MacGurk Memorial

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Freestanding memorial, erected 1944, located in grounds of St Columbkille’s Roman Catholic Church, to the north side of Creggan Road. Memorial consists of tapered and stepped reconstituted stone plinth surmounted by cross.

South elevation of plinth has Gaelic inscription followed by English translation:
‘In Memory of Rt. Rev Bryan MacGurk Dean of Armagh and Vicar General of Blessed Oliver Plunket. Born in this parish 1622. For the faith he laboured and endured much and was often imprisoned. He died in Armagh Jail 1713’. Plinth surmounted by Celtic cross carved with Celtic motifs and beaded edge; monogram carving to centre; gablet coping; north elevation is blank.

Memorial supported on blockwork plinth wall (formerly roughcast with concrete coping).

Setting:-
Set to south of St Columbkilles Church (HB11/19/002A) within modern churchyard on elevated site above the village of Carrickmore; graveyard to south and west contains selection of nineteenth and twentieth century grave markers and memorials. Site bounded to road at south by rendered and rubble walling and to car park at west by rendered retaining wall.

Roof: N/A
Walling: Reconstituted stone
Windows: N/A
Rainwater goods: N/A

Historical information

Bryan McGuirke was Dean of Armagh and Vicar General during the period of Penal Laws in Ireland when priests were liable to be arrested and tried on suspicion of treason. He was tried at Dungannon, Armagh and Monaghan in 1682/3 on the charge of ‘extolling foreign jurisdiction’, or exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction by authority of the Pope. Although acquitted each time, he was not always granted bail before trial and spent several months in jail. McGuirke attempted to abide by the law by applying to the local Justice to acquaint him of meetings with his clergy and allow an observer to be present. “[McGuirke] saith that one of the chief reasons why he [notified the Justice] was that he was afraid that some of the priests might falsely inform against him…if there were no Protestants among them at their meetings to hear what they said…[He] further saith that he…hath not the English tongue well, and if anything have dropped from his mouth before [the Justice] or now (he not being able to express his mind fitly in English) he hopes that no advantage on that account be taken against him.” (Examination of McGuirke 14th June 1682, quoted in Burke, p.77)

Some discomfiture was expressed at McGuirke’s repeated trial and imprisonment. Sir William Steward wrote on 13 February 1683, “…Maguirke…was sent to Lifford jail for being titular Dean of Armagh and pretended Vicar General, and was by me bailed to the Assizes, he utterly disowning either title, and…he has been already tried for the very same thing at the Assizes of Dungannon, Armagh and Monaghan and acquit at all, and…he is at this time bound by my Lord Massareene to appear at Derry assizes to answer the same charge…If when a man is cleared in one county he must be in jail in the next for the same charge without bail, he may be fifteen years a prisoner ere he can be freed. For at two assizes in the year he cannot in less time go through the thirty counties of the kingdom. After all I believe this Maguirke a great rogue, but if he were a devil he must have right.” (Burke, p.77)

In 1712 Bryan McGuirke was captured by a magistrate named Walter Dawson who wished to gain the reward of £50 for the capture of a popish dean. Dawson’s brother wrote to his cousin at Dublin Castle begging the authorities not to proceed with the case and pointing out that the prisoner “is ninety years of age, has been of a long time bed-ridd as they call it and in short has lost all his senses and is the most miserable wretch as he now lies in Gaol that ever was seen…For God’s sake, Cousin, if you have any influence over my Brother persuade him not to do such things for money which brings such an odium upon him and a reflexion to his family.” McGuirke died in Armagh Gaol five months after his capture, in February 1713. (Burke, p.282, O’Brien p.65)

References:

Secondary Sources:

1. Burke, W. “Irish Priests in the Penal Times 1660-1760” Shannon, Ireland: Irish University Press 1969
2. O’Brien, G ed. “Catholic Ireland in the 18th Century – The Collected Essays of Maureen Wall” Dublin: Geography Publications 1989

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A freestanding memorial, erected 1944, located in grounds of St Columbkille’s Roman Catholic Church, to the north side of Creggan Road. The memorial, consisting of plinth surmounted by a cross, displays ornate Celtic stone carving and appears to have inspired various later memorials in the graveyard adjacent to the site. Although it is of local significance it is not worthy of listing.

General comments

This record has been renumbered HB11/19/002B - previously HB11/19/005