Wall monument

The National Monuments Service's description

At St Mary's parish church (KK019-026115-) in Kilkenny. A renaissance wall monument, composed of fossiliferous limestone, to Sir Richard Shee (d. 1608) set into the S wall of the medieval chancel of the church (Anon 1833; Carrigan 1905, Vol. 3, 99; Lanigan and Tyler 1977, 23; Cockerham 2009, 354; Ó Drisceoil et al 2015, 22-4; Ó Drisceoil et al 2016, 19). Consisting of three tiers (H 3.5m; Wth 2.7m), a chest tomb beneath an arched half-tester and entablature. An uppermost tier may be missing, to judge by the Knaresborough and Richard Rothe tombs in the St. Mary’s monuments room, which are crowned by cartouches. The topmost storey of the monument, the entablature, comprises from top to bottom, a projecting cornice, a figuratively carved frieze and an inscribed architrave. The cornice is flat-topped and projects from the underlying frieze. Squared mouldings on top of four pilaster capitals project from the cornice. The frieze is occupied by three niches formed by round-headed Renaissance-style canopies beneath plain engaged pilasters. Each niche contains a finely carved female figure in relief with a plaque above which would presumably have had the name of each person represented painted upon it, perhaps ‘Faith’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Charity’ as Lanigan and Tyler have stated (Lanigan and Tyler 1977, 23). Rising from the architrave are four fluted ionic pilasters, the plinths for which divide the architrave into three panels. Each panel is inscribed in Latin black letter framed above and below by Rinceau decoration. The inscription reads:
ENCLYTA RICHARD SU[N]T
HEC INSIGNIA SHETHI MILITIS
AURATI NOBILIS ATQUE PROB[I]
The middle storey is a triple-arched half-tester of shouldered round-headed arches with soffit rolls, on plain rounded Tuscan columns. The spandrels between the arches are decorated in false-relief with shields (four in number) bearing the escutcheons of the Shee family. The columns rest on the plain ledger slab of the lowest tier. The back of this section of the monument is occupied by three blank panels divided by fluted pilasters. Above the panels are elaborate figurative engravings of beasts and foliage that were probably originally painted. The third and lowest storey is in the style of an altar-tomb with a plain mensa above front and side panels ornamented by depictions of the twelve apostles carved in relief within pointed arches. Each niche is separated by a column of similar style to those above. The base of the panel is moulded. The monument was badly damaged by vandalism in the late 1990s but was restored in 2014 (Ó Drisceoil et al 2015, 22-4).

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 4 January 2023

References

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

Lanigan, K.M. and Tyler, G. 1987 Kilkenny: its architecture & History. Kilkenny.