Cork city has long been renowned for its merchant princes, and Sir Mathew Deane was an early example of the breed. Believed to have been born in Bristol in 1623, he came to Ireland as a young man and settled in the south. Evidently he prospered, at different dates serving as mayor and sheriff of Cork; in 1691 he was appointed first master of the newly-established Society of Wholesale and Retayling Merchants. A year later he endowed an almshouse adjacent to St Peter’s church in the city, and in his will left instructions for the construction of a new building to serve the same purpose. Already knighted, he was created a baronet shortly before his death in 1710.

This splendid funerary monument to Sir Mathew and his wife, formerly to one side of the main altar, today occupies the wall of a small chapel on the north-east side of the former St Peter’s church. Flanked by marble columns with Corinthian columns, the figures kneel in prayer on either side of an altar. While it is possible to identify Sir Mathew with ease, his wife poses problems because he married three times. A notice in the chapel calls her ‘Lady Elizabeth’ but none of his spouses was so named, the first being Mary Wallis, the second Martha Boyle and the third Dorothy Ferrar, dowager Countess of Barrymore. St Peter’s is no longer used for services and today serves as an exhibition venue and cultural facility.