Graveslab, Balrothery, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Tombs & Memorials
Against the southern wall of an eighteenth-century bell-tower in Holmpatrick graveyard, Balrothery, a sixteenth-century graveslab has been fixed into the concrete, upright and in plain view, marking the resting place of a man whose world was already disappearing around him.
It is not displayed inside a church or protected behind a railing; it simply sits there, flush against the masonry, as if the builders of a later century decided the most practical thing to do with it was to make it part of the wall.
The slab commemorates Peter Manne, recorded as one of the last priors of the Augustinian Priory of Holmpatrick, an Augustinian house that once stood on this very ground. The bell-tower itself was built in the eighteenth century on the priory's former site, a common enough pattern in Ireland where later ecclesiastical structures were layered over suppressed medieval ones. The slab is tall, carved with a Latin Cross whose arms end in expanded terminals, a decorative feature typical of late medieval stonework, and a Latin inscription runs down the shaft of the cross. That inscription, translated by Campion in 1969, reads: "Here lies Peter Mahon [Manne] formerly Prior of the House on whose soul God have mercy. He died in the year of Christ 1537." The notes record his death as 1520 in one source and 1537 in the inscription itself, a small discrepancy that adds a quietly human uncertainty to what is otherwise a formal memorial.
Holmpatrick graveyard is still an active burial ground, and the bell-tower wall where the slab is set faces south, so the light falls on it well for much of the day. The inscription, carved in relief rather than incised, is generally legible if you take a moment to read along the shaft of the cross. There is no interpretive signage specific to the slab itself, so it is easy to walk past without registering what it is. It rewards a slow look.