Tag Archives: Funerary Monument

Monumental



Visited on a particularly soggy afternoon, this is the Knox-Gore Memorial, erected in 1872 in the grounds of Belleek Manor, County Mayo. Its architect was the ubiquitous James Franklin Fuller whose inspiration appears to have been the steeple of St Giles‘ Cathedral in Edinburgh but while the latter sits atop a very large structure, the memorial’s base is just an earthen mound, sometimes thought to be a prehistoric tumulus. In any case, the monument was commissioned by Sir Charles Knox-Gore to commemorate his father Francis, first baronet who is buried on the site, together with his wife Sarah and, seemingly, his favourite horse. Sir Charles, meanwhile, when his time came, was interred elsewhere on the estate, along with his favourite dog called Phizzie.


Monumental Recognition


Not necessarily one for our American friends: the Ross Monument, County Down. Erected on the shoreline of Carlingford Lough in 1826 to the design of William Vitruvius Morrison, this massive granite obelisk commemorates Major General Robert Ross who had been killed in September 1814 while advancing on Baltimore during the American War. The site was chosen because it was here that Ross and his wife had planned to build a house after his retirement from the army. On the pedestal of the monument if a carved relief in the form of a sarcophagus, featuring emblems of the various countries in which Ross had fought during his military career.


Robert Ross was born in Rostrevor, County Down in 1766 and after attending Trinity College Dublin joined the British army, seeing action in successive wars against the French in Egypt, Italy, Spain, Holland and Portugal before being given command of an expeditionary force against the United States. Famously, following the Battle of Bladensburg, he and his troops entered Washington where they burnt many significant buildings, including the White House (which had been designed less than twenty years before by another Irishman, James Hoban). Within a month he was dead, his body subsequently being brought for burial to Halifax, Nova Scotia. As plaques on the other faces of the monument explain, it was erected thanks to subscriptions of more than £2,300 received from his fellow army officers and residents of County Down.

Pious Liberality


The funerary monument of John Evans-Freke, sixth Baron Carbery, located inside the cathedral church of St Fachtna, Rosscarbery, Co. Cork . The monument is in two parts, one being this life-size marble statue of the deceased dressed in doublet and hose. Carved by Belgian sculptor Guillaume Geefs, the figure is complemented by a wall monument featuring an angel ready with his trumpet to summon the peer (whose coat of arms can also be seen) at Last Judgement. Below a long encomium assures readers that Lord Carbery’s ‘active usefulness and pious liberality are attested by this church which was built through his exertions.’ The church in question is that at Rathbarry, formerly part of the Castlefreke estate. Now a ruin, it closed in 1927, at which date the monument was moved to its present site.

In Loving Memory


Inside Christ Church, Ballymartle, County Cork dates from 1866 when it replaced an earlier building, the ruins of which can be seen close by. Several funerary monuments were moved from the latter, including this touching memorial to William Meade erected by his parents, Sir John Meade and his wife the Hon Elizabeth Butler, a daughter of the second Viscount Ikerrin: their grandson, also called John, would be created first Earl of Clanwilliam in 1776. But William had long since departed this world since, as the inscription notes, having been born in 1689 he died in 1702, less than a fortnight before what would have been his thirteenth birthday.