Armorial plaque

The National Monuments Service's description

The precise location of the armorial plaque taken from doorway of the Walsh family mausoleum and was reused as a headstone in Abbey Owney graveyard (LI014-014006-) cannot be identified. In 1907 Seymour recorded that the armorial plaque was located close to the Barry wall monument (LI014-014018-) in Abbey Owney graveyard. He recorded the following details about the plaque, 'Next there is a square upright slab, now doing duty as a tombstone, with the arms of Walsh impaling Grace as in shield No. 1, and the crest a swan sejant. It has carved on it the following (taken from Dyneley, as the original is almost covered) : THE ARMES OF SIR EDMUND WALSH KNIGHT AND HYS LADYE ELLYCE GRACE. Enough, however, is exposed to show that it is written in raised Roman letters, not in old English, as Dyneley gives it. He says this stone was over the door going into the chapel (LI014-014004-) where the Walsh tomb was, and that the date 1619 was on it' (Seymour 1907, 363). Loeber suggested that the cut limestone often referred to as marble for the memorials in Abington graveyard came from quarries in the barony of Clanwilliam (Loeber 1981, 278). The marble quarry (LI023-339----) of Caherline and Ballyhobin mentioned in the Civil Survey of 1654-56 may have supplied the stone for these memorials (Simington 1938, 74).

Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien and Matt Kelleher

Date of upload: 3 July 2017

References

Seymour, Rev. St. J. 1907 Abbey Owney, County Limerick. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 37, 165-80, 360-73.

Loeber, R. 1981 Sculptured memorials to the dead in the early seventeenth century Ireland: a survey from Monumenta Eblanae and other sources. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 81C 11, 267-93.

Simington, R.C. (ed.) 1938 The civil survey, AD 1654-1656. Vol. IV: county of Limerick, with a section of Clanmaurice barony Co. Kerry. Dublin. Irish Manuscripts Commission.