that the population of Dublin was only 5,000 in 1600. The 1640s are, of course, an especially problem-atic decade for generalisations. See A. Sheehan, ‘Irish Towns in a Period of Change, 1558–1625’, in Brady and Gillespie, Natives and Newcomers, pp. 95, 97; Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, p. 124.

38 J. C., ‘Notes and Queries: Curious Aerial Deposit in Co. Cork Two Centuries Ago’, JCHAS, 1a (1892), p. 249.

39 Barnard, Some Memorials of the Life and Penitent Death of Dr. John Atherton, pp. 9–10, 21, 22.

40 Jones, A True Relation of the Life and Death of William Bedell, pp. 80, 160–1, 192, 195–201; A. Clarke, ‘Bishop William Bedell (1571–1642) and the Irish Reformation’, in C. Brady (ed.), Worsted in the Game: Losers in Irish History (Dublin, 1989), pp. 61–70; K. S. Bottigheimer, ‘The Hagiography of William Bedell’, in T. Barnard et al. (eds), ‘A Miracle of Learning’: Studies in Manuscripts and Irish Learning (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 200–8; P. Kilroy, ‘Protestantism in Ulster, 1610–1641’, in MacCuarta, Ulster 1641, pp. 25–36. On English and Scottish Protestant attitudes, see Houlbrooke, ‘Death, Church and the Family’, in Death, Ritual and Bereavement, pp. 37–8; Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 334, 362; A. Spicer, ‘“Defyle not Christ’s kirk with your carrion”: Burial and the Development of Burial Aisles in Post-Reformation Scotland’, in Gordan and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 149–69.

41 Annals of Loch Cé, 2, p. 437. Also quoted in Meigs, Reformations in Ireland, p. 63. 42 D. Dymond, ‘God’s Disputed Acre’, JEH, 50 (1999), pp. 464–97; Ariès, Hour of Our

Death, pp. 62–9; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 138–42; Rodwell, Church Archaeology, p. 148; C. Hill, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (Harmondsworth, 1986), pp. 407–8; D. M. Pallister, ‘Introduction: the Parish in Perspective’, in Wright, Parish, Church and People, pp. 5–23, esp. pp. 7–8, 14–15; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 467–9; Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, pp. 110–15; J. Nicholson, ‘Concerning the Churchyard’, in Andrews, Church Customs, pp. 147–60; Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, chapter 2.

43 See R. Caulfield (ed.), The Council Book of the Corporation of Youghal (Guildford, 1878), p. 133, where churchwardens are authorised to kill hogs in the churchyard (1627). The ‘Proceedings of the Court of the Archdeacon of Lismore, 1639’ (UCC Ms. D.21), include presentments of the owners of livestock found grazing in churchyards: ff. 2b, 18. Both older and younger trees were present in St John’s. There are records of the purchase of trees, and one receipt of 3s. ‘for a peece of Ewe tree’. Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 167.

44 Gilbert, Calendar of Ancient Records of Dublin, 2, pp. 79, 253; 3, pp. 129, 160, 250. On the parish its responsibilities, see Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 9.

45 Mems Dead, 7, pp. 299–300. 46 Gillespie, Chapter Act Book, pp. 123–4, 133, 165–7, 202–4; ‘The Shaping of Reform,

1558–1625’, in K. Milne (ed.), Christ Church Cathedral Dublin: a History (Dublin, 2000), pp. 176–94. See also J. Mills, ‘Sixteenth Century Notices of the Chapels and Crypts of the Church of the Holy Trinity’, JRSAI, 30 (1900), pp. 195–203;

Notes 185

W. Butler, The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity Dublin (Christ Church) (London, 1901); Anon., ‘The Hamilton Manuscripts’, UJA, 3 (1855), pp. 241–2.

47 R. Caulfield, The Council Book of the Corporation of Kinsale (Guildford, 187?), p. 321.

48 See N. Cacida, ‘Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture’, Past and Present, 152 (1996), pp. 40–5, for dancing in cemeteries. Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, pp. 96, 108–9.

49 Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 153–8; Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, pp. 101–2; Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 100–1; Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 72–6; N. Zemon Davis, ‘Ghosts, Kin, and Progeny: Some Features of Family Life in Early Modern France’, Daedalus, 106 (2) (1977), pp. 92–6.

50 R. O’Day, The Family and Family Relationships, 1500–1900 (London, 1994), p. 92. 51 Caulfield, Council Book of the Corporation of Youghal, p. xliii. 52 NAI, RC 5/3, f. 700. 53 NAI, RC 5/29, f. 11 54 Mills, Register of St. John, pp. 263–5; Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 181. 55 Meigs, Reformations in Ireland, p. 13. 56 AFM, 3, p. 1683; Meehan, Rise and Fall, pp. 56–7. 57 J. Prendergast (ed.), ‘Ancient History of the Kingdom of Kerry by Friar O’Sullivan,

of Muckross Abbey’, JCHAS, 4 (1898), p. 263. 58 AFM, 2, pp. 1525; 3, pp. 1697, 1711, 1725, 1727, 1775, 1803, 1823, 2183. 59 Ainsworth, Inchiquin Manuscripts, pp. 501, 504, 506, 507, 509; Meehan, Rise and

Fall, p. 285. 60 AFM, 2, pp. 1563, 1607. 61 GO Mss 64 and 65. 62 W. Fitzgerald, ‘Narraghmore and the Barons of Norragh’, JKAS, 7 (1912–14),

p. 259. 63 The term ‘virilocal marriage’ refers to the practice of the wife leaving her family

and going to live in her husband’s household. 64 NAI, RC 5/5, f. 764. 65 V. Harding, ‘Burial Choice and Burial Location in Later Medieval London’;

Bassett, Death in Towns, p. 127. 66 Mems Dead, 4, p. 327. 67 GO Ms 64. 68 GO Ms 66, f. 14. 69 GO Ms 66, f. 15. Another explanation might be considered: in England women

dying in childbirth were often buried within 24 hours (Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 426). Might this have reduced the choices open to families? Sometimes such burials were conducted at night (Howlett, ‘Burial Customs’, p. 142).

70 There are indications of this in later sources, for example the fight witnessed by de Latocnaye in 1797 between two groups of relations at the funeral of a young woman, the deceased’s brother leading one, and her husband the other, over whether she should be buried with her father’s or husband’s family. Gearóid Ó Crualaoich presents such displays as a ritualistic, part of the demonstration of affection and respect for the dead. However also fundamental is the indication that the deceased had not been fully absorbed into her husband’s family, their claim to her remains not being strong enough to pass unremarked. Stevenson, A Frenchman’s Walk, pp. 105–6; Ó Crualaoich, ‘Contest in the Irish “Merry Wake”’, pp. 150–1.

71 GO Ms 66, f. 29. On the rarity of adoption in the early modern period see Zemon Davis, ‘Ghosts, Kin, and Progeny’, pp. 104–5.

72 Mills, Register of St. John, pp. 263–6, 274.


73 Lomas, Manuscripts of the Earl of Egmont, 1, p. 124. 74 Ainsworth and MacLysaght, ‘Documents in Private Keeping: Second Series’, p. 147. 75 Mems Dead, 2, p. 165. 76 C. Power, ‘A Demographic Study of Human Skeletal Populations from Historic

Munster’, UJA, 57 (1994), p. 115. 77 J. Bradley and C. Manning, ‘Excavations at Duiske Abbey, Graiguenamanagh, Co.

Kilkenny’, PRIA, 81 (1981), p. 403. 78 GO Ms 66, ff. 4, 99. 79 Barley, Dancing on the Grave, chapter 9; Harding, ‘Burial on the Margin’,

pp. 57–8; King, Death of the Child; Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, pp. 19–47, 241–6. The views expressed by Ariès and Stone have largely been modified. P. Ariès, Centuries of Childhood (London, 1996); Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, pp. 82–8.

80 Power, ‘A Demographic Study’, pp. 113–14; C. Power, ‘Human Skeletal Remains’, in Hurley et al., Late Viking and Medieval Waterford, p. 768. See Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, pp. 124–8; R. Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’, pp. 54–5.

81 Shallow graves mean that infant burials tend to be destroyed more easily, and the remains of children dissolve more quickly than those of adults. Rodwell, Church Archaeology, pp. 161–2. Little of substance has been written about cillinigh (sin-gular, cillineach/cillín). These might be located in unused ecclesiastical enclosures or unconsecrated sites, often with some ‘supernatural’ connections (for example, old ringforts and enclosures). Folklore and archaeological evidence suggest that older children and even adults (particularly strangers) were occasionally buried in them. See E. A. Dennehy, ‘The Ceallunaigh of County Kerry: an Archaeological Perspective’ (unpublished MA thesis, Department of Archaeology, UCC) for a summary of previous findings. N. Finlay ‘Outside of Life: Traditions of Infant Burial in Ireland from cillin to cist’, World Archaeology, 31 (2000), largely restates Dennehy on the modern evidence. See also S. Donnelly et al., ‘The Forgotten Dead: the Cillini and Disused Burial Grounds of Ballintoy, County Antrim’, UJA, 58 (1999), pp. 109–13; P. J. Ucko, ‘Ethnography and Archaeological Interpretation of Funeral Remains’, World Archaeology, 1 (1969–70), pp. 270–1.

82 Hurley, ‘St. Francis’s Abbey, King’s Island, Limerick’, p. 69. 83 NAI, RC 10/9, f. 335. 84 R. Gillespie (ed.), The Proctors’ Accounts of Peter Lewys (Dublin, 1996), pp. 87–8,

105. For Sarsfield, see C. Lennon, The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation (Dublin, 1989), p. 266.

85 NAI, RC 5/18, ff. 134, 183, 441. 86 W. L. M. Giff, The Story of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Trim (1959), p. 23; Mems Dead,

11, p. 223. 87 Meehan, Rise and Fall, pp. 50, 97. 88 Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, p. 96. 89 W. J. Hayes, Burials in Holycross Abbey (Clonmel, 1970), pp. 14–15; Hartry,

Triumphalia, pp. 265, 287. 90 Hartry, Triumphalia, pp. 261, 267, 291. 91 Hurley, Waterford Excavations, pp. 215–16, 220–1. Two Catholic clerics may be

similarly represented in Ardfert. Brosnan, ‘Mortuary Practices’, pp. 162–3. 92 Lismore Papers, II, iii, p. 86. 93 Meehan, Rise and Fall, p. 50. 94 J. Graves and J. G. A. Prim, The History, Architecture and Antiquities of the Cathedral

Church of St. Canice, Kilkenny (Dublin, 1857), pp. 293–8, 299–300, 308–10.

Notes 187

95 M. A. Murphy, ‘The Royal Visitation of Cork, Cloyne, Ross, and the College of Youghal’, Analecta Hibernica, 2 (1913), p. 190; Mems Dead, 1, pp. 155–6; 5, pp. 322–3; 8, pp. 26–7; 12, p. 195; H. T. Fleming, ‘Some Notes on the Tynte Family’, JCHAS, 9 (1903), pp. 156–7; P. G. Lee, ‘The Ruined Monuments of Sir Robert Tynte and Sir Edward Harris in Kilcredan Church, Ballycrenane, near Ladysbridge’, JCHAS, 31 (1926), p. 86; C. C., ‘Antiquarian Remains and Historic Spots Around Cloyne’, JCHAS, 19 (1913), pp. 34–5; D. Pochin Mould, Discovering Cork (Dingle, 1991), pp. 142–3; A. Harris, ‘The Tynte Monument, Kilcredan, Co. Cork: a Reappraisal’, JCHAS, 104 (1999), p. 137.

96 NAI, RC 5/18, f. 397. Clayton was a New English settler. See M. P. Curtis, ‘The Claytons and their Circle: New English Arrivals in Early Seventeenth-Century Cork’, (unpublished MA thesis, Department of History, UCC, 1998), pp. 69–71. The will is transcribed on pp. 78–9. Clayton died the day after it was made.

97 Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts of Seventeenth Century Irish Wills’, p. 26. The fact that the Dean of St Patrick’s at this time was Benjamin Culme, a relation, may also have influenced this bequest. Benjamin Culme’s own tomb was erected in St Patrick’s in 1657. See B. C. Donovan and D. Edwards, British Sources for Irish History 1485–1641 (Dublin, 1997), pp. 44–5, 258; A. L. Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English in Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth-Century Dublin’, Church Monuments, 11 (1996), p. 34.

98 T. A. Egan, Ballintubber Abbey (1967), p. 23; ‘Ireland’s Unique Abbey – the Abbey that Refused to Die’, The Capuchin Annual (1963), p. 225.

99 Prim, ‘Memorials of the Family of Langton’, pp. 86, 92. 100 E. O’Leary, ‘John Lye, of Clonaugh, Co. Kildare’, JKAS, 2 (1896–99), pp. 134–46;

NAI, RC 5/3, f. 39; H. A. King, ‘The Medieval and Seventeenth-Century Carved Stone Collection in Kildare’, JKAS, 17 (1991), p. 81.

101 B. O’Dalaigh, ‘A Comparative Study of the Wills of the First and Fourth Earls of Thomond’, NMAJ, 34 (1992), pp. 48–63; Inchiquin Manuscripts, pp. 501–3; Mems Dead, 7, p. 125; M. J. Talbot, The Monuments of St. Mary’s Cathedral Limerick (Limerick, 1976), pp. 53, 83.

102 C. Tait, ‘Colonising Memory: Manipulations of Death, Burial and Commemoration in the Career of Richard Boyle, First Earl of Cork’, PRIA, 101 (2001).

103 ‘According to ecclesiastical law, burial space in consecrated ground should be made available to all Christians.’ In Spain, the money given to the clergy was seen as an act of charity ‘to atone for the sins of the deceased . . . families came to regard the alms as a purchase price and the grave site as their personal prop-erty’. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 98–9.

104 University of London Library, Fuller Cabinet II 6/10. 105 BM Add. Ms. 19,868, f. 43; J. Windele, History of Cork (Cork, 1973), p. 49, gives

the date as 1609. 106 A. C. Robinson, St. Finbarre’s Cathedral (Cork, 1897), pp. 6, 13, 64–6. 107 NAI, RC 5/4, f. 45. 108 R. Hayes, ‘Some Old Limerick Wills’, NMAJ, 1 (1936–9), p. 163. 109 GO Ms. 16,085, ff. 57, 63, 71, 76, 78, 80, 145. 110 GO Ms. 16,085, ff. 62, 91. 111 W. H. Rennison, ‘Joshua Boyle’s Accompt of the Temporalities of the Bishopricks

of Waterford’, JCHAS, 33 (1928), pp. 88–9. 112 R. F. Hewson, ‘St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick: its Development and Growth’,

NMAJ, 4 (1944), pp. 58, 61.


113 Mills, Registers of St. John, pp. 263, 264, 56–60, 266; Gillespie, Vestry Records, pp. 161, 168, 170, 187.

114 Anon., Good and Bad Newes from Ireland (London, 1642), n/p; K. Wiggins, The Anatomy of a Siege: King John’s Castle, Limerick 1642 (London, 2001).

115 C. Manning, ‘Clogh Oughter: a Medieval Island Castle in County Cavan’, Archaeology Ireland Heritage Guide No.7 (Dublin, 1999).

116 H. Hickey, ‘Excavation of an Enclosure on Aughinish Island, Co. Limerick’, NMAJ, 16 (1973–4), pp. 15–26; L. G. Lynch, ‘Placeless Souls: Bioarchaeology and Separate Burial in Ireland’ (unpublished MA thesis, Department of Archaeology, UCC, 1998).

117 Lynch, ‘Placeless Souls’. 118 C. Power, ‘Clonmel Excavations 4. Human Skeletal Remains – Emmet

Street/Kickham Street’, Tipperary Historical Journal, 10 (1997), pp. 112–23. 119 B. Ó Donnabháin, ‘Monuments of Shame – Some Probable Trophy Heads from

Medieval Dublin’, Archaeology Ireland, 9 (1995) pp. 13–14; C. Power, ‘Human Remains’, in C. Walsh (ed.), Archaeological Excavations at Patrick, Nicholas and Winetavern Streets Dublin (Dublin, 1997), pp. 222–7.

120 A. J. Sheehan, ‘The Killing of the Earl of Desmond, November 1583’, JCHAS, 88 (1983), pp. 106–10.

121 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1596–7, pp. 444–5, 442–3, 465–7. 122 McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, p. 7. 123 J. Le Goff, ‘Head or Heart? The Political Use of Body Metaphors in the Middle

Ages’, in M. Feher et al. (eds), Fragments for a History of the Human Body, 3 (New York, 1989), p. 13. Ralph Giesey points out that ‘The true place of burial, by Roman Law, was where the head lay.’ Royal Funeral Ceremony, p. 20.

124 Gillespie, Devoted People, pp. 21, 69–70; B. Rych, A Catholicke Conference betweene syr Tady MacMareall a popish priest of Waterforde, and Patricke Plaine a young stu-dent in Trinity Colledge by Dublin in Ireland (London, 1612), pp. 5–6; C. Ó Doiblin, ‘Giolla Phádraig Ó Luchráin c.1577–1612’, Seanchas Árd Mhacha, 14 (1992), p. 87; Tait, ‘Adored for Saints’, p. 148.

125 S. Hayman, Unpublished Geraldine Documents (4 volumes, Dublin, 1870), 1, p. 31; 2, p. 70.

126 Quoted in J. J. MacNamee, History of the Diocese of Ardagh (Dublin, 1954), pp. 282–3. 127 Glassie, Irish Folktales, pp. 141–2. 128 Tait, ‘Adored for Saints’, pp. 151–5; Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’,

pp. 54–8, 49–51. 129 Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’, pp. 55–8; Houlbrooke, Death,

Religion and the Family, pp. 335–6; D. Cressy, Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 2000), chapter 8.

130 Lismore Papers, II, iii, p. 8. 131 Cressy, Travesties and Transgressions, chapter 8. 132 Meehan, Rise and Fall, p. 352. 133 On the burial of suicides and other undesirables in roadways and at crossroads,

see M. Puhvel, The Crossroads in Folklore and Myth (New York, 1989), especially pp. 81–101.

134 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 336; MacDonald and Murphy, Sleepless Souls.

135 R. Fitzgerald-Uniacke, ‘Some Old County Cork Families 1. The Uniackes of Youghal’, JCHAS, 3a (1894), pp. 151–2.

136 NAI, RC 5/11, f. 66.

Notes 189

137 C. Power, ‘Diet and Disease: Evidence from the Human Dental Remains in two Medieval Irish Populations’, The Journal of Irish Archaeology, 3 (1985/6), p. 49.

138 C. Mooney, ‘Some Leitrim Franciscans of the Past’, Breifne, 1 (1961), p. 330; B. Jennings, ‘Brussels MS. 3947: Donatus Moneyus, de Provincia Hiberniae S. Francisci’, Anal. Hib., 6 (1934). See B. Millett, ‘Lease of the Friary of Crevalea (Dromahaire) in County Leitrim to Owen Wynne, 1 April 1658’, Collectanea Hibernica, 41 (1999), pp. 7–9.

139 Irish Fiants, 2, Fiant 3114, 20 Sept. 1577; Various, Kilcrea Through Five Centuries (1965), p. 15.

140 Meehan, Rise and Fall, pp. 42, 76, 79. 141 Dwyer, Diocese of Killaloe, pp. 142, 145–6. 142 Cal. S. P. Ire. 1601–1608, p. 15. 143 Some English Catholics similarly secured burial in their parish churches and

churchyards, but obviously in lesser numbers. The excommunication of most Catholics complicated matters. In times of heightened persecution, this some-times led to denial of burial. Cressy, Travesties and Transgressions, chapter 8.

144 Mems Dead, 6, pp. 293–5. 145 Mems Dead, 6, pp. 38–9; E. O’Mahony, ‘A Study of Seventeenth Century

Memorials to the Dead in the Medieval Towns of Cork, Kinsale and Youghal’ (unpublished MA thesis, UCC, 1995), pp. 71–2; NLI Ms 392, Dineley, ‘Observations’, p. 227.

146 See my ‘Irish Images of Jesus’, Church Monuments, 16 (2001). Religious symbols generally disappear from English Catholic tombs in this period. In Scotland, Catholic imagery can be found in private houses, and tombs also existed. However, considerable damage was inflicted by iconoclasts in the 1640s. See I. B. D. Bryce and A. Roberts, ‘Post-Reformation Catholic Houses of North-east Scotland’, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries in Scotland, 123 (1993), pp. 363–72.

147 K. W. Nicholls, ‘The Lynch Blosse Papers’, Anal. Hib., 29 (1980), p. 119. 148 Meehan, Rise and Fall, pp. 266, 306. 149 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, pp. 407–8. 150 H. H. Aylmer, ‘The Aylmer Family’, JKAS, 1 (1895), pp. 300, 305–7; Mems Dead,

1, pp. 88–9; NAI, RC 5/9, ff. 362, 369. 151 W. Fitzgerald, ‘William Fitzgerald of Castleroe and his Tomb in Kilkea

Churchyard’, JKAS, 3 (1899–1902), pp. 236–42; NAI, RC 5/9, f. 362. 152 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, pp. 64, 80, 100–1; Healy, History and

Antiquities of Kilkenny, pp. 381–93; G. D. Burtchaell, ‘The Family of Rothe of Kilkenny’, JRSAI, 17 (1885–6), pp. 632–3.

153 Burtchaell, ‘Family of Rothe’, pp. 512–13. 154 On the subject of chapel foundation in England, and its association with reli-

gious nonconformity, see Nicholas Orme, ‘Church and Chapel in Medieval England’, TRHS, 6th series, 1 (1996). The creation by members of the elite of burial ‘aisles’ in Scotland sprang from a related desire to circumvent post-Reformation proscriptions of burial within churches. Spicer, ‘“Defyle not Christ’s kirk”’, pp. 149–69.

155 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, p. 336. For newly created mortuary chapels, see H. Colvin, Architecture and the After-Life (London, 1991); D. Hickman, ‘Wise and Religious Epitaphs: Funerary Inscriptions as Evidence for Religious Change in Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, c.1500–1640’, Midland History, 26 (2001), pp. 107–27. For the treatment of one Lancashire Catholic


graveyard, see P. Caraman (ed.), The Years of Siege: Catholic Life from James I to Cromwell (London, 1966), p. 28.

156 K. P. Luria, ‘Separated by Death? Burials, Cemeteries, and Confessional Boundaries in Seventeenth-Century France’, French Historical Studies, 24 (2001), pp. 185–222.

157 See especially B. Scribner, ‘Preconditions of Tolerance and Intolerance in Sixteenth-century Germany’; P. Benedict, ‘Un roi, une loi, deux fois: Parameters for the History of Catholic-Reformed Co-existence in France, 1555–1685’, both in B. Scribner and O. P. Grell (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 32–47, 65–93.

158 Luria, ‘Separated by Death?’, pp. 188–90. 159 For sixteenth-century French parallels, see P. Roberts, ‘Contesting Sacred

Space: Burial Disputes in Sixteenth-century France’, in Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 131–48; N. Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France’, Past and Present, 59 (1973), pp. 51–91; Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, pp. 106–8, 111–14. On shifts to persecution, see Scribner, ‘Preconditions of Tolerance and Intolerance’, pp. 39–46.

160 T. Fitzpatrick, Waterford During the Civil War (Waterford, 1912), p. 8. 161 Fitzpatrick, Waterford During the Civil War, p. 62; Hickson, Ireland, 2, pp. 129–30;

TCD, Ms. 828, f. 250. 162 For example, Hickson, Ireland, 1, p. 169; 2, p. 71. 163 Hickson, Ireland, 2, p. 101. 164 Hickson, Ireland, 1, p. 191. 165 Hickson, Ireland, 1, pp. 346–7. 166 T. Gogarty, ‘County Louth Depositions, 1641’, County Louth Archaeologoical

Journal, 3 (1912–15), p. 172. 167 TCD Ms. 825, f. 43; Hickson, Ireland, 2, p. 134. See Puhvel, The Crossroads in

Folklore, pp. 81–101. 168 Hickson, Ireland, 1, pp. 340–1. 169 Hickson, Ireland, 2, p. 188. 170 Luria, ‘Separated by Death?’ 171 Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, p. 466: ‘It was a gross violation, more often

imagined than practiced, to bury a human “face downward” or “with his head pointing in the wrong direction”.’ See also Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’, pp. 54–8.

5 The Politics of Disinterment

1 Mems Dead, 7, pp. 149–51. This case is discussed in more detail in chapter 6. 2 Barley, Dancing on the Grave, pp. 134–5; For examples of modern attitudes to

exhumation, see ‘Bitter row over grave’, Evening Echo (Cork), 20 January 1997, pp. 1–2; ‘Wanted: oak-furnished gravesite, long-term lease’, Sunday Independent (Dublin), 19 July 1998. For medieval disinterments, Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 120–2.

3 Cressy, Travesties and Trangressions, chapter 8, especially p. 126. 4 See especially Katherine Verdery, The Political Lives of Dead Bodies: Reburial and

Postsocialist Change (New York, 1999). Also J. Rotondo McCord, ‘Body Snatching and Episcopal Power: Archbishop Anno II of Cologne (1056–75), Burials in St. Mary’s ad gradus, and the Minority of King Henry IV’, Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), pp. 297–312; P. Sthrohm, ‘The Trouble with Richard: the Reburial of

Notes 191

Richard II and Lancastrian Symbolic Strategy’, Speculum, 71 (1996), pp. 87–111; A. F. Sutton, L. Visser-Fuchs and P. W. Hammond, The Reburial of Richard Duke of York 21–30 July 1476 (London, 1996); C. Marsh, ‘The Gravestone of Thomas Lawrence Revisited (or the Family of Love and the Local Community in Balsham, 1560–1630)’, in M. Spufford (ed.), The World of Rural Dissenters, 1520–1725 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 208–34; E. Weiss-Krejci, ‘Restless Corpses: “Secondary Burial” in the Babenburg and Hapsburg Dynasties’, Antiquity, 75 (2001), pp. 769–80.

5 AFM, 3, p. 2235. 6 S. Hayman (ed.), Unpublished Geraldine Documents (4 volumes, Dublin, 1870), 3,

p. 26.7 Weiss-Krejci, ‘Restless Corpses’, p. 775. 8 NAI, RC 5/24, ff. 74–5; RC 5/28, f. 471. 9 NLI, Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations in a Voyage’, f. 32; GO Ms 15, ‘Monumenta

Eblanae’, f. 113; Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials to the Dead’, plate IXb. 10 On 5 November 1597, Capt. Charles Egerton noted that the heads of the

Governor and Captain Mansell had been sent to Tyrone, ‘their carcases we have brought home to bury’. Cal. S. P. Ire. 1596–7, pp. 444–5, also pp. 442–3, 465–7.

11 McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, pp. 7–9. 12 Mems Dead, 11, pp. 117–19. 13 Lismore Papers, I, iii, 174–5. 14 See my ‘Colonising Memory’, for further details. 15 NAI, RC 5/28, f. 402. On the history of the family, see information compiled by

J. R. Delafield in NLI, GO Ms. 489, GO Ms. 633 and BM Add. Ms. 43,769.16 E. P. Shirley, The History of the County of Monaghan (London, 1879), pp. 110–32;

P. Livingstone, The Monaghan Story: a Documented History of the County of Monaghan from the Earliest Times to 1976 (Enniskillen, 1980), pp. 101–2, 121–2; P. J. Duffy, Landscapes of South Ulster: a Parish Atlas of the Diocese of Clogher (Belfast, 1993), pp. 13–16.

17 NAI, RC 5/28, ff. 402–9. See Duffy, Landscapes of South Ulster, pp. 71–2. 18 Shirley, History of Monaghan, pp. 598, 156. 19 NAI, RC 5/28, ff. 402–9; Funeral Entries, pp. 182–3; J. O’Hart, The Irish and Anglo-

Irish Landed Gentry When Cromwell Came to Ireland (Dublin, 1884), p. 65. 20 Shirley, History of Monaghan, pp. 154–60, 559–60. Garret Rooney is given as possess-

ing the lands. He had been appointed to manage them. NAI, RC 5/28, ff. 404, 407. 21 D. Pyke, Parish Priests and Churches of St. Mary’s, 1390–1984 (n/d), p. 5; Burke,

History of Clonmel, pp. 265–6. 22 J. White, ‘The Irish Catholics after the Death of Queen Elizabeth’, Duffy’s Irish

Magazine (November, 1848), pp. 272–3. 23 For England see Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, pp. 91–5; Rosser,

‘Parochial Conformity and Voluntary Religion’, p. 180; A. T. Bannister, ‘Visitation Returns of the Diocese of Hereford in 1397’, English Historical Review, 44 (1929), p. 287.

24 AFM, 3, p. 2047; E. Hogan (ed.), Description of Ireland, and the State thereof as it is this present in Anno 1598 (Dublin, 1898), p. 228; Meehan, Rise and Fall, pp. 13–14; C. Devlin, ‘Some Episcopal Lives’, in H. A. Jeffries and C. Devlin, History of the Diocese of Derry from Earliest Times (Dublin, 1999), p. 129.

25 AFM, 2, p. 1444. See Fry, Burial in Medieval Ireland, pp. 122–3. 26 Report on Franciscan Manuscripts Preserved at the Convent, Merchant’s Quay, Dublin

(Dublin, 1906), pp. 26–7.


27 B. Ó Dálaigh, The Strangers Gaze: Travels in County Clare 1534–1950 (Ennis, 1998), p. 16. The bishop’s descendants, though mostly Catholic, subsequently seem to have moved their burials to Ennis parish church: Funeral Entries, pp. 3, 8. See J. Frost, The History and Topography of the County of Clare (Dublin, 1973 [1896]), p. 227; Slevin, ‘Funeral Entries from County Clare’, p. 65.

28 Burke, History of Clonmel, p. 305; Jennings, ‘Brussels MS.3947’, p. 78; Meehan, Rise and Fall, p. 88.

29 A. Spicer, ‘Death and Reformed Burial Practices’, in P. Roberts and W. G. Naphy (eds), Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997), pp. 176–8.

30 Cal. S. P. Ire.1603–1606, pp. 475–6. 31 On Cistercian/Franciscan rivalry, see Corish, Irish Catholic Experience, pp. 101–2. 32 Burke, Clonmel, pp. 305–6; Meehan, Rise and Fall, p. 88. 33 R. C. Finucane, Miracles and Pilgrims: Popular Beliefs in Medieval England

(London, 1977), pp. 22–4; P. J. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, 1978); Living With the Dead in the Middle Ages (Cornell, 1994).

34 Burke, Clonmel, pp. 39–40; D. Murphy, Our Martyrs (Dublin, 1896), p. 352; O’Reilly, Memorials of Those who Suffered, pp. 123–5. O’Reilly claims it was Bishop O’Healy and Cornelius O’Rourke whose remains were translated (p. 30) as does D. P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Saints and Martyrs (New York, 1872), p. 51. All three had connections with the Earls of Desmond.

35 J. Walton, ‘Notes on Burials in the French Church, Part 1’, Decies, 4 (1977), p. 21. Quote from Wadding’s Annals Minorum (1635).

36 B. Millett, ‘Catalogue of volume 294 of the Scrittire originali riferite nelle congregazioni generali in Propaganda Archives’, Collectanea Hibernica, 8 (1965), p. 33.

37 O’Sullivan, Ireland Under Elizabeth, pp. 47–8. 38 Hartry, Triumphalia, pp. lvi–lvii, 37–49, 51–9; W.J. Hayes, Holy Cross Abbey

(Thurles, 1973). On a similar tradition, see J. F. Lynch, ‘Notes and Queries: Braon Sinnsior’, JCHAS, 2 (1896), p. 329.

39 On the surface, O’Sullivan’s account appears fictional. No Protestant bishop of Ferns was buried in Castleellis during Elizabeth’s reign: John Devereux and Nicholas Strafford were interred in St Mary’s, Wexford, Alexander Devereux and Hugh Allen in Fetherd, and two other bishops died before reaching the see. But other details are convincing. Castleellis (near Enniscorthy) was, as O’Sullivan identifies, in ‘Murphy’s country’ (two Murphys were proprietors in the 1640s), and the church was dedicated to St John the Baptist (a nearby well was still named after the saint in the twentieth century). Clearly O’Sullivan was repeating a tradition told to him as fact: any exaggerations were not necessarily entirely his own. See Hore, Wexford, 6, pp. 222–57, 270, 568–9.

40 B. MacCarthy (ed.), Annals of Ulster 3, 1379–1541 (Dublin, 1895), pp. 449–51; AFM, 2, pp. 1257–9; E. Barry, ‘Barrymore’, JCHAS, 5 (1899), p. 212.

41 NLI Ms. 16,085, f. 49. 42 Tait, ‘A Trusty and Wellbeloved Servant’. 43 Hickson, Ireland, 2, p. 69. 44 Hickson, Ireland, 2, p. 82. 45 TCD Ms. 813, f. 260; Hickson, Ireland, 2, p. 84. 46 TCD Ms. 813, f. 385. 47 TCD Ms. 829, f. 180v; J. Begley, The Diocese of Limerick in the Sixteenth and Seven-

teenth Centuries (Dublin, 1927), p. 404. See chapter 3 for the bishop’s death.

Notes 193

48 TCD Ms. 817, f. 36. 49 Fitzpatrick, Waterford During the Civil War, pp. 15–16; Anon., Good and Bad Newes,

n/p; Canny, ‘Religion, Politics and the Irish Rising of 1641’, pp. 57–8. 50 J. T. Gilbert (ed.), History of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland 1641–1643

(Dublin, 1882), p. 170. See also pp. 196–7 and 204–5. 51 See C. O’Brien (ed.), Feagh McHugh O’Byrne: the Firebrand of Wicklow (Rathdrum,

1998). 52 J. P. Cooper, ‘Strafford and the Byrnes’ Country’, IHS, 15 (1966). 53 Carte, The Life of James Duke of Ormond (Oxford, 1851), 2, p. 316; 5, p. 367. 54 See Verdery, Political Lives of Dead Bodies.

6 The Nature and Uses of Funerary Monuments

1 Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, p. 168. 2 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials to the Dead’, pp. 267–93; Roe, ‘Cadaver

Monuments’, pp. 1–19; J. Hunt, Irish Medieval Figure Sculpture 1200–1600 (2 volumes, Dublin, 1974); H. A. King, ‘Late Medieval Crosses in County Meath c. 1470–1635’, PRIA, 84 (1984), pp. 79–115; ‘Irish Wayside and Churchyard Crosses, 1600–1700’, Post-Medieval Archaeology, 19 (1985), pp. 13–33; Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English’; ‘The Funerary monuments of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork’, Church Monuments, 13 (1998), pp. 70–86.

3 A. Prost, ‘Monuments to the Dead’, in L. D. Kritzman (ed.), Realms of Memory: the Construction of the French Past, trans. A. Goldhammer (3 volumes, New York, 1996–7), 2, p. 310.

4 See Vovelle, Ideologies and Mentalities, pp. 37–62; E. Panofsky, Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (Oxford, 1972 [1939]).

5 E. Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture (London, 1992); K. A. Esdaile, English Church Monuments 1510–1840 (London, 1946); B. Kemp, English Church Monuments (London, 1980); F. Burgess, English Churchyard Monuments (London, 1963); J. Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk before 1850: an Archaeology of Commemoration (Oxford, 2000); Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 206–73; Llewellyn, Art of Death; M. Howard and N. Llewellyn, ‘Painting and Imagery’, in B. Ford (ed.), The Cambridge Cultural History of Britain: Sixteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 236–47.

6 NLI Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations on a Voyage’. Parts of this manuscript are quoted in E. P. Shirley, ‘Extracts from the Journal of Thomas Dineley, Esquire’, JRSAI, 5 (1858–9) and subsequent volumes.

7 An English exception is Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk. 8 Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English’, p. 27; J. Crawford, Among the Graves:

Inscriptions in St. Audoen’s Church, Cornmarket, Dublin (Dublin, 1990), pp. 18–9. 9 Gillespie, Vestry Records, pp. 10, 100.

10 M. Ní Eimhthigh, ‘Leacht na bFaltach I Mainister Bhaile Átha na Ríogh’, Galvia, 2 (1955); H. P. Hore, ‘A Briefe Description of the Barony of Forth, In the County of Wexford’, JRSAI, 7 (1862–3), p. 69.

11 J. Graves, ‘The Ancient Fabric, Plate and Furniture of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Waterford’, JRSAI, 2 (1852–3), p. 78; J. C. Walton, ‘Notes on Burials in the French Church II’, Decies, 5 (1977), p. 23.

12 See N. Llewellyn, ‘Cromwell and the Tombs: Historiography and Style in Post-Reformation English Funeral Monuments’, 27th International Congress of the History of Art (1992), pp. 193–204.


13 NLI Ms. 392, p. 296; Shirley, ‘Dineley’, JRSAI, 5 (1858–9), p. 31; Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 11.

14 Mems Dead, 1, pp. 50, 97. 15 Ó Dálaigh, ‘An Inventory of the Contents of Bunratty Castle’, p. 162. 16 See my ‘Colonising Memory’ and ‘The Earl and the Bishop: Further Light on the

Thomond and O’Dea Monuments in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick’, NMAJ (2002). 17 Mems Dead, 8, p. 429. 18 M. Craig and J. O’Connell, ‘Rath Reagh Church’, in H. Murtagh (ed.), Irish

Midland Studies (Athlone, 1980), p. 138. 19 NAI, RC 5/24, f. 702; RC 5/12, f. 210. 20 NLI Ms. D.27,533. 21 Funeral Entries, p. 157; Gillespie, Vestry Records, p. 71. 22 Lismore Papers, I, i, pp. 217–8; iii, p. 70; Cal S. P. Ire. 1633–36, p. 43. 23 MacCuarta, ‘A Planter’s Funeral’, p. 32. 24 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 275. 25 MacCuarta, ‘A Planter’s Funeral’, pp. 21, 32; R. Loeber, A Biographical Dictionary of

Architects in Ireland 1600–1720 (London, 1981), p. 108; Potterton, Irish Church Monuments, pp. 84, 89.

26 Potterton, Irish Church Monuments, pp. 18, 89; Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English’, pp. 36–8.

27 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 275 (n. 25); Lismore Papers, I, i, p. 167; ÓDálaigh, ‘Comparative Study’, p. 62.

28 Graves and Prim, St. Canice, p. 294. 29 Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English’, pp. 30–1; Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’,

p. 274; W. Roulston, ‘Seventeenth Century Church Monuments in West Ulster’, Ulster Local Studies, 19 (1) (1997), pp. 61–79.

30 H. King, ‘Seventeenth Century Effigial Sculpture in the North Meath Area’, in E. Rynne (ed.), Figures from the Past (Dublin, 1987), p. 285.

31 W. L. Spiers (ed.), ‘The Note-Book and Account Book of Nicholas Stone’, Walpole Society, 7 (1919), pp. 3, 38; J. Graves (ed.), ‘Anonymous Account of the Early Life and Marriage of James, First Duke of Ormond’, JRSAI, 7 (1862–3), p. 278; M. M. Phelan, ‘Butler Tombs and Furnishings in St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny’, Journal of the Butler Society, 2 (2) (1982), p. 164. Ledwich (quoted in Phelan) and Graves give the second figure as £300.

32 Certain chimney-pieces are ‘monumental’ in nature, and some of the motifs used in them are similar to those used in funerary sculpture. See, for example, 1610 and 1635 examples illustrated in M. Ryan (ed.), Irish Archaeology Illustrated (Dublin, 1994), p. 207, and A. O. Crookshank, Irish Sculpture from 1600 to the Present Day (Dublin, 1984), pp. 11–12.

33 Lismore Papers, I, iii, pp. 90, 135; Loeber, Architects, p. 108. Gillespie, Vestry Records, shows Tingham working at St John’s on occasions between 1631 and 1635. In the early 1640s he was living in the parish (pp. 71–6, 84–5, 97, 154).

34 On the transport of English monuments see Esdaile, English Church Monuments, pp. 62–3; Howard and Llewellyn, ‘Painting and Imagery’, pp. 242–3. Hills’ ‘dyett’ is mentioned in the accounts: Lismore Papers, I, i, pp. 247–8.

35 See Hunt, Figure Sculpture, esp. pp. 112–16. 36 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 4, p. 410; J. Hunt, ‘Rory O’Tunney and the

Ossory Tomb Sculptures’, JRSAI, 80 (1950), pp. 22–8; M. M. Phelan, ‘A Tomb Frontal in St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny’, Old Kilkenny Review, 50 (1998), pp. 20–3.

Notes 195

37 M. M. Phelan, ‘The O’Kerin School of Monumental Sculpture in Ossory and its Environs in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, JRSAI, 126 (1996), pp. 167–81; Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 4, p. 410; Potterton, Irish Church Monuments, pp. 9, 52; Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 276; P. Cockerham, ‘A Butler Tomb at Aharney, County Kilkenny’, Old Kilkenny Review, 50 (1998), p. 88; A. L. Harris, ‘A Newly Discovered “Kerin” Tomb at Thomastown, County Kilkenny’, Old Kilkenny Review, 52 (2000), pp. 123–30.

38 Phelan, ‘The O’Kerin School’, p. 167. 39 Loeber, Architects, pp. 42–3; ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 276. 40 Mems Dead, 1, pp. 192–3, 414; 2, p. 445; 3, pp. 108–9; 4, pp. 186–7; 5, p. 498;

7, p. 600; Anon., ‘The Archbold Altar-tomb, Moone Abbey’, JKAS, 1 (1891–5), p. 206; W. FitzGerald, ‘The Fitzgeralds of Ballyshannon (Co. Kildare)’, JKAS, 3 (1899–1901), p. 452; ‘Tullow, County Carlow: Its History and Antiquities’, JKAS, 8 (1915–17), p. 64; King, ‘Carved Stone Collection in Kildare’, pp. 77, 93, 94.

41 Note also Richard Rany, a mason from Galway, who produced an armorial plaque, now in Gansworth Hall, Cheshire, England, for Sir Edward Fitton. A. L. Harris and J. Bayliss, ‘An Unusual Memento from 16th Century Galway’, JGHAS, 53 (2001), pp. 120–6.

42 E. Hickey, ‘A Description of the Marward Stone at Skryne and a Discussion of John Cusack who Sculpted it’, Ríocht na Mídhe, 5(3) (1973), pp. 49–55; ‘Monument to Sir Thomas Cusack’, Ríocht na Mídhe, 5 (1) (1971); ‘The Wakelys of Navan and Ballburly’, Ríocht na Mídhe, 5 (4) (1974), pp. 3–18. See Esdaile, English Church Monuments, p. 84.

43 F. Ó Fearghail, ‘Some Ossory Medieval Inscriptions Revisited’, Old Kilkenny Review, 48 (1996), pp. 99–101.

44 H. A. King. ‘Irish Memorial Brasses to 1700’, PRIA, 94 (1994), pp. 111–40. 45 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 178; Potterton, Irish Church Monuments, p. 8;

Crookshank, Irish Sculpture, p. 12; Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English’, pp. 34–40. 46 See C. P. Curran, ‘Dublin Plaster Work’, JRSAI, 70 (1940), pp. 2–4, 49–50. 47 See E. Rynne, ‘The Corcomroe Wooden Graveslab’, NMAJ, 13 (1970), pp. 37–9;

Mems Dead, 2, p. 278. 48 Esdaile, English Church Monuments, pp. 71–3. 49 Graves and Prim, St. Canice, p. 286; Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, p. 167. 50 Trevelyan and Trevelyan, Trevelyan Papers, 3, p. 127. 51 See L. Jardine, Worldly Goods: a New History of the Renaissance (London, 1996), esp.

pp. 118–19, 124–6, 186–8. 52 For a spectacular Spanish example, see P. Lenaghan, ‘Commemorating a Real

Bastard: the Chapel of Alvaro de Luna’, in E. Valdez del Alamo and C. Stamatis Prendergast (eds), Memory and the Medieval Tomb (Aldershot and Vermont, 2000), pp. 129–45. See also the editors’ ‘Introduction’ to the volume. For an Irish example, see my ‘Colonising Memory’.

53 N. Llewellyn, ‘The Royal Body: Monuments to the Dead, for the Living’, in L. Gent and N. Llewellyn (eds), Renaissance Bodies: the Human Figure in English Culture (London, 1990), p. 225. See also Llewellyn, ‘Honour in Life, Death and the Memory: Funeral Monuments in Early Modern England’, TRHS, 6th ser., 6 (1996), pp. 179–213; ‘Claims to Status through Visual Codes: Heraldry on Post-Reformation Funeral Monuments’, in S. Anglo (ed.), Chivalry in the Renaissance (Woodbridge, 1990), pp. 145–60.

54 Llewellyn, ‘The Royal Body’, pp. 224–38.


55 J. Finch, ‘“According to the Qualitie and Degree of the Person Deceased”: Funeral Monuments and the Construction of Social Identities 1400–1700’, Scottish Archaeological Review, 8 (1991), p. 111; Church Monuments in Norfolk, pp. 111–15.

56 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 271; Harris, ‘Tombs of the New English’. 57 Finch, ‘Funeral Monuments’, p. 111. 58 Tait, ‘Colonising Memory’. 59 See also P. Cockerham’s comments on Cornwall: ‘“On my Grave a Marble Stone”:

Early Modern Cornish Memorialisation’, Cornish Studies, 2nd series 8 (2000), pp. 9–39.

60 C. M. Barnett, ‘Commemoration in the Parish Church: Identity and Social Class in Late Medieval York’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 72 (2000), p. 89.

61 N. Saul, Death, Art and Memory in Medieval England: the Cobham Family and their Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford, 2001), chapter 9. The quote is from p. 238. There are also German examples of such monuments: Stefanie Knoell, pers. comm.

62 See chapter 2 on the Earl’s late conversion to Catholicism. 63 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, p. 377; W. Healy, ‘The Cistercian Abbey of

Kilcooley, Co. Tipperary’, JRSAI, 20 (1890–1), p. 223. 64 Proust, ‘Monuments to the Dead’, pp. 310–11. 65 Quoted in Finch, ‘Funeral Monuments’, pp. 105–6; Church Monuments in Norfolk,

p. 110. The question of the relation of size and type of monument, and the pro-vision of grave-goods, to the status of the deceased, has long vexed archaeologists and anthropologists. It is clear that assumptions based in such indicators are often incorrect. See Ucko, ‘Ethnography and Archaeological Interpretation’, pp. 262–80.

66 K. Thomas, ‘The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern England’, in G. Baumann (ed.), The Written Word: Literacy in Transition (Oxford, 1986), pp. 97–131; R. Houston, ‘Literacy and Society in the West, 1500–1800’, Social History, 8 (1983), pp. 269–93; Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education 1500–1800 (Harlow and New York, 1988); W. Ford, ‘The Problem of Literacy in Early Modern England’, History, 78 (1993), pp. 22–37; J. Barry, ‘Literacy and Literature in Popular Culture: Reading and Writing in Historical Perspective’, in T. Harris (ed.), Popular Culture in England c.1500–1850 (London, 1995), pp. 69–93; J. A. Sharpe, Early Modern England (London, 1997), pp. 277–85.

67 Thomas, ‘Meaning of Literacy’, pp. 99–101. 68 For an inscription in Irish and Latin, see Mems Dead, 7, pp. 153–4. 69 O’Brien, Advertisements for Ireland, p. 42. 70 A. Bliss, ‘Language and Literature’, in J. Lydon (ed.), The English in Medieval

Ireland (Dublin, 1984), pp. 27–44; Contributions by B. Millett, B. O’Cuiv and A. Bliss in T. W. Moody et al. (eds), A New History of Ireland III (Oxford, 1976), pp. 509–81; R. Gillespie, ‘Church, State and Education in Early Modern Ireland’, in M. R. O’Connell (ed.), O’Connell: Education, Church and State (Dublin, 1992); ‘The Circulation of Print in Seventeenth-century Ireland’, Studia Hibernica, 29 (1995–7), pp. 31–58; ‘The Book Trade in Southern Ireland, 1590–1640’, in G. Long (ed.), Books Beyond the Pale (Dublin, 1996), pp. 1–15; ‘Reading the Bible in Seventeenth-century Ireland’, in B. Cunningham and M. Kennedy (eds), The Experience of Reading: Irish Historical Perspectives (Dublin, 1999), pp. 10–38.

71 Finch, ‘Funeral Monuments’, especially p. 112; Church Monuments in Norfolk, pp. 141, 163–4.

72 Quoted in Hogan, Ibernia Ignatiana, pp. 194–202. 73 O’Mahony, ‘Seventeenth Century Memorials’, p. 84.

Notes 197

74 Mems Dead, 2, p. 295; B. Ó Dálaigh, ‘The Disappearance of the Effigy of Bishop Cornelius O’Dea’, NMAJ, 37 (1996),

75 J. Grove-White, ‘Lady Dudaugh’s Grave’, JCHAS, 1 (1895), p. 138. 76 J. T. Collins, ‘Fiants of Queen Elizabeth Relating to the City and County of Cork’,

JCHAS, 43 (1938), p. 19. A more modern version of the tradition states that drop-ping a pin on the monument will cure warts. N. E. French, Trim: Places and Traces (Dunshaughlin, 1988), p. 46.

77 J. E. Levy, ‘Archaeological Perspectives on Death Ritual: Thoughts from Northwest Europe’, Anthropological Quarterly, 62 (4) (1989), p. 160. On monuments as ‘lieux de mémoire’, see Proust, ‘Monuments to the Dead’, especially p. 317.

7 Funerary Monuments and Society

1 J. Crawford, ‘An Archaeological Survey of St. Audoen’s Church, Cornmarket’, Dublin Historical Record, 49 (1996), p. 91.

2 Important works on the history of the family include Ariès, Centuries of Childhood; R. Houlbrooke, The English Family, 1450–1700 (London, 1984); S. Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Harvard, 1983); Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage; B. Gottlieb, The Family and the Western World from the Black Death to the Industrial Age (Oxford, 1993); O’Day, Family and Family Relationships; Abbott, Life Cycles in England.

3 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 345, 350. 4 Mems Dead, 6, p. 159. 5 Mems Dead, 4, p. 500 6 Mems Dead, 1, p. 189. 7 See chapter 4, note 95. 8 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, pp. 64–9. 9 ‘An Account of the Tomb Slab Erected by Christopher Sherlock,’ JWSEIAS, 3

(1897), pp. 196–8; Lennon, Lords of Dublin. Shee actually requested that his first wife’s body be reburied in his new monument: Prim, ‘Way-side Crosses of Kilkenny’, p. 181.

10 Prim, ‘Way-side Crosses of Kilkenny’, pp. 180–1. 11 Mems Dead, 1, p. 449; Hogan, Description of Ireland, p. 100; H. G. Tempest, ‘Bellew

Inscriptions’, Co. Louth Archaeological Journal, 1 (1904–7), pp. 24, 109; 3 (1912–15), pp. 105–6, 195–6.

12 Mems Dead, 3, p. 112. The location is given as ‘Moone’, but this is amended in a copy of the journal owned by the Royal Society of Antiquaries in Dublin. Thanks to Conleth Manning for drawing my attention to this.

13 Mems Dead, 7, pp. 149–51. 14 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 354–5. See B. Willsher, Scottish

Epitaphs: Epitaphs and Images from Scottish Graveyards (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 47–74.

15 For example, Mems Dead, 1, p. 185. 16 Mems Dead, 5, pp. 248–50. 17 Mems Dead, 7, pp. 302–3. 18 M. Lenihan, ‘The Fee-book of a Physician of the Seventeenth Century’, JRSAI, 9

(1867), p. 14. 19 Mems Dead, 3 p. 107; Craig and O’Connell, ‘Rath Reagh Church’, pp. 136–41. 20 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, pp. 407–8; A. V. Hogg, ‘The Collegiate Church

of St. Mary, Gowran, Co. Kilkenny and its Monuments’, JRSAI, 48 (1918), p. 345.


21 Mems Dead, 11, p. 221. 22 Hogg, ‘Gowran’, p. 345. 23 Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 255–7; Centuries of Childhood, p. 336. Ariès comments

that these tombs were more popular in England than on the continent, and this influence may in part explain why Protestants were their more usual patrons in Ireland. Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 346, 348, 356–7.

24 See illustrations Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, plate IIIa; Hickey, ‘Monument to Sir Thomas Cusack’, pp. 78–9, 83.

25 J. Bradley, ‘The Medieval Tombs of St. Canices’, in A. Empey (ed.), A Worthy Foundation: the Cathedral Church of St. Canice, Kilkenny (Dublin, 1985), p. 92.

26 J. Higgins and S. Herinklee, Monuments of St. Nicholas’ Collegiate Church, Galway: a Historical, Genealogical and Archaeological Record (Galway, 1991), p. 227; Mems Dead, 3, p. 464.

27 On monuments and ‘ancestor worship’, see Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World, pp. 256–8.

28 Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, pp. 164–5. 29 ‘Proceedings’, JRSAI, 11 (1870–1), p. 575. 30 Mems Dead, 6, p. 445; 1, p. 518; 4, p. 275. 31 Mems Dead, 2, p. 491. 32 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, p. 277. 33 See Strocchia, Death and Ritual, chapter 5. 34 A. C. Fox Davies, The Wordsworth Complete Guide to Heraldry (Ware, 1996), pp.

609–10; Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 183–5; Llewellyn, ‘Honour in Life, Death and the Memory’, pp. 194–5, 200; ‘Claims to Status through Visual Codes’, pp. 147–9, 151.

35 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, plate IIIa. ‘The individual is located within the elite hierarchy from the local to the national.’ Finch, ‘Funeral Monuments’, p. 111.

36 R. Cust, ‘Honour, Rhetoric and Political Culture: the Earl of Huntingdon and his Enemies’, in S.D. Amussen and M.A. Kishlansky (eds), Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern England (Manchester, 1995), p. 90; ‘Honour and Politics in Early Stuart England: the Case of Beaumont v. Hastings’, Past and Present, 149 (1995), pp. 57–94; M. James, ‘English Politics and the Concept of Honour, 1485–1642’, in Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 308–415; Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, pp. 160–1; Stone, Family, Sex and Marriage, chapter 4.

37 Cust, ‘Honour, Rhetoric and Political Culture’, p. 94. See also L. Atherton, Ambition and Failure in Stuart England: the Career of John, First Viscount Scudamore (Manchester, 1999), especially pp. 1–19. See also A. Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England 1500–1800 (New Haven and London, 1999), part 2.

38 Mems Dead, 4, p. 321. 39 The term is borrowed from Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk. 40 In sixteenth-century England ‘[t]he word “gentleman” lacked the legal connota -

tion of “esquire” and the status was conferred only through recognition by friends and neighbours.’ Land ownership was desirable though not completely necessary. Those entitled to armorial bearings used the term ‘esquire’. J. Youings, Sixteenth-Century England (Harmondsworth, 1984), pp. 115–16; Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk, p. 47.

41 Mems Dead, 2, p. 318.

Notes 199

42 A. J. Fletcher, ‘Honour, Reputation and Local Officeholding in Elizabethan and Stuart England’, in A. J. Fletcher and J. Stevenson (eds), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 92–115.

43 NLI Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations in a Voyage’, f. 35. Bingham died in 1598. 44 Mems Dead, 3, p. 419; 8, p. 173. 45 See chapter 4, note 95. 46 In Florence, the use of armour became an expression of resurgent ideas of

chivalry. A. Butterfield, ‘Monument and Memory in Early Renaissance Florence’, in G. Ciappelli and P. L. Rublin (eds), Art, Memory and Family in Renaissance Florence (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 135–60.

47 Mems Dead, 11, pp. 113–15. 48 L. Stone, ‘The Inflation of Honours 1558–1641’, Past and Present, 14 (1958),

pp. 45–70; C. R. Mayes, ‘The Early Stuarts and the Irish Peerage’, The English Historical Review, 73 (1958), pp. 227–51.

49 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, pp. 302–3. 50 For the problems encountered by English Catholics in asserting honour see Cust,

‘Honour and Politics in Early Stuart England’. On Catholic exclusion from office in Ireland, see Canny, Making Ireland British.

51 Sheehan, ‘Irish Towns in a Period of Change’, pp. 99–105. 52 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, p. 90. 53 Mems Dead, 5, p. 67; NLI Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations on a Voyage’, f. 43;

Lennon, Lords of Dublin, pp. 272–3. 54 Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, p. 5. 55 Brereton, Travels in Holland and the United Provinces, p. 136. See Finch, Church

Monuments in Norfolk, pp. 55–9, 117–19. The move away from references to civic office-holding evident in Norfolk is not reflected in Irish monuments of this period.

56 See Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk, pp. 59–61, 120–1; Willsher, Scottish Epitaphs, pp. 75–112; J. Mulveen, ‘The Origin and Development of Occupational Graveslabs’, NMAJ, 37 (1996), pp. 99–106.

57 For example, Mems Dead, 5, pp. 64, 66, 67. 58 Mems Dead, 5, pp. 65, 69. 59 Stone dated 1616. Mems Dead, 6, pp. 294–5. 60 Mems Dead, 6, p. 158; 7, p. 190; P. Power, ‘The Holy Ghost Friary Commonly

Called the French Church of Waterford’, JWSEAS, 1 (1894–5), p. 216; Walton, ‘Notes on Burials in the French Church II’, p. 23. Another goldsmith was also interred here: p. 24. A Galway tomb also bears goldsmith’s emblems: Higgins and Heringklee, St. Nicholas’ Church, p. 154.

61 Power, ‘Ruined Churches of Co. Waterford’, p. 170. The O’Hickeys, hereditary physicians to the O’Briens of Thomond, were buried in Teampul-a-Calla, Co. Tipperary. Lenihan, ‘The Fee-book of a Physician’, p. 14.

62 D. Maher, Medieval Graveslabs of Co. Tipperary 1200–1600 A.D. (Oxford, 1997), p. 72.

63 R. A. S. MacAlister, ‘The Dominican Church at Athenry’, JRSAI, 43 (1913), p. 212. 64 Mems Dead, 5, p. 30. 65 Graves and Prim, St. Canice’s, pp. 285–6, 315–16, 304; Bradley, ‘St. Canice’s’, p. 94;

Mems Dead, 6, p. 487; Higgins and Heringklee, St. Nicholas’ Church, p. 226. 66 Mems Dead, 6, p. 143. 67 Anon., ‘The Hamilton Manuscripts’, UJA, 3 (1855), p. 145. 68 Mems Dead, 3, p. 156.


69 Mems Dead, 5, p. 252. See L. Marron, ‘Documents from the State Papers Concerning Miler McGrath’, Arch. Hib., 21 (1958).

70 Mems Dead, 4, p. 71; W. D. O’Connell, ‘Franciscan Reorganisation in Munster dur-ing the Early Seventeenth Century’, JCHAS, 44 (1939), p. 40; T. J. Barrington, Discovering Kerry: Its History, Heritage and Topography (Dublin, 1976), p. 85.

71 Mems Dead, 5, p. 264; J. Hayes, ‘The Prior’s Tomb in Templemore Old Church’, Tipperary Historical Journal (1993), pp. 186–8.

72 Mems Dead, 8, pp. 432–3. 73 Graves and Prim, St. Canice, p. 299; P. Cockerham, ‘A Butler Tomb at Aharney,

County Kilkenny’, Old Kilkenny Review, 50 (1998), pp. 91–2. 74 Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, p. 5. 75 Healy, History and Antiquities of Kilkenny, p. 64. 76 See Heal, ‘Concepts of Generosity’, pp. 30–45. 77 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 4, p. 186. 78 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 4, p. 179. 79 See, for example, my ‘Irish Images of Jesus’, Church Monuments, 16 (2001),

pp. 44–57. Also Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, pp. 162–5. 80 GO Ms. 15, ‘Monumenta Eblanae’, f. 67. See Esdaile, English Church Monuments,

pp. 78, 90; Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, pp. 75–6. K. Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: the Transi Tomb in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Berkeley, 1973), pp. 142–7; Tait, ‘Colonising Memory’.

81 S. deCoursey Williams, ‘The Old Graveyards of Durrow Parish’, JRSAI, 7 (1862–3), p. 137; Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, pp. 165–6.

82 S. Seymour, ‘Abbey Owney, County Limerick, Part II’, JRSAI, 17 (1907), pp. 362–3. 83 Mems Dead, 3, p. 134; 6, p. 137; ‘History of the Town of Portarlington’, JKAS, 4

(1903–5), p. 224. 84 On clothing as an indicator of rank, see R. M. Smuts, ‘Public Ceremony and Royal

Charisma: the English Royal Entry in London, 1485–1642’, in A. L. Beier et al. (eds), The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone (Cambridge, 1989), p. 71; F. Dabhoiwala, ‘The Construction of Honour, Reputation and Status in Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century England’, TRHS, 6th series, vol. 6 (1996), p. 209.

85 GO Ms. 15, ‘Monumenta Eblanae’, f. 63; V. Jackson, St. Patrick’s Cathedral Dublin (Dublin, 1976), p. 4.

86 GO Ms. 15, ‘Monumenta Eblanae’, f. 63; NLI Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations on a Voyage’, f. 18; Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, plate VI.

87 On women in Ireland, see MacCurtain and O’Dowd, Women in Early Modern Ireland; M. O’Dowd, ‘Women and the Law in Early Modern Ireland’, in C. Meek (ed.), Women in Renaissance and Early Modern Europe (Dublin, 2000), pp. 95–108. On women’s honour, see Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination; A. Wall, ‘Elizabethan Precept and Feminine Practice: the Thynne Family of Longleat’, History, 75 (1990), pp. 23–38; C. Herrup, ‘ “To Pluck Bright Honour From the Pale-Faced Moon”: Gender and Honour in the Castlehaven Story’; F. Heal, ‘Reputation and Honour in Court and Country: Lady Elizabeth Russell and Sir Thomas Hoby’; E. Foyster, ‘Male Honour, Social Control and Wife-Beating in Late Stuart England’; L. Gowing, ‘Women, Status and the Popular Culture of Dishonour’; G. Walker, ‘Expanding the Boundaries of Female Honour in Early Modern England’; Dabhoiwala, ‘The Construction of Honour, Reputation and Status’, all TRHS, 6th series, vol. 6 (1996), pp. 137–246; S. D. Amussen, ‘Gender, Family and the Social Order, 1560–1725’, in Fletcher and Stevenson, Order and Disorder, pp. 196–217; C. Atkinson and J. B. Atkinson, ‘Subordinating Women: Thomas

Notes 201

Bentley’s Use of Biblical Women in “The Monument of Matrones” (1582)’, Church History, 60 (1991), pp. 289–300; S. Mendelson, ‘The Civility of Women in Seventeenth-Century England’, in Burke, Civil Histories, pp. 111–25; Gottlieb, The Family in the Western World, pp. 262–4; Bepler, Women in German Funeral Sermons’.

88 A similar pattern can be discerned in other documents. For example, in Gaelic annals women ‘were invariably described in terms of their father or husband’, while in poetry about women it was ‘the actuality of the male poet, or the male relative of the woman which was central’. B. Cunningham, ‘Women and Gaelic Literature, 1500–1800’, in MacCurtain and O’Dowd, Women in Early Modern Ireland, pp. 147–58.

89 Mems Dead, 1, p. 243. 90 Mems Dead, 1, pp. 327–8; Loeber, Architects, pp. 47–8. 91 Mems Dead, 3, p. 419. See Wall, ‘Elizabethan Precept’ for a similar construction

of female honour. For ‘wifely virtues’ on English funerary monuments, see Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 354, 358–9

92 Graves and Prim, St. Canice’s, pp. 287, 191. 93 See Foyster, ‘Male Honour and Wife Beating’; Cust, ‘Honour and Politics’;

Amussen, ‘Gender, Family and the Social Order’; ‘Punishment, Discipline, and Power: the Social Meanings of Violence in Early Modern England’, Journal of British Studies (1995), pp. 12–18.

94 Mems Dead, 1, p. 454. 95 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, p. 216. 96 See especially L. T. Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in

Northern New England 1650–1750 (New York, 1991). The quote is on p. 6. 97 See Tait, ‘Colonising Memory’ for the details of this incident. 98 Gillespie, ‘Irish Funeral Monuments’, p. 158. 99 Graves and Prim, St. Canice’s, pp. 293–4.

100 For example: ‘Murdered garda’s grave desecrated for second time’, The Irish Times, 23 September 1997.

101 O’Mahony, ‘Seventeenth Century Memorials to the Dead’, p. 144. 102 Higgins and Heringklee, St. Nicholas Church, p. xii; Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12:8. 103 Mems Dead, 1, pp. 99–100; 2, p. 161. 104 Mems Dead, 6, p. 44. 105 Callanan, ‘The de Burgos or Bourkes’, p. 70; Mems Dead, 7, p. 672. 106 W. Ball Wright, Ball Family Records (York, 1908), p. xxiii. For other examples, see

NAI, RC 5/7, f. 277; 5/13, f. 166; 5/14, f. 193; 5/16, f. 104; 5/16, f. 104; 5/18, f. 183; 5/19, ff. 204, 269; 5/22, f. 69; 5/24, f. 13; 10/1, ff. 75, 194; 10/7, f. 335; Prendergast, ‘Ancient History of the Kingdom of Kerry’, p. 263.

107 Bradley, ‘Tombs of St. Canice’s’, p. 88. 108 T. J. Westropp, ‘History of Ennis Abbey, Co, Clare, 1240–1693’, JRSAI, 17 (1886), p. 46. 109 Delumeau, Sin and Fear, especially chapters 2 and 3. 110 Cooline, Co. Cork (1633): Mems Dead, 1, p. 322. 111 S. J. Seymour, ‘Abbey Owney, County Limerick’, JRSAI, 37 (1907), p. 360. 112 Mems Dead, 7, p. 669. See Matt 24:44, 25:13. 113 NLI Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations on a Voyage’, f. 45. 114 Mems Dead, 8, pp. 428–9; 10, pp. 381–2; 1, pp. 233–4; 9, p. 156. 115 Mems Dead, 2, p. 114. 116 For later Irish examples, see F. McCormick, ‘The Symbols of Death and the

Tomb of John Forster in Tydavnet, Co. Monaghan’, Clogher Record, 9 (1983), pp. 273–86. For Scotland and England, S. Tarlow, ‘Wormie Clay and Blessed


Sleep: Death and Disgust in Later Historic Britain’, in Tarlow and S. West (eds), The Familiar Past? Archaeologies of Later Historical Britain (London, 1999), pp. 183–98; Kemp, English Church Monuments, pp. 172–81.

117 Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, pp. 11–12. On the European context of such motifs, see Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol; Delumeau, Sin and Fear; J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (London, 1989), pp. 138–51; Ariès, Hour of Our Death, pp. 110–38; Binski, Medieval Death, chapter 3; Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, pp. 63–6, 78–81; Kemp, English Church Monuments, pp. 160–5; P. M. King, ‘The Cadaver Tomb in England: Novel Manifestations of an Old Idea’, Church Monuments, 5 (1990), pp. 26–38; C. Platt, King Death (London, 1996); Finch, Church Monuments in Norfolk, pp. 71–4.

118 Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, p. 14; T. J. McKenna and C. V. Moore, The Modest Men of Christ Church Cork (Naas, 1970), cover illustration, p. 6; Mems Dead, 2, p. 269; R. Sainthill, An Olla Podrida, or, Scraps, Numismatic, Antiquarian and Literary (2 volumes, London, 1853); J.P.D., ‘With Pen and Pencil Around Cork’, JCHAS, 3a (1894), pp. 31–2; C.J.F. McCarthy, Thomas Ronan in Sixteenth Century Cork (Cork, 1990); ‘An Antiquary’s Note Book 20’, JCHAS, 104 (1999), pp. 146–7.

119 Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, pp. 18–19; Hickey, ‘Monument to Sir Thomas Cusack’, especially p. 87.

120 Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, p. 16; Mems Dead, 1, p. 441; Hogg, ‘The Collegiate Church of St. Mary, Gowran’, p. 344.

121 O’Mahony, ‘Seventeenth Century Memorials to the Dead’, pp. 71–2. 122 Phelan, ‘The O’Kerin School’, p. 171. 123 Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, plate VIII, p. 284. 124 ‘Monumenta Eblanae’, ff. 73, 177. 125 T. S. R. Boase, Death in the Middle Ages: Mortality, Judgment and Remembrance

(London, 1972), p. 98. This formula seems to disappear from Irish Protestant tombs, perhaps because it comes from a book of the Bible rejected as Apocryphal: Ecclesiasticus 38:23. Variations of the theme did continue in Scotland. See Willsher, Scottish Epitaphs, pp. 20–4.

126 Mems Dead, 1, pp. 413–14; 8, p. 97; W. Fitzgerald, ‘ Rathangan’, JKAS, 5 (1906–8), p. 152.

127 ‘Miscellanea’, JKAS, 4 (1903–5), pp. 249–50. 128 Mems Dead, 4, pp. 187–8; W. Fitzgerald, ‘Tullow, Co. Carlow: Its History and

Antiquities’, JKAS, 8 (1915–17), p. 64; Shirley, ‘Extracts from the Journal of Thomas Dineley’, p. 49; Ecclesiasticus 10:13; This motif continued to be used until the nineteenth century. See R. Hencion, ‘The Gravestone Inscriptions of County Cork, X’, JCHAS, 79 (1974); ‘The Gravestone Inscriptions of County Cork, IX’, JCHAS, 77 (1972), p. 89.

129 J. Gleeson, History of the Ely O’Carroll Territory or Ancient Ormond (Dublin, 1915), pp. 261–2.

130 NLI Ms. 392, Dineley, ‘Observations on a Voyage’, f. 32. 131 Mems Dead, 5, p. 250. 132 Mems Dead, 1, pp. 40–1; Roe, ‘Cadaver Monuments’, pp. 16–17; J. F. Morrissey,

‘Notes on the Places Visited During the Summer Excursion of the Society to Clonmel, 1909’, JRSAI, 49 (1909).

133 Mems Dead, 8, p. 173. 134 Mems Dead, 2, p. 115. 135 Mems Dead, 1, p. 413; Luke 23:46. 136 Mems Dead, 1, p. 189.

Notes 203

137 D. Power, ‘The Ancient Ruined Churches of Co. Waterford’, JWSEAS, 3 (1897), p. 215.

138 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 3, pp. 257–8. 139 P. King, ‘The English Cadaver Tomb in the Late Fifteenth Century: Some

Indications of a Lancastrian Connection’, in J. H. M. Taylor (ed.), Dies Illa: Death in the Middle Ages (Liverpool, 1984), p. 45.

140 C. R. Elrington (ed.), The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, D.D. Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland (Dublin, 1864), 13, pp. 92–106, 497–505.

8 Afterlives

1 See P. Camporesi, The Fear of Hell: Images of Damnation and Salvation in Early Modern Europe, trans. L. Byatt (Cambridge, 1991); A. K. Turner, The History of Hell (London, 1996); B. McGinn, Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of Human Fascination with Evil (New York, 2000); P. C. Almond, Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge, 1994); J. B. Russell, Lucifer: the Devil in the Middle Ages (Cornell, 1986); Delumeau, Sin and Fear; S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: the Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (Oxford, 1997); P. Marshall, ‘“The map of God’s word”: Geographies of the Afterlife in Tudor and Early Stuart England’, in B. Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 110–30; Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 166–81.

2 Hickson, Ireland, 1, pp. 340–1; 2, p. 188. 3 For example the ‘icy’ Hell mentioned in one poem. P. O’Dwyer, Mary: a History of

Devotion in Ireland (Dublin, 1988), p. 196. 4 T. O’Hara, ‘A Vision of Hell in Early Modern Ireland’, Arch. Hib., 51 (1997),

pp. 87–99. 5 Elrington, Whole Works of James Ussher, 13, pp. 107–25, 404–20. 6 For later folklore about the devil, see S. Ó hEochaidh and L. L. Ó Laoire, ‘An

Diabhal i Seanchas Thír Chonaill’, Béaloideas, 57 (1989), pp. 1–108. 7 S. Ó Tuama and T. Kinsella (eds), An Duanaire 1600–1900: Poems of the Dispossessed

Portlaoise, 1985), pp. 29–31. 8 See chapter 2. 9 O’Sullivan, Ireland Under Elizabeth, p. 16.

10 Rothe, Analecta, p. 446. See Clark, Thinking with Demons, pp. 389–434. 11 H. Loxton, The Art of Angels (London, 1995), pp. 22–4. Hunt and Roe have listed

depictions of Michael in Ireland. Others may be added, including the Walsh tomb, Kildare cathedral (1621), the Plunket tomb, Clonebraney, Co. Meath (1595), and an early sixteenth-century Michael, also in Kildare. Hunt, Irish Figure Sculpture, pp. 256–7; H. Roe, ‘The Cult of St. Michael in Ireland’, in C. Ó’Danachair (ed.), Folk and Farm: Essays in Honour of A. J. Lucas (Dublin, 1976), pp. 251–62; W. Fitzgerald, ‘The Walsh Tomb, Kildare Cathedral’, JKAS, 1 (1895), p. 144; Mems Dead, 3, pp. 108–9; King, ‘Carved Stone Collection in Kildare’, pp. 83, 87–8.

12 Anon., ‘Notes and Queries: Kilkenny Miracle Plays’, pp. 239, 241. 13 ’Letter sent in 1617’, p. 119. 14 O’Sullivan, Ireland Under Elizabeth, pp. 97–8. 15 R. Walsh, ‘Miscellaneous Documents’, Arch. Hib., 6 (1917), p. 65. 16 E. O’Duffy, ‘The Apostasy of Myler Magrath, Archbishop of Cashel’, in J. D.

White, Anthologia Tipperariensis (Cashel, 1892).


17 TCD Ms. 812, f. 223. See also chapter 4. 18 TCD Ms. 817, f. 178v. 19 TCD Ms. 817, f. 39v. 20 For dog burial and treatment of dogs in England, see R. Cowie et al., ‘A Late

Medieval and Tudor Horse Burial Ground: Excavations at Elverton Street, Westminster’, The Archaeological Journal, 155 (1998), pp. 226, 233, 236; Rev. 22:15; K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World (New York, 1996), pp. 105–6; S. Davis, The Archaeology of Animals (London, 1987), pp. 191–2; R. A. Harcourt, ‘The Dog in Prehistoric and Early Historic Britain’, Journal of Archaeological Science (1974), pp. 151–75.

21 N. Sanford and C. Comstock (eds), Sanctions for Evil: Sources of Social Destructiveness (San Francisco, 1971); Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence’, pp. 51–91; N. Canny, ‘The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America’, William and Mary Quarterly, 30 (1973), pp. 575–98; K. M. Noonan, ‘“The Cruell Pressure of an Enraged, Barbarous People”: Irish and English Identity in Seventeenth-Century Policy and Propaganda’, The Historical Journal, 41 (1998), pp. 151–77.

22 On Purgatory, see especially J. Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory, trans. A. Goldhammer (London, 1984). Also E. H. Hanna, ‘Purgatory’, CE, 12, pp. 575–80; Boase, Death in the Middle Ages; Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, pp. 49–52; Zemon Davis, ‘Ghosts, Kin, and Progeny’, pp. 92–6; C. Burgess, ‘“A fond thing vainly invented”: an Essay on Purgatory and Pious Motive in Later Medieval England’, in Wright, Parish, Church and People, pp. 56–84; ‘“For the Increase of Divine Service”: Chantries in the Parish in Late Medieval Bristol’, JEH, 36 (1985), pp. 837–48; ‘ “Longing to be prayed for”: Death and Commemoration in an English Parish in the Later Middle Ages’; Marshall, ‘Geographies of the Afterlife’, both in Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 44–65, 110–30; Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 181–99; Delumeau, Sin and Fear; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, chapter 10; Ariès, Hour of Our Death, especially pp. 152–9; R. W. Shaffern, ‘Images, Jurisdiction, and the Treasury of Merit’, Journal of Medieval History, 22 (1996), pp. 237–47, esp. p. 238; P. Marshall, ‘Fear, Purgatory and Polemic in Reformation England’, in P. Roberts and W. G. Naphy (eds), Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997); Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory; Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead, chap-ter 2. On early Christian ideas in Ireland, see B. Grogan, ‘Eschatological Teaching of the Early Irish Church’, in Biblical Studies: the Medieval Irish Contribution (Dublin, 1976), pp. 46–58. The quotation is from Burgess, ‘Purgatory and Pious Motive’, p. 63.

23 Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 362. See also Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, p. 141. 24 ‘The dead were, like the poor, utterly dependent on the loving goodwill of

others’. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 328. 25 NAI, RC 10/1, f. 354. 26 R. Gillespie, The Proctors’ Accounts of Peter Lewis (Dublin, 1996), pp. 16, 28, 109;

J. Mills, ‘The Journal of Peter Lewys, 1564–1565’, JRSAI, 26 (1896), p. 136. 27 Mems Dead, 7, p. 398. 28 Mems Dead, 5, pp. 115–7. 29 Mems Dead, 7, pp. 153–4. Unusually, this inscription is in Irish. 30 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 2, p. 397. 31 Shirley, ‘Extracts from the Journal of Thomas Dineley’, p. 432. 32 D., ‘With Pen and Pencil around Cork’, p. 31.

Notes 205

33 One example of an indulgenced tomb is the Cantwell/Butler memorial, 1528, which promised 120 days’ indulgence. W. Healy, ‘The Cistercian Abbey of Kilcooley, Co. Tipperary’, JRSAI, 21 (1890–1), p. 225.

34 Prim, ‘Way-Side Crosses of Kilkenny’, pp. 169–70. 35 King, ‘Irish Wayside and Churchyard Crosses’, pp. 13–33; ‘Late Medieval Crosses

in County Meath’, pp. 79–115. In 1619 it was claimed that the erection of such crosses had been forbidden, though this does not seem to have had much impact. Walsh, ‘Memorial Presented to the King of Spain’, p. 52. See also H. S. Crawford, ‘List of the Wayside Crosses near Fore, County Westmeath’, JRSAI, 58 (1928), pp. 57–62

36 NAI, RC 5/32, f. 209. 37 NAI, RC 5/16, f. 241; 5/18, f. 134. 38 O’Dwyer, Mary, p. 194. 39 See A. Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose: the Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages

(Pennsylvania, 1997), also Tait, ‘Harnessing Corpses’, chapter 9; H. Concannon, The Queen of Ireland (Dublin, 1936); O’Dwyer, Mary, for further discussions of Mary’s cult in Ireland.

40 L. McKenna, Dan Dé (Dublin, 1940), pp. 92–3. 41 J. Hunt, Irish Figure Sculpture; Tait, ‘Irish Images of Jesus’; ‘Harnessing Corpses’,

chapter 9. 42 Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 368. See C. Lennon, ‘Dives and Lazarus in six-

teenth-century Ireland’, in Lennon and Hill, Luxury and Austerity, pp. 46–65. See also S. K. Cohn, Death and Property in Siena, 1205–1800: Strategies for the Afterlife (Baltimore and London, 1988).

43 Mems Dead, 6, p. 591. 44 Hartry, Triumphalia, p. lx. 45 S. Seymour, ‘Abbey Owney, Co. Limerick’, JRSAI, 37 (1907), p. 364. 46 Mems Dead, 5, pp. 115–16. 47 E. MacLysaght (ed.), ‘Survey of Documents in Private keeping: Power O’Shee

Papers’, Anal. Hib., 15 (1944), pp. 226–33. This ‘hospital’ was at the almshouses still bearing Shee’s name.

48 R. G. Fitzgerald Uniacke, ‘Some Old Cork Families I. The Uniackes of Youghal’, JCHAS, 3a (1894), pp. 151–2.

49 W. Carrigan, ‘Old Waterford Wills III’, JWSEAS, 9 (1906), pp. 210–14. The Ley family had burial rights in the church of the Holy Ghost hospital: University of London, Fuller Cabinet II, Drawer 6/10. See chapter 4.

50 W. Carrigan, ‘Old Waterford Wills IV’, JWSEAS, 10 (1907), p. 69. 51 W. Carrigan, ‘Old Waterford Wills I’, JWSEAS, 9 (1906), pp. 151–3. 52 J. Mockler, ‘Documents Relating to the City of Waterford at the Beginning of the

Seventeenth Century’, JWSEAS, 7 (1901), p. 175. 53 P. Power, ‘Sundrie Priests and Friers – 1610’, JWSEAS (1913), p. 123. See Lennon,

‘Dives and Lazarus’, p. 53. 54 MacLysaght, ‘Documents in Private Keeping’, p. 229. 55 Burtchaell, ‘Family of Rothe’, p. 513. 56 Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde (London, 1902), new series,

1, p. 18; ‘The 1613 Will and 1614 Codicil of Thomas, Earl of Ormond’, Journal of the Butler Society, 4 (2) (2000), pp. 305–9.

57 J. B. Cullen, ‘A Forgotten Chantry: St. Saviour’s Chapel, New Ross’, IER, 4th series, 8 (1900), pp. 243–56.

58 NAI, RC 10/7, ff.341–2.


59 H. Colvin, ‘The Origin of Chantries’, Journal of Medieval History, 26 (2000), pp. 163–73; Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 134–41; J. Rollo-Koster, ‘Forever After: the Dead in the Avignonese Confraternity of Notre Dame la Majour (1329–1381)’, Journal of Medieval History, 25 (1999), pp. 115–40. See also B. A. Hanawalt, ‘Keepers of the Lights: Late Medieval English Parish Gilds’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 14 (1984), pp. 21–37; G. Rosser, ‘Communities of Parish and Guild in the Late Middle Ages’, in Wright (ed.), Parish, Church and People, pp. 29–45; A. D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England (Oxford, 1995), pp. 92–110; Dinn, ‘Death and Rebirth’, pp. 151–69; J. R. Banker, Death in the Community: Memorialization and Confraternities in the Italian Commune in the Late Middle Ages (Athens, GA, 1988).

60 C. Lennon, ‘Civic Life and Religion in Early Seventeenth-Century Dublin’, Arch. Hib., 38 (1983); Lords of Dublin; ‘The Chantries in the Irish Reformation: the Case of St. Anne’s Guild, Dublin, 1550–1630’, in R. V. Comerford et al. (eds), Religion, Conflict and Coexistence in Ireland (Dublin, 1990), pp. 6–25; ‘The Foundation Charter of St. Sythe’s Guild, Dublin, 1476’, Arch. Hib., 48 (1994), pp. 3–12; M. Clark and R. Refaussé, Directory of Historic Dublin Guilds (Dublin, 1993); M. V. Ronan, ‘Religious Customs of Dublin Medieval Gilds’, IER, 26 (1925), pp. 225–47, 364–85; Corish, The Irish Catholic Experience, p. 85; H. F. Berry, ‘The Records of the Dublin Gild of Merchants, Known as the Gild of Holy Trinity, 1438–1671’, JRSAI, 30 (1900), pp. 45–67; ‘The Ancient Corporation of Barber-Surgeons, or Gild of St. Mary Magdelene, Dublin’, JRSAI, 33 (1903), pp. 321–37; ‘History of the Religious Gild of St. Anne, Dublin, Taken from its Records in the Halliday Collection, R.I.A.’, PRIA, 25 (1904–5), pp. 21–106; ‘The Dublin Gild of Carpenters, Millers, Masons, and Heliers in the Sixteenth Century’, JRSAI, 35 (1905); ‘The Merchant Tailors’ Gild – that of St. John the Baptist, Dublin, 1418–1841’, JRSAI, 48 (1918), pp. 19–59.

61 See C. N. Ó Clabaigh, The Franciscans of Ireland, 1400–1534 (Dublin, 2002), pp. 109–10; J. C. Crosthwaite, The Book of Obits and Martyrology of the Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity, Commonly Called Christ-Church, Dublin (Dublin, 1844).

62 E. Curtis, Calendar of Ormond Deeds (6 volumes, Dublin, 1941–70), 5, pp. 130, 136, 184, 326, 141; 6, p. 2.

63 Anon., ‘Two Letters of Dr. Lyon, Protestant Bishop of Cork, Written in 1596’, IER, 2nd ser. 7 (1871), p. 503.

64 See especially Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 168–231. 65 W. Fitzgerald, ‘Will of Peter Lynch’, JKAS, 6 (1909–10), pp. 358–9. 66 ‘Distinguished Waterford Families – Sherlock’, JWSEAS, 9 (1906), p. 175. 67 See S. T. Strocchia, ‘Remembering the Family: Women, Kin, and Commemorative

Masses in Renaissance Florence’, Renaissance Quarterly, 42 (1989), pp. 635–54, on family strategies and commemoration. Eire, From Madrid to Purgatory, pp. 210–15.

68 FitzGerald, ‘Will of Lisagh O’Connor’, p. 244. 69 Carrigan, History and Antiquities, 4, p. 221. 70 W. Fitzgerald, ‘Notes on Sir John MacCoghlan, Knight’, JRSAI, 43 (1913), p. 229. 71 MacLysaght, ‘Documents in Private Keeping’, p. 137. 72 G. H. Williams, ‘Probate Records – a Source for Folk-life Studies’, Folklife, 20

(1981–2), p. 7. 73 NAI, RC 5/3, ff. 347–8. 74 O’Flaherty, Chorographical Description, p. 399. 75 NAI, RC 10/1, ff. 367–9. 76 NAI, RC 5/9, f. 407. 77 D. B. Quinn (ed.), ‘Calendar of the Irish Council Book 1 March 1581 to 1 July

1586 made by Sir John Prendergast between 1867 and 1869’, Anal. Hib., 24 (1967), pp. 160–1.

Notes 207

78 E. Cooper, The Life of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (2 volumes, London, 1874), 1, p. 258.

79 Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England, p. 23. 80 Sheffield City Library, Strafford Papers, WWM Str. P6/21; Lennon, Lords of Dublin, p. 76. 81 There is another mention of the sum, which had been ‘put in Banke for ye Friers

on the other side’, at Str. P6/75. 82 See especially J. L. Buckley, ‘Some Irish Altar Plate’, JRSAI, 70–3 (1940–3). 83 M. Callanan, ‘The deBurgos or Bourkes of Ilegh’, NMAJ, 1 (1936–9), p. 70. 84 M. J. Blake, ‘Some Old Silver Chalices connected with the Counties of Galway

and Mayo’, JRSAI, 58 (1928), p. 26. 85 For example, Buckley, ‘Irish Altar Plate’, pp. 33, 34. 86 Buckley, ‘Irish Altar Plate’, p. 48. 87 M. M. Phelan, ‘The Stoneyford and Freshford Chalices’, Old Kilkenny Review, 31

(1984). 88 See C. P. Graves, ‘Social Space in the English Parish Church’, Economy and Society,

18 (1989), p. 309. 89 W. H. Kent, ‘Indulgences’, CE, 7, p. 783. See also Shaffern, ‘Images, jurisdiction,

and the Treasury of Merit’, pp. 237–47. 90 L. Marron, ‘Documents from the State Papers concerning Miler McGrath’, Arch.

Hib. (1958), p. 157. 91 Ronan, Reformation in Ireland Under Elizabeth, p. 421. 92 C. Giblin, ‘Hugh MacCaghwell, O.F.M., Archbishop of Armagh’, Seanchas

Ardmhacha, 11 (1985), p. 268. 93 ‘Letter sent in 1617’, p. 118. 94 Renehan, Collections on Irish Church History, pp. 433–4. 95 S. Leslie, Saint Patrick’s Purgatory: a Record from History and Literature (London,

1932); M. Haren and Y. dePontfarcy (eds), The Medieval Pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s Purgatory: Lough Derg and the European Tradition (Enniskillen, 1988); Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory; V. Turner and E. Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (Oxford, 1978), especially chapter 3.

96 Leslie, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, pp. 76–80. 97 Leslie, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, pp. 43–103; E. Knott (ed.), The Bardic Poems of Tadhg

Dall Ó Huiginn (1550–1591) (2 volumes, Dublin, 1926), 2, pp. 288–93. R. Gillespie and B. Cunningham, ‘The Changing Nature of St Patrick’s Purgatory in the Early Modern Period’, paper read at ‘Pilgrimage’ conference, UCC, July 2000.

98 Leslie, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, pp. 167–80. R. Gillespie and B. Cunningham, ‘ “The most adaptable of saints”: the Cult of St. Patrick in the Seventeenth Century’, Arch. Hib., 49 (1995), pp. 82–104; O’Hara, ‘A Vision of Hell’, pp. 90–1.

99 Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe, p. 52. For the separation of the dead from the living in Germany, see Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead, chapter 2. For England, K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (Harmondsworth, 1991), pp. 719–24.

100 Curtis, Calendar of Ormond Deeds, 3, pp. 273, 305; Berry, Register of Wills, pp. 12, 17, 23, 26, 33, 64, 98, 104, 111, 115, 150.

101 C. McDonnell and B. Lang, Heaven: a History (New Haven and London, 1990), p. 177. See also Binski, Medieval Death, chapter 4; N. Tazi, ‘Celestial Bodies: a Few Stops on the Way to Heaven’, in Feher, Fragments for a History of the Human Body, 2, pp. 519–52.

102 Mems Dead, 11, pp. 298–9. 103 O’Dwyer, Mary, pp. 196, 199; O’Hara, ‘A Vision of Hell’, p. 92. 104 Ó Murchú, ‘Caoineadh ar Uaithne Ó Lochlainn’, pp. 74–7. 105 O’Duffy, ‘Apostasy of Myler Magrath’.


106 Mems Dead, 6, p. 527; Jackson, Monuments of St. Patrick’s, p. 59 107 Jackson, Monuments of St. Patrick’s, p. 26. 108 Mems Dead, 11, p. 114. 109 Sainthill, An Olla Podrida, 2, pp. 58–9. 110 Mems Dead, 6, p. 41; O’Mahony, ‘Seventeenth Century Memorials to the Dead’,

p. 126. The Biblical reference is 1 Cor. 15:55. 111 Mems Dead, 11, p. 364. 112 Ball Wright, Ball Family Records, p. x; Lennon, Lords of Dublin, p. 228. 113 Ball Wright, Ball Family Records, p. xx; Lennon, Lords of Dublin, pp. 225–6. 114 Ball Wright, Ball Family Records, p. xxiii; Lennon, Lords of Dublin, p. 227. 115 Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 54–5; Marshall, ‘Geographies of

the Afterlife’, pp. 110–30. 116 Hickman, ‘Wise and Religious Epitaphs’. 117 NAI, RC 5/24, f. 74. The will is repeated on ff. 726–36, and at 5/25, ff. 365–70. 118 Job 19:25–7. 119 Mems Dead, 6, p. 45; O’Mahony, ‘Memorials to the Dead’, p. 128. 120 NAI, RC 5/24, pp. 653–4. 121 Elrington, Whole Works of James Ussher, 13, pp. 502–4. On bodily resurrection,

see Beaver, ‘Sown in Dishonour, Raised in Glory’, p. 416; Parish Communities, pp. 107–8. See also Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 199–214; Cressy, Birth, Marriage and Death, pp. 383–9; Houlbrooke, Death, Religion and the Family, pp. 29–33, 40–6, 352–3; C. W. Bynum, ‘Material Continuity, Personal Survival and the Resurrection of the Body: a Scholastic Discussion in its Medieval and Modern Contexts’, History of Religions, 30 (1990), pp. 51–85; The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 (Columbia, 1995); E. A. R. Brown, ‘Authority, the Family and the Dead in Late Medieval France’, French Historical Studies, 16 (1990), pp. 803–32; Delumeau, Sin and Fear, pp. 90–5; Tazi, ‘Celestial Bodies’. For some Scottish comments, see Willsher, Scottish Epitaphs, pp. 35–46.

122 Ball Wright, Ball Family Records; p. xii. Lennon, Lords of Dublin, pp. 226–7. 123 Bradley, ‘The Medieval Tombs of St. Canice’s’, pp. 81, 83–4. 124 See Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead. 125 A. Linton, ‘Exegi monumentum aere perennius: Commemoration in Lutheran

Funeral Poetry for Children’. Paper presented at ‘Art and Death’ conference at the University of Sussex, 1 December 2000; Zemon Davis, ‘Ghosts, Kin and Progeny’, pp. 95–6; Luria, ‘Separated by Death’, pp. 203–22; C. C. Christensen, ‘The Significance of the Epitaph Monument in Early Lutheran Ecclesiastical Art (ca.1540–1600): Some Social and Iconographical Considerations’, in L. P. Buck and J. W. Zophy, The Social History of the Reformation (Columbus, 1972), pp. 297–314.

126 See W. A. Christian, Apparitions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Spain (Princeton, 1981); S. Beam, ‘Apparitions and the Public Sphere in France’, Canadian Journal of History, 29 (1994).

127 Moran, Historical Sketch, pp. 196–8; O’Daly, Rise, Increase and Exit, gives an eye-witness account.

128 Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland, p. 166; Meehan, Rise and Fall, p. 387; Gillespie, Devoted People, p. 139; O’Dwyer, Mary, p. 221.

129 On ghosts, see R. C. Finucane, Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead and Cultural Transformation (Amherst, 1996); J. Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: the Living and the Dead in Medieval Society, trans. T. L. Fagan (Chicago, 1998); H. R. E. Davidson and W. M. S. Russell, The Folklore of Ghosts (Cambridge, 1981); T. Brown, The Fate of the Dead: a Study of Folk-Eschatology in the West Country After

Notes 209

the Reformation (Cambridge, 1979), chapter 3; Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, chapter 19; N. Caciola, ‘Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture’, Past and Present, 152 (1996), pp. 3–45; ‘Spirits Seeking Bodies: Death, Possession and Communal Memory in the Middle Ages’; B. Gordon, ‘Malevolent Ghosts and Ministering Angels: Apparitions and Pastoral Care in the Swiss Reformation’, both in Gordon and Marshall, The Place of the Dead, pp. 66–109.

130 This awaits full study. On fairies, changlings and death in Ireland, A. Bourke, The Burning of Bridget Cleary: a True Story (London, 1999); ‘The Virtual Reality of Irish Fairy Legend’, Éire-Ireland, 31 (1 & 2) (1996), pp. 7–25; R. P. Jenkins, ‘Witches and Fairies: Supernatural Aggression and Deviance among the Irish Peasantry’, Ulster Folklife, 23 (1977), pp. 33–5. For Ireland and elsewhere, P. Narváez, The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (London, 1991). On fairies, witchcraft and the dead in Scotland, D. Purkiss, ‘Sounds of Silence: Fairies and Witchcraft in Scottish Witchcraft Stories’, in Clark, Languages of Witchcraft, pp. 81–98. On English fairies, Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 724–34.

131 Fitzpatrick, Bloody Bridge, pp. 199–200, 202; Hickson, Ireland, 1, pp. 195–6, 200; Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland, p. 166.

132 Note dates and character of examples in Gillespie, Devoted People, pp. 110–13. The same comment may hold true for Irish witches as well. E. C. Lapoint recog-nises that ‘Strikingly, all documented Irish witchcraft cases whose demographic origins can be traced derive from English or Scottish settler communities’, but fails to translate this into an acknowledgement that this may result from differ-ent perceptions of ‘sorcery’. Lapoint, ‘Irish Immunity to Witch-hunting, 1534–1711’, Éire-Ireland, 37 (2) (1992), pp. 76–92.

9 Conclusion

1 Mems Dead, 7, pp. 302–3; Loeber, ‘Sculptured Memorials’, plate IIIa. For Agard’s career, see J. G. Crawford, Anglicizing the Government of Ireland: the Irish Privy Council and the Expansion of Tudor Rule, 1556–1578 (Dublin, 1993), pp. 441–2. On Harrington, see Canny, Making Ireland British, pp. 78–9.

2 N. Canny, ‘The 1641 Depositions as a Source for the Writing of Social History: County Cork as a Case Study’, in P. O’Flanagan and N. Buttimer (eds), Cork: History and Society (Dublin, 1993), pp. 249–79; ‘The 1641 Depositions: a Source for Social and Cultural History’, History Ireland, 1(4) (1993), pp. 52–5.

3 See R.W. Scribner et al. (eds), The Reformations in National Context (Cambridge, 1994). 4 See Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead, for events under quite different circum-

stances. 5 Cremation runs at 10 per cent of funerals in Northern Ireland and 70 per cent in

the rest of Britain. www.cunninghamsfunerals.com/cremation_bot.html. 6 For examples, see A. Gregory, Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland (1920, repub-

lished 1992); K. Danaher, The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs (Cork and Dublin, 1972).

7 On this point, see M. Nic Néill, ‘Wayside Death Cairns in Ireland’, and S. Ó Duilearga, ‘Leachtaí Cloch’, in Béaloideas, 16 (1946), pp. 48–71; T. Robinson, Mementos of Mortality (Galway, 1991); S. McLean, ‘Touching Death: Tellurian Seduction and Spaces of Memory in Famine Ireland’, Irish Journal of Anthropology, 4 (1999), pp. 61–72.

8 W. J. Fitzpatrick, History of the Dublin Catholic Cemeteries (Dublin, 1900). 9 On the latter topic see M. Craig, Mausolea Hibernica (Dublin, 1999).


10 For a cross-section of examples in an expanding urban environment, see Dublin Public Libraries, Directory of Graveyards in the Dublin Area: an Index and Guide to Burial Records (Dublin, 1990).

11 For Glasnevin, see S. O’Shea, Death and Design in Victorian Glasnevin (Dublin, 2000). The more general account of death in Ireland in the Victorian period given by this book is highly flawed. See also Fitzpatrick, Dublin Catholic Cemeteries; Dublin Corporation, The Dublin Catholic Cemeteries: Prospect (Glasnevin) and Goldenbridge, 1826–1906 (Dublin, 1906).

12 Potterton, Irish Church Monuments largely deals with the former group, and there have been a number of local studies of gravestones. Harold Mytum’s forthcoming work on Irish gravestones should also be mentioned.

13 J. Sheehy, The Rediscovery of Ireland’s Past: the Celtic Revival 1830–1930 (London, 1980).

14 Examples include MacBride, History and Memory in Modern Ireland; P. Alter, ‘Symbols of Irish Nationalism’, Studia Hibernica, 14 (1974), pp. 111–18; T. J. O’Keefe, ‘The Art and Politics of the Parnell Monument’, Éire-Ireland, 19(1) (1984), pp. 6–25; G. Owens, ‘Nationalist Monuments in Ireland, c.1870–1914: Symbolism and Ritual’, S. Bhreathnach-Lynch, ‘The Art of Albert G. Power, 1881–1945: a Sculptural Legacy of Irish Ireland’, both in Gillespie and Kennedy, Ireland: Art into History; J. Turpin, ‘Oliver Sheppard’s 1798 Memorials’, Irish Arts Review (1990–1), pp. 71–80; ‘Nationalist and Unionist Ideology in the Sculpture of Oliver Sheppard and John Hughes, 1895–1939’, The Irish Review, 20 (1997), pp. 62–75; N.C. Johnson, ‘Sculpting Heroic Histories: Celebrating the Centenary of the 1798 Rebellion in Ireland’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 19 (1994), pp. 78–93; ‘Cast in Stone: Monuments, Geography, and Nationalism’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 13 (1995), pp. 51–65; S. Bhreathnach-Lynch, ‘Executed: the Political Commissions of Albert G. Power’, Éire-Ireland, 29(1) (1994), pp. 44–60; J. Hill, Irish Public Sculpture: a History (Dublin, 1998), chapters 3 and 4; G. Owens, ‘Constructing the Martyrs: the Manchester Executions and the Nationalist Imagination’, and S. Bhreathnach-Lynch, ‘Commemorating the Hero in Newly Independent Ireland: Expressions of Manhood in Bronze and Stone’, both in L. W. McBride (ed.), Images, Icons and the Irish Nationalist Imagination (Dublin, 1999); O. Mannion, ‘Silent but Eloquent Reminders: the Nationalist Monuments in Cork and Skibbereen’, in L. M. Geary (ed.), Rebellion and Remembrance in Modern Ireland (Dublin, 2000); Y. Whelan, ‘Monuments, Power and Contested Space – the Iconography of Sackville Street (O’Connell Street) before Independence (1922)’, Irish Geography, 34(1) (2001), pp. 11–33; G. Beiner, ‘Negotiations of Memory: Rethinking 1798 Commemoration’, The Irish Review, 26 (2000).

15 B. Loftus, Mirrors: Orange and Green (Dundrum, 1990); B. Rolston, ‘Contemporary Political Wall Murals in the North of Ireland: Drawing Support’, Éire-Ireland, 23(3) (1988), pp. 3–18; Politics and Painting: Murals and Conflict in Northern Ireland (London and Toronto, 1991); Drawing Support: Murals in the North of Ireland (2 vol-umes, Belfast, 1992, 1995).

16 For the influence of such celebrations in the nineteenth century, see L. R. Bisceglia, ‘The Fenian Funeral of Terence Bellew McManus’, Éire-Ireland, 14(3) (1979), pp. 45–64; P. Travers, ‘“Our Fenian Dead”: Glasnevin Cemetery and the Genesis of the Republican Funeral’, in J. Kelly and U. Mac Gearailt, Dublin and Dubliners: Essays in the History and Literature of Dublin City (Dublin, 1990), pp. 52–72; T. J. O’Keefe, ‘The 1898 Efforts to Celebrate the United Irishmen: the

Notes 211

‘98 Centennial’, Éire-Ireland, 23 (2) (1988), pp. 51–73; ‘“Who Fears to Speak of ‘98?”: the Rhetoric and Rituals of the United Irishmen Centennial, 1898’, Éire-Ireland, 27 (3) (1992), pp. 67–91; S. Paseta, ‘1798 in 1898: the Politics of Commemoration’, The Irish Review, 22 (1998), pp. 46–53. On the twentieth cen-tury, B. Walker, Dancing to History’s Tune: History, Myth and Politics in Ireland (Belfast, 1996).

17 For example, ‘Remains to be Exhumed from Mountjoy’, The Irish Times (Dublin), 3 May 2001.

18 On the latter, see ‘An Irishman’s Diary’, The Irish Times, 28 August 2001. 19 K. Jeffery, ‘The Great War in Modern Irish Memory’, in K. Jeffery and T. G. Fraser

(eds), Men, Women and War (Dublin, 1993), pp. 136–57; S. Taaffe, ‘Commemorating the Fallen: Public Memorials to the Irish Dead of the Great War’, Archaeology Ireland, 13 (3) (1999); N. C. Johnson, ‘The Spectacle of Memory: Ireland’s Remembrance of the Great War, 1919’, Journal of Historical Geography, 25 (1999), pp. 36–56; J. S. Ellis, ‘The Degenerate and the Martyr: Nationalist Propaganda and the Contestation of Irishness, 1914–1918’, Éire-Ireland, 25 (3 & 4) (2001), pp. 7–33; S. Bhreathnach-Lynch, ‘The Chequered Fate of a Queen’, History Ireland, 9 (4) (2001), pp. 5–6.

20 N. Witoszek, ‘Ireland: a Funerary Culture?’, Studies, 76 (1987), p. 213; Witoszek and P. Sheeran, Talking to the Dead: a Study of Irish Funerary Traditions (Amsterdam, 1998).

Select Bibliography

(See notes for additional items.)

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Index

Abington Abbey (Abbey Owney), Co. Limerick 78, 124, 129, 142–3

adoption 68 Agard monument 115, 116, 156 Agard, Francis 156 Andrews, Francis 102 apparitions (of saints) 154–5,

see also ghosts Apsley, Edward 22 Apsley, Joan 22 Archbold, Matthew 77 Archdekyn, Sir Nicholas 145 Archer, Laurence 59 Archer, Margaret 127 Archer, Rose 80 Ardee, Barons of, see Brabazon Ardfert, Co. Kerry 34 Ards, Viscount, see Montgomery, Hugh Ariès, Philippe 1–2 arms, coats of, see heraldry Ars moriendi 7–8, 128–9 Artaine, Co. Dublin 69 Arthor, Sir James 145 Arthur, Richard, Catholic Bishop

of Limerick 70 Askeaton Friary, Co. Limerick 91 Assaroe Abbey 88, 91 Athenry 85, 92, 117, 122 Atherton, Ian 119 Atherton, John, Protestant Bishop of

Waterford and Lismore 42–3, 64 Athlone 101–2, 124 Athy, Co. Kildare 103 Aughinish Castle, Co. Limerick 74 Aungier, Francis, Lord Aungier, Baron

of Longford 47 Aylmer, Sir Gerald 80, 146–7

Babington, Mary, Lady Dowager Dunsany 20–1

Badler, William 38 Baker, Barachiah 23 Ball, Edward 129, 152 Ball, Nicholas 154

Ball, Robert 152–3 Ball, Walter 152 Ballially Castle, siege of 82 Ballyburly, Co. Offaly 103 Ballygriffin, Co. Tipperary 123 Ballynadrimny, Co. Kildare 119 Bangor, Co. Down 122 banshee 36, 160 Barnett, C. M. 106 Barnewell, James 55 Barnis (Barnismore), Co. Donegal 12 Baron, Geoffrey 23 Barry, David FitzRichard 9 Barry, Donal 124 Barry, Sir Edmund 145 Beamond, Honora 82 Becket, Elizabeth 82 Becket, Robert 82 Bedell, William, Protestant Bishop

of Kilmore 15, 64 Belfast, Barons of, see Chichester Bellew, Sir John 85, 114–15 Bellew, Nicholas 55 bellringing 31 bequests: personal 9–11, 59, 145–7,

166–7 n.21, 167 n.22 charitable 139, 142–3 for monuments 101 see also wills and willmaking

Bernard, Fr. Eugene 15 Bernard, Nicholas, Protestant Dean

of Ardagh 42–3 bier 34, 174 n.30, 176 n.59 Billings, Dorothy 31 Bingham, Sir Richard 119 Blake, Valentine FitzThomas 80 body, see corpses Bourke, George 10 Boyd, Margrat 126 Boyle, Richard, First Earl of Cork 21,

22, 23–4, 26, 27, 33, 34, 38, 72, 86–7, 101–2, 103, 106, 126

Boyle, Sarah 14, 26 Brabazon, Mary, Baroness Ardee 48

219

220 Index

Brabazon, Susanna, Lady Killeen 55 brasses 104 Brenagh (Walsh), Sir James 149 Brennagh, Walter 103 Brereton, Sir John 45 Brereton, William 35 Brien, Lady Margaret 142 Brittas, Queen’s County (Laois) 94 Browne, John, and family 37 Browne, Richard, and family 116 Bruncard (Brouncker), Sir Henry,

Lord President of Munster 24 burial 59–96, 183 n.35, 184 n.37,

189 n.143 clothes 33–4 during conflict 74–7 fees for 60, 187 n.103 in church buildings 60–4, 78–80,

183 n.31, 183 n.32 in churchyard 62–5 in monasteries 66–7, 77–8 interdenominational interaction

and 77–84 legislation on 61–2 modern 160–1 of childless women 67–8 of children and infants 31, 39,

68–9, 116, 186 n.81 of clergy 70–1 of criminals 74–6 of excommunicates 76–7 of heads 74–5 of martyrs 70, 75–6 of paupers 74 of strangers 74 reburial 85–96 refusal of, in consecrated ground

82–3, 138, 190 n.171 status expressed in 61, 71–3 with spouse and family 65–71, 86–7 see also chantry chapels, corpses,

disinterment, mortuary chapels Burke, Sir John, of Brittas 75–6 Burke, Theobald, Viscount Burke

of Mayo 71–2 Burke, Ulick 12 Burke, Walter 148 Butler, Edmund 80 Butler, Eleanor, Countess Dowager

of Desmond 101

Butler, Elizabeth, Countess of Ormond 46

Butler, James, Baron of Dunboyne 142 Butler, Peter 119 Butler, Richard 23 Butler, Thomas, tenth Earl of Ormond

102, 106, 128, 144 Butler, Walter, eleventh Earl of Ormond

102, 106, 144 Buttevant, Co. Cork 116 Byrne, Dorothy 31

cadaver monuments 32, 130 Cadye, Sir Henry 66 Caitlín Dubh 36 Callan, Co. Kilkenny 80, 130

chantries in 145 cannibalism 22, 171 n.99 Carew, Sir George 143 Carew, Sir Peter 32, 40 Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim 39, 75, 86,

120, 151 Casey, Thomas 47 Cashel, Co. Tipperary 24, 122, 123

St John’s Cathedral 115 Castle Chamber, Court of 17, 21,

31, 55 Castleellis, Co. Wexford 92–3 Castleisland, Co. Kerry 75 Castellogallen, Viscount, see Dillon Caulfield, Sir Toby 39, 44 Cavan Franciscan Friary 33 Céitinn, Séathrún 8 cemetery, see churchyard chalices 147–8 Chambers, Thomas 67 chantries 59, 143–5 chantry chapels 59, 61, 80 Chaplain, Andrew 82 charity, see bequests, charitable charnel houses 63 Chichester, Arthur, Baron of Belfast,

Lord Deputy 26, 39, 45, 69, 86, 105, 106, 120, 151, 153

Chichester, Arthur, junior 69, 86, 131 Chichester, Sir John 75, 86 children, see burial, cillinigh children’s burial grounds,

see cillinigh Christian, Minard 82

Index 221

churchyard, secular uses of 65, 184 n.43, see also burial, disinterment

cillinigh 69, 160, 186 n.81 Cistercian Order, the, and death

18, 53, 88, 91, 92–3 Clanricard, Earl of 78 Clayton, Sir Randall 71, 187 n.96 Clere, James 71, 123 Clogh Oughter Castle, Co. Cavan 74 Clonbraney, Co. Meath 103 Clonmel, Co. Tipperary 62, 88, 90–1

Franciscan monastery 62, 90, 91 St Mary’s Church 88

Clonoulty, Co. Tipperary 129 Clonyn, Co. Westmeath 44 Cloyne Cathedral, Co. Cork 130 Cochlan, Sir John 146 coffins 33–4, 46, 86, 94, 174 n.24 Colcough, Sir Anthony 77 Coleraine, Co. Derry 1, 126 Collins, John 82 Comerford, Gerald 17, 121 Comerford, Patrick, Catholic Bishop

of Waterford 26 Comerford, Richard, Lord

of Ballibur 124 Comerforde, Thomas 145 commemoration, see bequests, funerary

monuments confraternities, see guilds, role of, in

death ritual conversion 10, 16–18, 43 Cooper, Ellinor, and family 67 Coppinger, John 10 Coppinger, Margaret 10 Corcrane, John 123 Cork 20, 53, 57–8

Christ Church (Holy Trinity) 61, 63, 70, 130, 140

St Finbarr’s Cathedral 63, 71, 73 St Peter’s Church 72–3

Cork, Countess of, see Fenton, Katherine

Cork, Earl of, see Boyle, Richard Coroner’s Court 39, 174 n.16 corpses

destruction of 93–4, 138 incorrupt 91–2 mutilation of 74–6, 83, 93–4 orientation of, in grave 31

preparation of, for burial 30–4 theft of 88–9 treatment of, between death and

burial 30–9, 176–7 n.64 see also burial, disinterment,

embalming, shroud Corpus Christi 136 Corpus Christi Guild 145 cortege, see funeral procession Cosar, Margaret 82 Cotrell, Walter 23 Cowli, Nicholas 103, 142 Creagh, Richard, Catholic Archbishop

of Armagh 18 Creevelea Friary, Co. Leitrim 78 cremation 160, 209 n.5 Cullen, J. B. 144 Culme, Philip 71, 187 n.97 Cunningham, Robert 15 cures, see wonders Cusack, John 103 Cusack, Sir Thomas 130 Cust, Richard 119

Daly, Richard 119 danse macabre 129 Daton, William 146 Davie, Thomas 72 Davies, Sir John 91 death 7–25

as sleep 151–4 attitudes to 7–8, 128–34 bad 19–25 Catholic 12–14, 16–18 conflict and 15–18 good 8–18, 136 preparation for 11–18,

131–2, 133 Protestant 14–15 see also ars moriendi, danse macabre,

macabre motifs deathbed, see death de la Field family 87, 106 Delvin, Barons of 78

see also Nugent Dempsey, James McShane,

Vicar-General of Ossory 94 Dempsy, Dominick 57 deodands 23–4 Depositions (1641) 21–2, 135–6

222 Index

de Renzy, Sir Matthew 31, 49, St Warburgh’s Church 38 101–2, 124 Duff, James 144

Desmond, Earls of, see Fitzgerald Duiske Abbey, Co. Kilkenny 68 Devenish, Co. Fermanagh 88 Duleek, Co. Meath 85 Devereux, Waleter, Earl of Essex 33 Dunboyne, Barons of, see Butler Devil, the 136–8 Dundalk, Co. Louth 85 de Wilton, Lord Grey 31, 130 Dunne, Barnaby 94 Dillon, Lucas 111 Dunne, Dr Charles 47 Dillon, Luke, Viscount Castellogallan 44 Dutton, Robert 39 Dillon, Matthew 10 Duyin, Teige 144 Dillon, Robert 10 Dysartmoon Church, Dineley, Thomas 48, 99, 100, 126 Co. Kilkenny 39 Dinn, Robert 63 disease, see plague elegies 27–8 disinterment 85–96 Elliot, Thomas 142

as family strategy 86–7 embalming 31–2, 174 n.19 as provocation 95 England as sanction 93–6 burial in 80, 81, 154 providential 92–3 history of death in 2, 159 religious orders and 88–91 English (language) see funerary to preserve corpse 85 monuments, languages used on translation 91–2 Ennis Franciscan Friary 66–7, 88,

Dodington, Edward 126 90, 129 Dodington, Elizabeth 126 Essex, Earl of, see Devereux, Walter dog, as term of abuse 138 Eustace, Allson 67 Dominican Order, the, and death excommunication 82

12, 91–2, see also habits, religious burial after 76–7 Donadea, Co. Kildare 80 execution 16, 20–1, 35, 170 n.93, Donegal Franciscan Friary 67, 88, 91 see also martyrs Dosterfield, Mr 53–4, 76 exhumation, see disinterment Dowdall, Edward 11 exorcism 136 Drogheda 117, 122, 155 Drury, Lord Justice William 21, 136 Fagan, Margaret 114 Dublin 19, 35, 49, 54–5, 56, 101–3 Fagon, Tyrlaugh 39

Christ Church 37, 61–2, 65, 69–70, fairies 155, 160, see also banshee 86, 115, 116, 117, 119, 130, 131, family, see burial, disinterment, 139, 156 funerary monuments

St Audoen’s Church 68, 69, 75, 99, Fanshawe, Lady Anne 36 113, 121, 122, 153 Farmer, Thomas 38, 42

St James’ Cemetery 54, 76 Fenton, Geoffrey, Secretary of State St John the Evangelist Church and 34, 47, 86

Parish 19, 34, 46, 49, 50, 63, 64, Fenton, Katherine, Countess of Cork 66, 74, 99, 101, 102, 103 33, 47, 86

St Katherine’s Church 48 Ferriter, Pierce 36 St Kevin’s Cemetery 76 Finch, Jonathan 105–6, 109–10 St Michael’s Church 67, 129 Fisher, Payne 28 St Michan’s Church 39 Fitton, Sir Edward 21, 151, 153, St Patrick’s Cathedral 31, 33, 34, 47, 195 n.41

67–8, 69, 71, 72, 79, 102, 122, Fitzgerald, Edmond, The White 125–6, 127, 151 Knight 85

Index 223

Fitzgerald, Elizabeth 39 Fitzgerald, Gerald 146 Fitzgerald, Gerald, fourteenth Earl of

Desmond 74 Fitzgerald, Gerald, fifteenth Earl of

Kildare 69 Fitzgerald, James, twelfth Earl of

Desmond 75 Fitzgerald, John, Seneschal

of Imokilly 10 Fitzgerald, Maurice 85 Fitzgerald, Maurice, Knight

of Kerry 36 Fitzgerald, Morris 101 Fitzgerald, Thomas 54 Fitzgerald, William 80, 114 Forbes, Lord 95 Fox, Mr, Protestant Vicar

of Wicklow 95 Fox, Sir Nathanial 101,

115 France

history of death in 1–2 interdenominational burial in

81, 154 Franciscan Order, the, and death 12,

56–8, 77–8, 88–91, see also habits, religious

Frayne 39 French, Gregory, O. P. 148 French, Joan 148 Funeral Entries 34, 38, 40, 45–6 funeral feasts 42, 46, 51 funeral processions 41–2, 43–5, 50–1,

180 n.160 funeral sermons 42–3, 44–5, 56–7 funerals 39–58, 139

Catholic 44–5, 50–8 conflict at 54–8, 181 n.180 cost of 45–50, 179 n.114 heraldic 39–48 hierarchy in 39–48, 50–1 modern 159–60

funerary monuments 1, 97–134, 156, 161–2, 196 n.65, 210 n.12 and folklore 110–11, 197 n.76,

198 n.23 as source 97, 107–12 Catholic, in Protestant churches

79–80

creation of 100–4, 194 n.32 death and resurrection on 128–34,

151–4, 202 n.125 destruction of 87, 99–100 family connections on 113–18 functions of 104–7 honour and 118–28 in church 107–8 in churchyard 63 languages used on 109–10 religious symbolism on 79–80,

107, 108–9, 110, 123, 124, 142, 189 n.146

requests for prayers on 139–40 sources for 98–100 status and 105–7 types of 97–8 women and 126–7 see also brasses, cadaver monuments,

macabre motifs Furlong, William (Fr. Candidus of

St Bernard) 18 Fyan, Margaret 79 Fyan, Richard 139

Gaelic Irish (term) 164 n.8 Galway 15, 36, 60

Franciscan Friary 80 St Mary’s Church 95 St Nicholas’ Church

80, 116, 129 Geoghegan, Peter 146 Germany, burial in 154 ghosts 154–5

see also apparitions Gibson, John, Protestant Dean

of Down 122 Gillespie, Raymond 43, 54, 128 Gittings, Clare 48 God, see providence Gormanston, Viscounts, see Preston Goulde, Thomas 141 Gowran, Co. Kilkenny 80 Grace, Gerald 151 graves 31, 33, 63

mass 160 reuse of 104 visiting of 63 see also burial, disinterment

graveyard, see churchyard

224 Index

Gregg, John, Dean of Lismore 70 Grene, Katherin 67 grief 14, 25–8

excessive 26–7, 172 n.134, 172 n.136

Griffith, William, Vicar of Trim 70 guilds, role of, in death ritual 31, 50,

139, 144–5

habits, religious 12, 24, 33, 56, 57 Hackett, Alson 80 Harrington family 156 Harris, Amy 104 Harris, John, and family 68 Harristown, King’s Co. (Offaly) 94 Hartpole, Mary 151 Hartpole, Robert 124 Hartry, Malachy 62, 70 heads, as trophies 74–5, 86, 188

n.123, 191 n.10 hearse 46 Heaven 150–4 Hell 83, 135–8 Henesy, David 21 heraldry 41–2, 45–7, 117–19, 123,

142, 156 heralds 40–8, 51 herriots 50, 180 n.144, 180 n.145,

see also mortuaries Hickey, Elizabeth 103 Hickman, David 153 Hill, Peter 22 Hills, Alexander 102 Holan, Bro. Teige 123 Hollywood, Christopher 16, 35, 110 Hollywood, Nicholas 69 Holmpatrick, Co. Dublin 110 Holy Cross Abbey (Cistercian) 70,

92–3, 142 honour 118–28, 199 n.50 Hooper, Laurence 94 Houlbrooke, Ralph 15 Houston, Jeneta 126 Huetson, Thomas 94 Hurley, Cornelius 122 Hurley, Morris 9 Hussey, Elizabeth 115

impropriation of church property 78 Inchiquin, Lord, see O’Brien, Murrough

indulgences 139, 140, 148–50, 205 n.33

Inkersal, John 48 intercession for the dead 50, 107,

138–50 Irish (language), see funerary

monuments, languages used on Irishtown, Kilkenny 19 ironsmiths 104

Jacobs, Daniel 122 James, Mervyn 118–19 Jerpoint Abbey 103 Jesuits, see Society of Jesus Jones, Roger, Viscount Ranelagh 125 Jones, Thomas, Protestant

Archbishop of Dublin 125

Keally, James 115 Kealy, Piers 80 Keating, Geoffrey, see Céitinn,

Séathrún keening 35–8, 160, 175 n.39 Kenan, Nicholas 79, 122 Kennedy, Hugh 25 Kent 106 Kerin (O’Kerin), Patrick, and family

103, 143 Kerry, Knight of, see Fitzgerald, Maurice Kilbeheny, Co. Cork 8 Kilcooly Abbey, Co. Tipperary 53,

140 Kilcrea Friary, Co. Cork 34, 78 Kilcreden, Co. Cork 71, 114, 120 Kildare Cathedral 72, 94, 103, 130 Kildare, Earls of, see Fitzgerald Kilkea, Co. Kildare 132 Kilkenny 35, 36, 50, 51, 72, 103, 106,

110, 114, 132, 137, 144 St Canice’s Cathedral 70–1, 80–1,

102, 123, 128, 129, 154 St John’s Church (Abbey) 19, 123 St Mary’s Church 76–7, 80 St Patrick’s Church 59, 127

Killadda, Co. Cork 111 Killeen, Lady, see Brabazon, Susanna Killena, Co. Wexford 117 Killinchy, Co. Down 54 Kilmallock, Co. Limerick 85, 100, 131,

132, 130

Index 225

Kilmore, Co. Meath 140 Kiltoghert cemetery, Co. Leitrim 75 King, Heather 140 King, John, Protestant Bishop

of Elphin 122 Kinsale, Co. Cork 128

St Multose Church 63 Kirwin, Piers FitzClement 66 Kytchingham, John 22

Langton family 19, 72 Langton, James 34 Langton, Michael 19 Langton, Nicholas FitzRichard 19,

32–3, 34, 71 Last Rites 11–13, 16, 48–9 Latin see funerary monuments,

languages used on Lea, John FitzNicholas 72 Lea (Ley), Rev. Patrick 18 Lennon, Colm 144 Lethercor church 61 Leveret, Albon, Athlone Pursuivant

of Arms 44 Levy, Janet Lewys, Sir Peter 69, 139 Ley, Nicholas 143 Limerick 17, 34, 93–4, 154

St Francis’ Abbey 69, 154 St John’s Castle, siege of 74 St John’s Church 73, 75–6 St Mary’s Cathedral 68, 70, 72,

73, 93–4 St Munchin’s Church 94, 140

Lismore, Co. Waterford 38 literacy 109–10 Llewellyn, Nigel 105 Loeber, Rolf 106 Loftus, Adam, Protestant Archbishop

of Dublin 152 Lombard, David 61 Lombard, Francis 143 Lombard, James 61 Londonderry, Countess of, see

Ridgeway, Cecilia Long, John, Protestant Archbishop

of Armagh 22 Lorrha Dominican Abbey,

Co. Tipperary 131 Lough Derg, see St Patrick’s Purgatory

Loughrea, Co. Galway 53, 85 Luker, Bro. John 91 Luria, Keith 81 Lye (Lee), John 72 Lynch, John 20 Lynch, Sir Henry 80 Lynch, Peter 61, 145 Lyon, William, Protestant Bishop of

Cork, Cloyne and Ross 145, 151 Lysaght, Catherine 17 Lysaght, Nicholas 17

macabre motifs, 7–8, 10, 128–33, see also death

MacBruaideadha, Tadhg 27 MacCapa, Enri 41 MacCarthy, Cormac Laidir 78 MacCarthy, Sir Cormac MacTeige 78 MacCaughwell, Hugh, Catholic

Archbishop of Armagh 149 McClanchy, High, and family 9 MacDermot, Brian Óg 12 MacDiarmada, Aed 41 MacDiarmada, Ruaidhrí 11 MacGeoghegan, Roche, Catholic Bishop

of Kildare 24 MacMahon, Brian 41 MacMahon Rory bui 140 McEnestor (Nestor), Donnell 9 McGauran, Edmund, Catholic Bishop

of Ardagh 75 McGrath, Miler, Protestant Archbishop

of Cashel 123, 137, 143, 151 McKenraghty, Maurice 91 McMahon, Michael 10, 73 McSwyny, Dwell 47 Madan, Thomas 18 Maguire, Cuconnaught 88 Maguire, Joan 12 Makgill, Rev. Thomas 137 Mansell, Capt. Rice 75 marriage 67–8, 114–18 Martin, Richard 80 Martin, Ruth 82 martyrs 18, 20, 24, 136

burial of 54, 70, 75–6, 91 see also relics

masons 102–4, 122 Maxwell, Rev. Robert 82 Maynooth Castle 103

226 Index

Merchant-Tailor’s Guild, Dublin 31, 50 Meredith, Richard, Bishop of Leighlin,

and daughters 67 Meredith, Thomas 128 Meredythe, Thomas, Protestant Vicar

of Balrotherie 55 Merry, Thomas 145 Middleton, Marmaduke, Protestant

Bishop of Waterford and Lismore 63 Midleton (Cor Abbey), Co. Cork 9 miracles, see wonders, providence Mitchell, Captain, and family 68 Molanvxe, Matheve (Matthew

Molyneaux) 103 Molyneux, Daniel, Ulster King

of Arms 44 Monkton (Monkstown), Co. Dublin 68 Montgomery, Sir Hugh, Viscount Ards

28, 33 month’s mind services 57, 139 Monumenta Eblanae 126, 130 monuments, see funerary monuments Moone, Co. Kildare 67, 103 Mooney, Donough, Franciscan

Provincial 90 Moor Church, Co. Meath 114 Moore, Lord Thomas 14 mortality, symbols of, see macabre mortuaries 49–50, 180 n.144, 182 n.9,

see also herriots mortuary chapels 61, 80–1, 87–8,

189 n.154, see also burial Moryson, Fynes 11, 16, 35, 63 Mountrath, Co. Westmeath 94 mourning, see grief mourning costume 37, 47–8, 51 mourning jewellery 10–11 Moylagh, Co. Meath 116 Muckross Abbey, Co. Kerry 66, 123 Multifarnham (Multyfarnham)

Franciscan Friary, Co. Westmeath 70, 77

Munro, Ann 1, 15 Munro, John 1 murder 20–2, 31 Mury (Murrey), Mortagh 103

Narbon, Nicholas, Ulster King of Arms 40

Narraghbeg, Co. Kildare 103

Navan, Co. Meath 52 Netterville, Richard 139, 146 Newcastle, Co. Waterford 122 New English (term) 164 n.8 New Ross, Co. Wexford 79

St Mary’s Church 114, 119 St Saviour’s Chapel/Hospital of the

Holy Trinity 144 Neylan, Daniel, Protestant Bishop of

Kildare 90 Ní Bhriain, Fionnghuala 37 Norris, John, Lord President of Munster

32, 136 Norton, Dudley 27 Nugent, Andrew 70 Nugent, Christopher 60 Nugent, Christopher, Lord Delvin 44 Nugent, Garatt 68 Nugent, Gerott 60 Nugent, Ismay 85, 114–15 Nugent, Mary, Dowager Baroness

Delvin 146 Nugent, Simon 145 NyClaffery, Honora 21

O’Brien, Donough 67 O’Brien, Donough, fourth Earl of

Thomond 72, 101, 102 O’Brien, Henry, fifth Earl of Thomond

45, 101 O’Brien, Murrogh 35 O’Brien, Murrough, Lord Inchiquin 88 O’Brien, Terence Albert, Catholic

Bishop of Emly 24 O’Brien, Sir Turlough 17, 53 O’Byrne, Feagh MacHugh 95 O’Byrne, Phelim MacFeagh 27, 95 O’Cleary 67 O’Coinnegain, Brian Caech 64 O’Conchobar, Tadc 41 O’Connor, Lisagh, and family

10, 47, 146 O’Conor Faly, Con, Lord of Offaly 41 O’Dalaigh, Aonghus Fionn 142 O’Daly, Dermot FitzCofy 117 O’Dea, Cornelius, Bishop of Limerick

monument of 101, 110 O’Devany, Cornelius (Conor), Catholic

Bishop of Down and Connor 18, 54, 70, 75, 76

70

Index 227

O’Donnell, Hugh, Earl of Tirconnell 88

O’Donnell, Lord of Tirconnell 67 O’Donnell, Manus 12 Offaly, Lord of, see O’Conor Faly Officers of Arms, see heralds O’Flaherty, Murrough 146 O’Flaherty, Patrick 146 Ó Hainle, Cathal 8 O’Healy, Bishop 136 Ó Heodhasa, Bonaventure 8 O’Herlihy, Thomas, Catholic Bishop

of Ross 136 Ó Higgin, Feargal 150 Ó hUiginn, Tadhg 142 O’Hurley, Dermot, Catholic Archbishop

of Cashel 18, 76 O’Kelly, Molhen 103 Old English (term) 164 n.8 Old Irish (term) 164 n.8 O’Leamy, Br. Thomas 53 Ó Lochlann, Uaithne 37, 151 O’Loughran, Patrick 18, 54,

O’Malley, Gráinne 71, 127 O’More, Mahon 103 Omwoll Egan, William 103 O’Nealle, Henry 101 O’Neill, Hugh, Earl of Tyrone

75, 86, 137 O’Neill, Hugh Roe 33 O’Neill, Sir Phelim 83 O’Queely, Malachy, Catholic

Archbishop of Tuam 89 O’Ullahan, William 103 Ormond, Earls of, see Butler ossuary, see charnel houses O’Sullivan, Thaddeus 34 O’Sullivan Beare, Philip 55, 92, 137,

192 n.39 O’Sullivan More, Donal 88 O’Ternon, Fr. Eugene 24 O’Toole, Una 27, 95 O’Tunney family 103

Parsons, Lawrence 14 Perceval, Sir Phillip 26, 68 Phelan, Patrick 145 Piers, Henry 143 pilgrimage 21, 142

plague 18, 19–20 burial during 39

poison 33 poor, attendance of, at funerals

46, 139, 142 Portadown, Co. Armagh 155 Potter, John 38 Power, Lady, Viscountess Valentia

46–7 Power, Sir Henry, Viscount Valentia

46–7 Powlett, George 126 Prim, James G. A. 114 prayer for the dead, see intercession

for the dead Preston, Christopher, Viscount

Gormanston 41 Preston, Sir Jenico, Viscount

Gormanston 41 professions 121–2 prophecy, see wonders providence, intervention of 92–3,

136–7 divine vengeance 24–5 plague as 19–20

Purcell, Hughy 92 Purcell, Peter 92 Purgatory 138–50 Pypart (Peppard), Walter 69

Ranelagh, Viscount of, see Jones Rany, Richard 195 n.41 Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow 95 Rathreagh, Co. Wicklow 101, 115 Recusancy revolt (1603) 53, 79, 88 Reeves, Sir William, and family 66 relics 18, 21 reputation, see honour resurrection 33, 132, 150–4 Rich, Barnaby 36, 54–5 Rider, John, Protestant Bishop of

Killaloe 49, 78 Ridgeway, Cecilia, Countess of

Londonderry 28 rings, see mourning jewellery Robertstown, Co. Meath 129 Robinson, Henry 137 Roche, Grainne 26 Roche, Theobald 26 Roche, Sir Tibbott 34

228 Index

Rochford, Garet FitzRedmond, and family 9

Rochford, Fr. 56–7 Rochford, John 10 Roe, Edward 128 Roe, Sir Francis 122 Roe, Helen 122, 130 Ronan, Thomas 130 Rosserrilly Friary 78 Rothe, David, Catholic Bishop of

Ossory 20, 70–1, 102, 128, 144 Rothe, John 80 Rothe, Robert FitzPiers 81, 144

Sadler, Col. Thomas 100 St Anne’s Guild 145 St Leger family 116, 153 St Leger, Dame Mary 151 St Michael 136, 142, 203 n.11 St Patrick 150 St Patrick’s Purgatory 149–50 St Sythe’s Guild 145 Sanderson, Alexander 120 Sarsfield, Jenet Lady Dowager Dunsany

114–15, 127 Sarswell (Sarsfield), Partick 69 Saul, Nigel 106 Scribner, Bob 81, 158 Seaver, Nicholas 62 sermons, see funeral sermons Sexton, Edmund (senior) 14, 17, 23,

73, 76, 93 Sexton, Edmund (d.1554) 93–4 Sexton, Edmund (junior) 17 Sexton, George 101 Sexton, Joan 17 Sexton, Mary 17 Sexton, Stephen 14 Sexton, Stephen (senior) 23 Shearman, John 22, 52 Shee, Henry 10 Shee, James 70 Shee, John 70 Shee, Margaret 116 Shee, Sir Richard 10, 16, 80, 114, 143,

144, 205 n.47 Sherlock, Christopher 114 Sherlock, James 146 Sherring, Anne 25 Shipland Begg, Co. Down 52

Shortall, Sir Oliver 57 shroud 31 Silver Works (Silvermines), Co.

Tipperary 25 Simms, Katherine 27 Skryne 103 Smith, Elizabeth, and family 68 Smith, Mary 152, 153 Smith, Thomas 62–3 Smyth, Margaret 67 Society for the Preservation of the

Memorials of the Dead 98–100 Society of Jesus 13, 16, 35, 91, 110,

136, 149 Spencer, Edmund 35 spirits, see ghosts Spratt, Devereux 15 Spratt, Joseph 15 Stafford, Sir Edmond 153 Stanes, Henry 10 Stanihurst, Richard 35 Stennors, William 122 Stone, Nicholas 102, 106 Strange, Paul 73 Strafford, Earl of, see Wentworth Strong, Fr. 56–7 suicide 22, 25, 188 n.133 symbols, of death, see macabre motifs symbols, religious, see funerary

monuments synodal enactments 13, 34–5, 36–7, 149

Talbot, Francis 76–7 Tallow, Co. Waterford 38, 132 Taylor, Francis 75 Teampul-a-Calla, Co. Tipperary 115 Tehallan (Tyholland) Church, Co.

Monaghan 87 Templecross, Co. Westmeath 140, 143 Templemore, Co. Tipperary 123 Thomas, Keith 109 Thomastown (Grenan),

Co. Kilkenny 72 Thomond, Earls of, see O’Brien Thornton, Alice 14, 37, 42 Tingham, Edmund 102–3, 194 n.33 Tintern Abbey, Co. Wexford 77 Tirconnell, Lords of, see O’Donnell transi, see cadaver monuments translation, see disinterment

Index 229

Travers, Nary, and family 68 Trevet, Co. Meath 103, 116, 130 Trim, Co. Meath, Newtown Priory 111

St Patrick’s Cathedral 70, 115 Tullow, Co. Carlow 103, 131 Tut (Tuite), Theobald 116 Tynte, Sir Robert 71, 120 Tyrell family 121 Tyrone, Earl of, see O’Neill, Hugh

Ulster Office of Arms, see heralds Uniacke, James 66 Uniacke, Maurice 33, 77, 143 Ussher, Arthur 68 Ussher, James, Protestant Archbishop of

Armagh 133, 136, 154, 168 n.48

Valentia, Viscounts of, see Power Vigors, Col. Henry 100 virtues, the 124

Wadding, Luke 26, 89, 91 Wadding, Richard 47, 143 Wadding, William 47 wakes 34–5, 160 Walsh, Sir Edmund 142 Walsh, Ellyce (née Grace) 142 Walsh, Nicholas 94 Walsh, Sir Nicholas 17, 53, 168 n.62 Walsh, Peter 78 Walsh, Richard 47 Walsh, Richard 144 Walsh, Robert 140 Wandesford, Lord Deputy Christopher

14, 33, 37, 42, 45, 46 Ware, Sir James 45 Waterford 17, 20, 22, 33, 40,

58, 82, 144 Christ Church Cathedral (Holy

Trinity) 73 Holy Ghost hospital 72, 143–4,

205 n.49 Franciscan Friary (French Church)

91, 114, 122 St John the Evangelist Church 70 St Mary’s Church 91 St Peter’s Church 63, 69, 70 St Stephen’s Church 100

wayside crosses 100, 114, 131, 140, 205 n.35

Webb, George, Protestant Bishop of Limerick 94

Wellesley, Walter, Feudal Baron of Norragh 67

Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of Strafford 54, 87, 127, 147

Weston, Robert, Lord Justice 34, 86

Wexford 35, 55 Whaley, Joachim 25 White, James 13 White, John 132 White Knight, see Fitzgerald, Edmond White, Nicholas 88 wills and willmaking 8–11, 12, 47–8,

145–7, 166 n.9 Wingfield, Edmund Wise, Sir John 147 Wiseman, William 48 Wise Maurice 147 witchcraft 21, 209 n.132 women, consolation of 27

control of, through willmaking 9–10

childless, burial of 67–8 death of, in childbirth 67–8, 127,

185 n.69 funerals of 45–7, 55–6, 185 n.70,

185 n.71 in funerary monuments 126–7,

201 n.88, 201 n.91 role of, in preparation of corpse

31, 173 n.7 Wood, George 22 wonders, cures 110

foretelling of death 18, 136, 177 n.80

incorrupt corpses 91–2 recovery from hanging 21 see also providence

Woods, Mary 94

yew, in graveyards 43 York 106 Youghal 33, 101–2, 103, 129, 153

almshouses 143 St Mary’s Church 72, 77, 79–80,

101–2, 104, 110, 116, 130, 152 South Abbey 77

Young, Mathew 123