Category Archives: Irish Church

Recalling Lost Houses


In his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland published in 1837, Samuel Lewis wrote of Kilcommon, County Mayo that the old church here, ‘was a chapel of ease, built in 1688 by Archbishop Vesey, who was buried in it, and was made the parish church on the church of Kilcommon becoming ruinous. The present church, which is also in Hollymount, was built in 1816, the late Board of First Fruits having granted a loan of £1000 ; it is a handsome building, with a cast iron spire, and is fitted up with English oak.’ The church, dedicated to King Charles the Martyr, is of cruciform shape and constructed of limestone ashlar; as Lewis noted, rather unusually, the spire is made of cast-iron. Services continued to be held here until November 1959 and the roof removed four years later. Seemingly the doorcase went to Ballintober Abbey and a wall monument remounted in St Mary’s Church, Ballinrobe, both in County Mayo, while the English oak mentioned by Lewis was repurposed in St Paul’s Church, Glenageary, County Dublin and the east window moved to St John’s Church, Lurgan, County Armagh.





In the same entry, Lewis notes that the family vaults of the Binghams, Lords Clanmorris, along with monuments of the Lindsey and Ruttledge families are to be found in the graveyard of King Charles the Martyr. The Binghams had settled in this part of the county in the mid-17th century and there built a house called Newbrook; it was accidentally destroyed in a fire in 1837 and not rebuilt. The monument, to the immediate east of the church, commemorates John Bingham who in 1800 agreed to surrender to the government the two parliamentary seats he controlled in the local borough in exchange for £8,000 and a peerage (for more on this, see Where Turkeys Voted for Christmas « The Irish Aesthete). Visitors to the graveyard note that the tomb is ‘Sacred to the memory of The Right Honorable John Charles Smith de Burgh Bingham, Lord Baron Clanmorris of Newbrook in the County of Mayo, A NOBLEMAN distinguished for the possession of those many eminent virtues which adorn life whether we consider him in the Character of a HUSBAND, FATHER, LANDLORD or FRIEND.’ Another side of the same monument observes that also interred here is Lord Clanmorris’s daughter Caroline Bingham, who died at the age of 15 in April 1821, a month before her father. The Lindsey family settled in the area in 1757 when Thomas Lindsey married Frances Vesey, a granddaughter of John Vesey who had built a house at Hollymount which she duly inherited; the family remained on the estate there until the start of the last century when it was sold to the Congested Districts’ Board. As for the Ruttledges, they lived at Bloomfield, a large house built c.1776. The tomb here commemorates Elizabeth, wife of Robert Ruttledge and daughter of Francis Knox of Rappa Castle, elsewhere in the county. According to the inscription, ‘Her engaging mildness unceasing humanity and warm affection endeared her to all her acquaintance and her uniform and unobtrusive piety together with the unremitting firmness with which she performed all her duties during a life of 56 years afforded them the consoling and confident hope that her soul fled to that place where the spirits of the just are made perfect.’





As already mentioned, the Bingham’s home, Newbrook, was destroyed by fire in 1837 and never rebuilt. Hollymount, originally built by Archbishop Vesey at the start of the 18th century but substantially altered in the 19th, was eventually inherited by Mary Lindsey who in 1885 at the age of 19 married Heremon FitzPatrick; his sister Mary FitzPatrick, better known as Patsy, was one of the great beauties of the late 19th century who at the age of 16 had an affair with the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) before being hastily married to William Cornwallis-West, with whom she had three children. Her brother Heremon, who had assumed the surname Lindsey, remained in possession of Hollymount until 1922 when it was sold; the house is now a ruin. Bloomfield, home of the Ruttledges, was similarly sold in the early 1920s, acquired by the Land Commision and subsequently damaged by fire, it is now a ruin. As for Rappa Castle, childhood home of Elizabeth Ruttledge, it too has become a roofless shell (see Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act « The Irish Aesthete). So this collection of tombs in the graveyard of a derelict church is all that remains to recall a series of once powerful families in County Mayo.

Awaiting Attention



Lucan House, County Dublin was discussed here a few weeks ago (see Addio del Passato « The Irish Aesthete). As noted then, the property, having been under the care of the Italian government for almost 80 years, has now been taken over by the local council. Included in the demesne is not only the house but a number of other significant buildings, including the remains of a mediaeval church. This is located to the immediate east and within sight of the former Italian ambassador’s residence. The church is recorded as being in existence since 1219, some 15 years after the manor of Lucan had been granted to the Norman Waris de Peche. He was probably also responsible for developing the original castle, thought to have stood in the vicinity of the present house, and close to the banks of the river Liffey.






The church of St Mary in Lucan was granted by Waris de Peche to the Augustinian Priory of St Catherine, located on the other side of the Liffey. By 1332, St. Catherine’s had passed to St Thomas’s Abbey on the outskirts of Dublin and remained under its control until the suppression of religious houses in the second quarter of the 16th century. St Mary’s church was then acquired, along with the castle, by William Sarsfield and appears to have remained in a good state of repair until at least the late 1500s. However, in 1630 the chancel was described as ruinous and has remained so ever since. Constructed of rubble limestone, the building consists of a nave and chancel, the former having lost its north wall. Inside the chancel are a number of tombs erected by later occupants of Lucan House, a particularly poignant one commemorating Nicholas Peter Conway Colthurst who died in November 1820 aged six weeks, the tomb noting ‘It pleased Almighty God to take him from his afflicted parents after four days illness.’ On the north-east corner of the building is a three-storey tower, sometimes mistakenly called Lucan Castle. Most likely this was erected in the 15th century as a residence for the clergy serving St Mary’s, during a period when civil disturbances meant some protection from attack – even for priests – was considered necessary. 






On the opposite side of the parkland around Lucan House and quite different in character can be found another building in need of attention: an eighteenth century Gothick bathhouse. Thought to date from the mid-1780s, and therefore perhaps constructed while Agmondisham Vesey was still alive, it was constructed during the period in which the local sulphurous waters made Lucan popular as a spa. However, the limestone rubble bathhouse, complete with whimsically irregular form and bellcote, was for private rather than public use. It sits at the end of a long tree-lined avenue on a site above the river, views of which were offered by a tall arched opening on the north side. This opening gives access to a vaulted antechamber, warmed by a central fireplace on the south wall, the pointed arch stone surround looking as though it may have been taken from an older building, perhaps St Mary’s church? There are arched openings on both the western (external) and eastern (internal) walls of the chamber, the latter leading to the bathhouse itself, a sunken pool with a series of shallow steps. Like other buildings in the grounds of the property, the bathhouse is now in need of restoration, along with the stableyard and a pair of charming Gothick lodges which lie immediately inside the gates. All of this now awaits the local council. One must hope that the authority appreciates the importance of the site’s architectural legacy, and affords it due respect. 


A Rare Survivor



For more than half a century, conservationists have rightly lamented how much of 18th century Dublin has either faced neglect, clumsy restoration or, at worst, demolition. During this period, vast swathes of the capital have seen the loss of their architectural heritage. However, that unhappy state of affairs has a precedent: our Georgian forebears did their best to obliterate almost every trace of the mediaeval city. Admittedly, after the turmoils of the 16th and 17th centuries, much of Dublin was in poor shape. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how few buildings dating from before 1700 survive today. One of them is the city’s only remaining mediaeval parish church: St Audoen’s. 






St Audoen’s derives its name from the seventh century Frankish saint Ouen (or Audoin), thereby indicating that it was established by the Normans following their arrival in the country; it has been proposed the building was first erected c.1200 during the episcopacy of John Cumin, the first Norman archbishop of Dublin. The church has a complex history, involving periods of expansion and contraction. The earliest part consisted of a nave and chancel in the section now known as St Anne’s Chapel and today housing an exhibition centre. Towards the end of the 13th or early 14th century, the north (riverside) wall of St Audoen’s was rebuilt as a four-bay arcade to create an enlarged nave: this part of the building continues to be used for services by the Church of Ireland. Meanwhile, a royal patent of 1430 granted licence for the conversion of the original, southerly nave into a chantry chapel for the Guild of St Anne, the most significant religious guild in the city. The guild supported six chantry priests who each daily celebrated mass at his assigned altar, one dedicated to the Virgin, the other five to SS.Anne, Catherine, Nicholas, Thomas and Clare. A domestic range, in which the priests lived, stood to the immediate south. Over half a century later, St Audoen’s was further enlarged when a second chantry chapel was erected to the immediate east, as wide as the existing structure and like it divided into two parts by an arcade, in this instance of three bays. The new chantry chapel, built in honour of the Virgin, was funded by Richard FitzEustace, first Baron Portlester who served as Lord Treasurer of Ireland, Keeper of the Great Seal and, on two occasions, Lord Chancellor. His tomb, and that of his wife Margaret, originally placed between the chancel and the chapel, was moved in 1860 to its present location beneath the tower at the west end of the church. By the 16th century, St Audoen’s was one of the capital’s wealthiest and finest places of worship, Richard Stanyhurst noting in 1568 that it ‘was accounted the best in Dublin for the greater number of Aldermen and Worships of the city living in the Parish.’ However, that was all about to change. 






Although chantries and guilds were officially suppressed during the Reformation, that dedicated to St Anne and associated with St Audoen’s survived until the end of the 17th century when an Act of 1695 officially dissolved all chantries in Ireland. In the interim, having been transferred to the Church of Ireland and with few parishioners to support it, the building began to suffer from neglect. Fashionable new districts were developed elsewhere and the wealthy preferred to live (and worship) there, meaning those who remained living in the area had little money to spend on the church. In 1773, the chancel and Portlester Chantry were unroofed: a drawing by George Petrie shows the latter in 1829 with lines of washing strung across the arcades. Around the same time, the main arcade was bricked up, with St Anne’s Chapel abandoned and the north nave established as a parish chapel. Such remains the case. The present tower at the west end dates from the 17th century but has been repeatedly repaired and indeed was remodelled in 1826 by architect Henry Aaron Baker. Vulnerable to collapse, it underwent remedial work in 1916 and then a major restoration some 40 years ago. More importantly, in 2000 St Anne’s Chapel was re-roofed and turned into the aforementioned visitors’ centre with the insertion of a steel gallery along the west and north walls. Beside this is the present parish church, its south wall still displays the late 13th/early 14th century arcade, with sandstone piers supporting arches; the space between them would once have been open. At the east end of the north wall are two funerary monuments dating from some time between 1600-30 and commemorating the Duffe and Sparke families. At the other end of the nave is a late 12th century font while in St Anne’s Chapel are the remains of another monument, this one Alderman John Malone (who died in 1592) and other members of his family. As mentioned, the Portlester tomb is now below the tower. It depicts the recumbent figures of a knight and his lady, together with an inscription recording the endowment of 1482. St Audoen’s is open daily (from the months of March to November) and admission is free. The former graveyard to the west end of the church has been extensively landscaped and is now a public park. 

A Dramatic Shell



On a site high above Dunlewey Lough, County Donegal, a now-roofless church dating from the mid-19th century. The building was erected at the request and expense of Jane Russell to commemorate her husband James, who died in 1848. It was consecrated eight years later, but after a century the congregation had dwindled, so the church was unroofed and has stood a dramatic shell on the site ever since.


Of a Very Superior Character


‘The monastery of Rahan…was founded by St Carthach or St Mochuda about the year 580. A king of Cornwall, named Constantine, abandoned his throne in 588, and became a monk there, whence it would seem the name Constantine became a favourite one with the family of Molloy, who were princes of Fercall, the district around Rahan. Under St Carthach, Rahan marvellously prospered, so that 867 monks were said to have been gathered under his rule at one time, and his followers formed one of the four great orders into which the Irish monasteries were divided…The monastery of Durrow, however, became jealous of the success of Rahan, and so in 636 roused King Blaethmac to expel Carthach, who took refuge in Lismore, where he founded the see but died the next year.’
From The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Part III, Third Quarter, 1896.





‘The ancient Irish church at Rahan – repaired for Protestant worship – has a remarkable round window, measuring about seven feet six inches in the external diameter of the circle, and it is placed about twenty-two feet from the level of the ground. It formerly lighted a chamber placed between the chancel and the stone roof. It has a circle of bead ornaments and chevron carving within the outer band-line. The ornamental sculpture is in low relief are inciso or hollow. The stone and masonry of this church are of a very superior character.’
From Lives of the Irish Saints Vol.X, by the Rev. John O’Hanlon, (Dublin, 1905)






‘The Abbey of Rahin [is] partly restored as a parish ch. It was founded in the 6th century by St Carthach or Mochuda, afterwards Bp. of Lismore, and is remarkable for its archaeological details. The visitor should notice the chancel archway, which consists of 3 rectangular piers on each side, rounded at their angles into semi-columns, and adorned with capitals elaborately sculptured with human heads. The original E. window is gone, but lighting a chamber between the chancel and the roof is a remarkably beautiful round window with ornaments in low relief. The antiquary should compare the decorations of the capitals with those at Timahoe. There are also ruins of 2 other chs., one of them containing a doorway with inclined jambs (indicative of early Irish architecture) and an arch adorned with the characteristic moulding so like Norman.’
From A Handbook for Travellers in Ireland by John Murray (London, 1866)

Empty Aisle, Deserted Chancel


Lone and weary as I wander’d by the bleak shore of the sea,
Meditating and reflecting on the world’s hard destiny,
Forth the moon and stars ‘gan glimmer, in the quiet tide beneath,
For on slumbering spring and blossom breathed not out of heaven a breath.

On I went in sad dejection, careless where my footsteps bore,
Till a ruined church before me opened wide its ancient door,
Till I stood before the portals, where of old were wont to be,
For the blind, the halt, and leper, alms and hospitality.

Still the ancient seat was standing, built against the buttress grey,
Where the clergy used to welcome weary trav’llers on their way;
There I sat me down in sadness, ‘neath my cheek I placed my hand,
Till the tears fell hot and briny down upon the grassy land.





There, I said in woful sorrow, weeping bitterly the while,
Was a time when joy and gladness reigned within this ruined pile;
Was a time when bells were tinkling, clergy preaching peace abroad,
Psalms a-singing, music ringing praises to the mighty God.

Empty aisle, deserted chancel, tower tottering to your fall,
Many a storm since then has beaten on the grey head of your wall!
Many a bitter storm and tempest has your roof-tree turned away,
Since you first were formed a temple to the Lord of night and day.

Holy house of ivied gables, that were once the country’s boast,
Houseless now in weary wandering are you scattered, saintly host;
Lone you are to-day, and dismal,— joyful psalms no more are heard,
Where, within your choir, her vesper screeches the cat-headed bird.

Ivy from your eaves is growing, nettles round your green hearth-stone,
Foxes howl, where, in your corners, dropping waters make their moan.
Where the lark to early matins used your clergy forth to call,
There, alas! no tongue is stirring, save the daw’s upon the wall.





Refectory cold and empty, dormitory bleak and bare,
Where are now your pious uses, simple bed and frugal fare?
Gone your abbot, rule and order, broken down your altar stones;
Nought see I beneath your shelter, save a heap of clayey bones.

O! the hardship, O! the hatred, tyranny, and cruel war,
Persecution and oppression, that have left you as you are!
I myself once also prosper’d; — mine is, too, an alter’d plight;
Trouble, care, and age have left me good for nought but grief to-night.

Gone my motion and my vigour — gone the use of eye and ear,
At my feet lie friends and children, powerless and corrupting here;
Woe is written on my visage, in a nut my heart could lie —
Death’s deliverance were welcome — Father, let the old man die.


Translation by Sir Samuel Ferguson of the Irish poem Machtnamh an Duine Dhoilghíosaigh (‘The Melancholy Mortal’s Reflections’) or, Caoineadh ar Mhainistir Thigh Molaige (‘Lament Over the Monastery House of Molaga’) by Seághan Ó CoileáinPictures of the 15th century Franciscan friary known as Moor Abbey, County Tipperary. 

 

Piercing the Sky



Piercing the sky, a slender tower in the graveyard of Brooklodge, County Cork. A square base with octagonal belfrey above, this is all that remains of a church erected here in the mid-19th century, on the site of an older structure (described as being in ruins as early as 1615): the main body of the building was demolished in 1923. In one corner of the surrounding graveyard is a large rectangular mausoleum, now almost enveloped in vegetation, erected by the Browne family who lived not far away at Riverstown House.


Saint or Goddess?


Later this week, February 1st will mark St Brigid’s Day. For those readers unfamiliar with her, Brigid is one of Ireland’s three national saints (the other two being Patrick and Columba), but not much is known about the woman. Supposedly she was born c.451, the daughter of a chieftain and a slave who had been baptised by St Patrick, was raised in a Druid household but then converted to Christianity and founded a religious house for women in what is now Kildare. Inevitably she also established other churches elsewhere in the country (early Irish saints were much given to roaming about the island) and performed many miracles. She is said to have died in 525 and a cult soon developed around her: the first account of Brigid’s life was produced during the following century by St Ultan of Ardbraccan. But did she actually exist? An increasingly popular theory proposes that Brigid was originally a pagan goddess, daughter of the Dagda (a kind of father-figure in ancient Irish mythology), and that with the arrival of Christianity her cult was simply transferred to a holy nun. The day on which she is annually celebrated, February 1st, happens to have been the occasion of a pagan festival marking the onset of Spring. This alternative image of Brigid is now widely promulgated: Dublin, for example, is about to host a five-day festival celebrating ‘the spirit and legacy of the Celtic goddess Brigit’, although quite what an imaginary deity’s spirit and legacy may be remains unclear. Meanwhile, in Kildare where the saint is supposed to have founded her community, the local authority is running Brigid 1500, a week-long festival intended to ‘celebrate and commemorate the extraordinary St Brigid, – A Woman, A Life, A Legacy- and the enduring impact of her life as we reach the 1500th anniversary of her passing.’





In the centre of Kildare town, St Brigid’s Cathedral is said to stand on the site where the aforementioned saint established a church and community of like-minded women in the year 480. This foundation survived long after Brigid’s death, becoming a double community of women and men, over which an Abbess ruled (as indeed, she held jurisdiction over the local bishop). Successive generations of nuns kept alive the memory of their founder by tending a fire which was never allowed to go out. In his Topographia Hibernia of c.1188, Gerald of Wales (otherwise known as Giraldus Cambrensis) wrote, ‘At Kildare, in Leinster, celebrated for the glorious Brigit, many miracles have been wrought worthy of memory. Among these, the first that occurs is the fire of St. Brigit, which is reported never to go out. Not that it cannot be extinguished, but the nuns and holy women tend and feed it, adding fuel, with such watchful and diligent care, that from the time of the Virgin, it has continued burning through a long course of years ; and although such heaps of wood have been consumed during this long period, there has been no accumulation of ashes.’ Gerald also noted that the fire was surrounded by a circular hedge made of stakes and brushwood, into which no man could enter. If any male was so foolish as to do so, ‘he will not escape the divine vengeance.’ Despite these supposedly secure defences, in 1220 Henry de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin ordered the extinction of the fire. Meanwhile, the church first established by Brigid underwent similar traumas: it was pillaged and burnt by the Vikings in 835, then rebuilt before being burnt again on a couple of occasions in the mid-11th century and then plundered in 1136.





As seen today, St Brigid’s Cathedral was begun at some date in the 1220s by Ralph of Bristol, Bishop of Kildare. Like its predecessors, this suffered assault several times and, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-16th century, fell into serious disrepair. The roof was taken off in 1588 and the building was judged ruinous in 1615. The diocese of Kildare was always among the poorest in the country, and this helps to explain why the cathedral was so often left in poor condition. In 1681 William Moreton embarked on restoring the building with what resources were available; he would write to the Duke of Ormond that he had ‘endeavoured the most since he came to Kildare to repair the insupportable ruins of it.’ Repairs to the choir, nave and chancel cost £500, of which £200 came from private subscriptions, with Moreton providing £112. Work was completed in 1686. Nevertheless, further dilapidation occurred and finally, in the mid-1870s and over the next 20 years, St Brigid’s Cathedral underwent a thorough restoration overseen by George Edmund Street, with an initial budget of £5,000 although the eventual cost was more than double this figure. This is the building seen today, rather severe with exposed stone walls and just a few ancient monuments, or parts of these, which had survived the various attacks on the fabric. Outside is a round tower, the second tallest in Ireland, which has similarly undergone repairs and improvements over the centuries. Brigid: Christian saint or pagan goddess? Take your choice…

In Memory




After Monday’s post about the Ponsonby tombs at Fiddown, County Kilkenny, here is a less well-preserved old church: the shell of an early 18th century building at Anatrim, County Laois. A simple barn-like structure, it is distinguished by the stocky, three-stage tower at the west end and a Venetian window, now largely blocked with stones, to the east. The church ceased to be used for services when a new one was built to the immediate south in 1840. What survives in the interior are a couple of fine wall monuments, one to the Delaney family of Ballyfin with a coat of arms inside a cartouche flanked by urns beneath a pediment (†1731-1770), and the other a plain tablet with broken segmental pediment commemorating Isaac Sharp of Roundwood (†1756). In the surrounding graveyard is the Sharp family’s barrel-vaulted mausoleum.



Let us Leave Something to Testify that we have Lived


Originally from Cumberland, Sir John Ponsonby came to Ireland in the early 1650s and was appointed a commissioner for taking the depositions of Protestants concerning murders said to have been committed during the Confederate Wars: as a reward for his labours, he was granted a large parcel of forfeited lands at Kildalton, County Kilkenny. These had previously belonged to the Anglo-Norman D’Alton family (hence the name Kildalton, meaning Church of the Daltons). Appointed Sheriff of Counties Wicklow and Kilkenny in 1654, and elected to represent the latter in the first post-Restoration Irish parliament, Sir John Ponsonby married as his second wife an heiress, Elizabeth Folliott, in whose honour he renamed his Irish estate Bessborough. (For more on this house and its history, please see In the Borough of Bess « The Irish Aesthete and Back to Bessborough « The Irish Aesthete) When he died in 1668, he was buried in the church at Fiddown, several miles to the south of his property. Inside this building and to the immediate right of the east wall window, is a simple framed memorial declaring ‘Here lies ye body of Sir John Besborough who departed this life Anno Dom 1668 in ye 60th year of his age.’ Generations of his descendants came to be laid to rest in the same place, and today the little church remains a rare example in Ireland of a church filled with monuments to the same family. 





A religious settlement is thought to have been established at Fiddown in the sixth century, but the origins of the present building can be traced back to c.1200. Like so many others, the church evidently underwent some vicissitudes during the 17th century and in 1731 Dr Edward Tenison, then Bishop of Ossory, reported it was in need of a new roof and that the walls needed to be pointed; the following year, ‘the roof was taken down in order to put on a better one.’ The rector during this period, the Rev Robert Watts, was energetic in his ambition to improve the condition of the building and ensure its future. To the left of the east window, a white marble plaque framed in black Kilkenny marble advises ‘This Chancel was Rebuilt and Beautified by Revd Robert Watts M.A. Dean of St Canice and Vicar of Fiddown 1747 who after a Contest at Law and in Equity Carried on for Nineteen Years and Fifteen hundred Pounds Expended by him Recovered the Great Tithes of the Parish from the Subtractor for the Benefit of all Succeeding Incumbents. Quatenus nobis Denegatur dui Vivere Relinquamus aliquid que nos vixisse testemur.’ (Insofar as it is denied to us to live, let us leave something to testify that we have lived). Evidently at some earlier date, a righ to the tithes from this parish had been granted to someone else, but the Rev Watts was determined to have them back and went to law in order to make sure this happened. In 1748 he presented the church with a set of communion plate., no doubt benefiting from the additional income he now enjoyed thanks to the restitution of tithes. The building continued thereafter to be in excellent repair; at the start of the 19th century it was reported to have been ‘very handsomely fitted up by the late Earl of Bessborough’ (presumably the second earl who had died in 1793). Following a visitation by the Bishop of Ossory in 1829, the church was described as being ‘in excellent repair both inside and outside, all the wood work has been recently painted, and a new Gallery and Vestry Room have been erected.’ Average attendance at services was given as 40. The earliest Ordnance Survey maps show the building to have been considerably larger than what can be seen today on the site. Following the construction of a new Church of Ireland church in Piltown in 1859-62, the main body of its predecessor at Fiddown was taken down, leaving only the chancel which by then had been serving for almost 200 years as the Ponsonby family’s mortuary chapel.





A number of memorials inside Fiddown church commemorate members of the Briscoe family, who also lived in this part of the country. (The surrounding graveyard contains a tomb marking the burial place of one Edward Briscoe, ‘of Crofton in the County of Cumberland in England, who departed this life the 20th day of July Anno Dom 1709 and in the 58th year of his age.’ Sir John Ponsonby’s first wife, Dorothy Briscoe likewise came from Crofton, Cumberland, so it seems safe to assume that Edward was some relative of the family). But the greater part of the church’s interior is dedicated to celebrating the Ponsonbys, with the north wall dominated by a large memorial devoted to Brabazon Ponsonby who in 1744 rebuilt Bessborough, five years after he had been created first Earl of Bessborough. This splendid monument features the earl and his wife dressed as ancient Romans atop an engraved sarcophagus, the whole set within a frame of Sienese marble columns supporting a pediment carrying the family arms. The inscriptions reads ‘Under this Marble lie the Remains of Brabazon Ponsonby, Earl of Bessborough, Viscount Duncannon and Baron Bessborough in Ireland, and Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby in Leicester Shire in Great Britain, and of Sarah his wife Grand Daughter and Heiress to Primate Margetson. The Virtues of their Private lives need not here be Recited, they are Engraved in the Hearts and Minds of many who will deliver them from one Generation to another beyond the duration of a Perishable Tomb. This monument is Erected, not as a necessary Memorial of them but as a Testimony of Gratitude and Respect owing from their son William Earl of Bessborough.  He had the Honor of Serving his Majesty King George the 2nd in Several Publick employments of great Trust and Dignity and Departed this Life July 1758 aged 81. She in May 1733 aged 52.’ The work is signed on one side by W Atkinson of London (d.1766). Both the second and third earls lived for the greater part of their lives in England and the church therefore has no monuments to either; it was only in the 19th century that the fourth earl and his family settled back at Bessborough and thereafter further memorials were added to the interior so that today they stretch back over three centuries. As already mentioned, cuch buildings are not common in Ireland, although a similar example stands not too far away at Clonagam, County Waterford which is likewise filled with funerary monuments, this time to the de la Poer Beresfords, Marquesses of Waterford (please see Awaiting the Day of Judgement « The Irish Aesthete).