Tomb - chest tomb

The National Monuments Service's description

At St Mary's parish church (KK019-026115-) in Kilkenny. Chest tomb of William Shee (d.1584) and Margaret Walsh, probably in situ, set against the interior of the E wall of the demolished medieval chancel of the church (Burke 1835, 121; Healy 1893, 142; Carrigan 1905, vol. 3, 98; Cockerham and Harris 2001, 184; Ó Drisceoil et al 2015, 22; Ó Drisceoil et al 2016, 18). Composed of fossiliferous limestone the chest tomb comprises a mensa, a front panel and two side panels resting on a single large limestone slab. The mensa is a rectangular slab (L 1.3m; Wth 1m) decorated in false-relief with a seven-armed cross-head which rises from plain cross shaft and what appears to be a stepped base. The shaft is flanked on either side by streamers. A marginal Latin blackletter inscription is carved in false-relief:
HIC IACENT WILLELILUS SHEE QUOND. BURGENS. VILLE KILKENE &
SUP[ER]IOR EIUSD. Q OBIIT XVIII DIE APPRILIS Ao. Di. M. 1584.
ET MARGARETA WALSHE UXOR EIUSD. VILLI Qt OBIIT XXI DIE MAII A.D
It translates as, Here lies William Shee once burgess and sovereign of the town of Kilkenny who died 28th April 1584 and Margaret Walsh his wife who died 21st May AD [blank]
The front-panel portrays passion symbols arranged on either side of a Latin cross, which occupies the centre of the scene. The instruments of the passion represented are (from left to right): the pot, the flail, scourging pillar, the bag for the thirty pieces of silver, the flail, the flagellation block?, the shroud, the pincers, the dice, the hammer, the crown-of-thorns, the ladder, the cup of vinegar on the pole. The left (N) side-panel is carved with a fine representation in false-relief of a six-light reticulated church-window. The right side-panel bears the arms of Shee and Walsh and the initials W.K., denoting the tomb sculptor Walter Kerin. The tomb, having been vandalised in the early 2000s, was rebuilt and conserved in 2014 (Ó Drisceoil et al 2016).

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 4 January 2023

References

Cockerham. P. and Harris, L. 2001 Kilkenny funeral monuments 1500-1600: a statistical and analytical account. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 101C, 135-88.

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

Healy, Rev. William 1893 History and antiquities of Kilkenny (county and city). Kilkenny. P.M. Egan.