Tomb - chest tomb

The National Monuments Service's description

At St Mary's parish church (KK019-026115-) in Kilkenny, in-situ on the E side of the N wall of the N transept. It was uncovered, sealed beneath a late 18th-century floor level in the 2015 excavations (12E0314) (Ó Drisceoil 2019; 2020, 169).
A rectangular late 16th-century chest tomb (L 2.1m; Wth 0.85m; H 0.5m), built of fossiliferous limestone, set on a chamfered plinth. The front (S) panel shows geometric stylised Decorated-style church windows. The left (W) side panel shows a crisply carved Decorated-style geometric church window. The right (E) and rear (N) sides were stone walls. The interior is filled with clay and rubble. The cover slab was missing when excavated but a previously recorded fragment of a mensa (KK019-026313-) with a date of 1543 may have derived from the tomb. The chest tomb is on display in situ within the N transept.

Compiled by: Cóilín Ó Drisceoil

Date of upload: 10 January 2023

References

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2019 Excavations at St. Mary's Church and Church Lane, Kilkenny 12E0314. Unpublished final report for Kilkenny Archaeology.

Ó Drisceoil, C. 2020 ‘Yet notin is more certaine than death, nor uncertaine, than the houre theirof': excavations in the chantry chapels of St. Mary's church, Kilkenny’, in C. Corlett and M. Potterton (eds.), The Town in Medieval Ireland in the light of recent archaeological excavations, 161-84. Bray. Wordwell.