Tomb - chest tomb

The National Monuments Service's description

Associated with the medieval church (KK023-030001-) in Grove. Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 385) refers to the mensa of a chest-tomb (KK023-030003-) within the church. He describes, ‘a broken altar-tomb has the following raised Old English inscription, which is imperfect at the beginning owing to the loss of a fragment of the covering slab: Hic jac… ….tleger, dnus de Tullihanbrog generosus qui obiit 5 die Septembris A.D. 1597 & Elena Comerford uxor eius qui boc monumnetum [rest uncut].
Translation – Here lie [Oliver Sen]tleger, lord of Tullihanbrog, gentleman, who died Sept. 5th 1597, and Ellen Comerford, his wife, who both [got] this monument [made]’ (ibid.). According to O'Kelly (1969, 191), this tomb is engraved with emblems of the Passion.
Part of a graveslab lies in the graveyard near the entrance. It is a roughly square fragment, with raised Black Letter script in Latin along one edge decorated with portion of an eight-armed interlaced cross, probably with fleur-de-lys terminals though these are very worn. In the centre of the cross-head there is a slightly squat cross patée. Stylistically, the decoration and script fit comfortably into a late 16th century in date, so this could be part of the broken chest tomb.

Compiled by: Jean Farrelly

Date of upload: 28 July 2021

References

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

O'Kelly, O. 1969 (Reissue 1985) The place-names of County Kilkenny. Kilkenny.

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.