Wall monument

The National Monuments Service's description

In the NE corner of the chancel of Aharney church (KK009-013001-) in an area used as a mortuary chapel. A composite wall monument consisting of a chest tomb with a Latin inscription in Roman capitals on the mensa slab commemorating Theobald Butler (d. 1643), son of Edmund, second viscount Mountgarret and a mural slab overhead inscribed with an elegy in Latin also in Black Letter and dated 1635 (Cockerham 2009, 358). The mensa slab (L 2.05m; Wth 0.92m; D 0.09m) is chamfered on three sides (D 0.1m) and is cracked transversely under beneath the cross head. It is decorated, as described by Carrigan (1905, vol. 2, 312-13), 'with a raised archiepiscopal cross and graduated base, in the centre of the covering slab; and the following inscription, in raised Roman capitals, continued in three parallel lines down the right side of the cross: "HIC JACET THEBALDVS BUTLERVS ET VXOR EIVS LETICIE GERALDINA NEPTIS ILLVSTRISSIME KILDARIE COMITIS QVE OBIIT VNDESIMO DIE MENCS MARCH ANNO DOMINI 1643". The cross head is more accurately described by Cockerham (1998, 83) as being, ‘of the cross-crosslet form, in that each limb bears a transverse bar, with three of decreasing size crossing the shaft as the lowest arm’. Carved within the stepped base of the cross is a skull representing Golgatha ‘the place of the skull’ and possibly has wider symbolic meaning (Cockerham 1998, 97-8). Cockerham (2009, 274) notes that the primary inscription is along the front edge of mensa, ‘instead of the usual marginal format, so as to be easily read by the spectator’.
Over this tomb there is a plain mural slab (L 0.89m; H 0.44m) within a chamfered frame (L 1.09m; H 0.64m) bearing the following four line inscription in raised black letter script, '"Nobillissimus theobaldus butlerus armiger filius illustrissimi vicecomitis de montgarett me fieri fecit serto die mensis mai anno D. 1635".This Theobald Butler, best known as Theobald Butler of Tennehinch, was 6th son of Edmund, 2nd Viscount Mountgarret' (Carrigan 1905, vol. 2, 313).
The front slab of the chest tomb now lies prostrate in front of the chest tomb and the mensa now rests on a later front panel. It is decorated with the symbols of the Passion, divided into three compartments, comprising three round-headed arches separated by columns, the two central columns are surmounted by fleur-de-lys. The central panel is decorated with a ladder which rises from the base of the frame to the top, with two scourges on the sinister side and a seamless robe with three dice on the dexter side. The top of the sinister panel is decorated with three hearts meeting to form a shamrock, perhaps representing the Trinity, and a cock on a pot (see Cockerham 1998, 95 for a discussion of the shamrock). These are separated from the lower panel by two horizontal rows of thirty pieces of sliver. The lower panel depicts two hands (both with thumbs facing the dexter side) with a rectangular panel in between. Cockerham (1998, 85, 96) suggests that this panel may represent a book, a purse or a lantern. The dexter panel depicts a central plain cross on a stepped mount with a scourging pillar with rope twisted around on either side, both pillars being higher than the cross.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of revised upload: 16 July 2018

References

Cockerham, P. 1998 A Buter tomb at Aharney, County Kilkenny. Old Kilkenny Review 50, 83-98.

Cockerham, P. 2009 My body to be buried in my owne monument: the social and religious context of Co. Kilkenny funeral monuments, 1600-1700. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 109C, 239-365.

Carrigan, Rev. W. 1905 (Reprint 1981) The history and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, 4 vols. Kilkenny. Roberts Books and Wellbrook Press.