Memorial stone, Townparks, Co. Westmeath

Co. Westmeath |

Memorials

Memorial stone, Townparks, Co. Westmeath

Set into the southern gable of the south transept chapel at Castlepollard Church in County Westmeath, a small inscribed stone carries a Latin dedication that has outlasted the window beneath it, which has since been broken out and lost.

The stone is easy to miss, embedded in the external wall face rather than displayed inside, and the inscription it bears is concise to the point of austerity: no flourish, no image, just a line of text recording who paid for what and when.

The inscription reads 'SUMPTIBUS WALTER POLLARD DE CASTLLPOLLARD ARMIGERI ANO DOMINI 1679'. The key word here is sumptibus, a Latin term meaning 'at the expense of', used in formal inscriptions to credit whoever bore the financial burden of a construction or commission. The armiger designation, meaning a man entitled to bear heraldic arms but below the rank of knight, tells us something about Walter Pollard's social standing. The Pollard family gave their name to the town itself, Castlepollard, and this stone from 1679 places Walter Pollard directly in the act of building the church, not merely attending it or being buried in it, but funding its construction during the latter half of the seventeenth century.

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