Wall monument

The National Monuments Service's description

At St Mary's parish church (KK019-026115-) in Kilkenny. A Renaissance mural monument of Thomas Shee and Amantissinia [Anistatia?] Dobbin (d. 1636) attached to the E end of the N wall of the partially demolished medieval chancel, within the late 18th-century 'Shee mausoleum' (Carrigan 1905, vol. 3, 102; Cockerham 2009, 358; Ó Drisceoil et al. 2015; 2016). It is built into a blocked 13th-century three-light lancet window embrasure and it overlies a stone vault containing disarticulated human bone, broken timber coffins and a 19th-century velvet-wrapped studded coffin.
The monument (H 3.3m; Wth 2.2m), built of fossiliferous limestone, comprises a plain chest tomb below a mural slab. The front-panel chest tomb is undecorated and flanked by plain pilasters and sits on a moulded base, which in turn overlies a reused fragment of a chest tomb panel with the IHS monogram. It is flanked by two plain pilasters. The mensa is also quite plain and bears no visible ornament apart from chamfered edges. Above the chest tomb, fixed into the blocked lancet window is a simple round-arched canopy on plain pilasters (partially replaced with red brick) with square capitals below a moulded architrave. A second, shorter architrave supporting a plinth is situated above the latter and may originally have formed the base for a pediment. The back of the mural monument is occupied by a panel with an incised inscription, the top of which is in Latin with Roman lettering. The inscription has been badly defaced by graffiti and is not possible to fully read. That which can be deciphered reads:
A MORS MORTIS MONUMENTUM
QUOD THOMAS SHEE ARMIGERO PERILIUTRIS
RICHARDI EQUITIS AURAII FILIO KILKENIENSIS
CIVITATIS QUONDAM PRAETORI UNO VERE PIO PROBO
PRUDENTI ERUDITO GENOROSO INARTIO SUO CHA
RISSIMO PºFUIT VXOR AMANTISSINIA DOBBIN
OBYI ILLE 21 OCTOBRIS 1636 ET QUOD MORTO
DCBUIT HIC DEPOFUIT IVNE RESUSCITANDUM
QUANDO QUI IN MONUMENTIS SUNT AUDIENT
VOCCIN FILIJ DEI
The bottom inscription is also in Latin but in a running hand. It is also partially covered by graffiti and reads:
CERTAM BEATCE NACIUS ES—UIT—DUCEM
QUILUN B MORTEM –OGITAS MORTEIN --EQUI—
VITARE VITAM SANCTA MORS FU----M –UBI--
NUNC ABRIS VICET VICTOR
SSORIIM QUI OBIERUNT PIE ME—MOR
SIC IVI IVUIV QUAM FUTURUS IMINIEN—O
A thin slip of plaster seems to have been applied to the face of the panel; this may have been applied to deliberately obscure the inscription, possibly in association with the defacing of the upper part of the mural monument. Three areas of decoration were also deliberately defaced with closely spaced, fine chisel marks, very slightly proud of the stone surface. They are probably the result of the careful removal of raised carvings.

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 9 January 2023

References

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.