Font, Townparks, Co. Meath

A piscina is a shallow liturgical sink, set near an altar and used by a priest to rinse the communion vessels and wash his hands; the water was then channelled away rather than poured down an ordinary drain. What makes the Trim example so unusual is that it appears to have been designed as a near-freestanding feature rather than the more typical arrangement of a basin set into a wall recess. The outer surface of its round bowl, only 11 centimetres deep, is ringed by a chamfered band carved in relief with a frieze of creatures drawn from the medieval bestiary: a dragon on the left, then a manticora, a legendary Indian beast described in medieval literature as having a man's face, a lion's body, a scorpion's tail, and a triple row of teeth. The Trim carving gives it hooved feet, an unusual detail that scholars have attributed to confusion in the sources between the manticora and another creature, the leucrota, which does have hooves. The manticora's tail interlinks with that of a crocodyllus, a medieval crocodile evidently carved from description rather than observation, all ridged spine and long teeth. The frieze ends on the right with a fox carrying a goose in its mouth, its bushy tail curving back to close the composition.

Below this procession of monsters, the register changes entirely. Four rectangular panels, each held by a winged angel, carry armorial shields still bearing faint traces of their original red, yellow, and blue tinctures. Three of the four shields have been identified. The first displays the arms of James Butler, the White Earl, fourth earl of Ormonde, who was Richard, duke of York's deputy in Ireland until his death in 1452. The second carries the arms of Edward III, great-grandfather of Roger Mortimer. The third has been identified as the arms of Anne Mortimer, grandmother of Edward IV and mother of Richard, duke of York, who died in 1411. The fourth shield is blank, its panel and the angel's hand carved with the same care as the others, suggesting it was not left unfinished. One scholarly view, advanced by Hickey, is that it represents George of Windsor, the infant son of Edward IV, who was appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland in 1478 and died in 1479, before any formal grant of arms could be made. The piscina was dismantled from the ruined chancel and reassembled in its current position in the nineteenth century by Butler, who set it on an octagonal limestone slab resting on a Romanesque sandstone capital, possibly salvaged from St Mary's Augustinian priory. The juxtaposition of components from different centuries is visible: the orange sandstone sits awkwardly against the limestone above it, though whoever assembled the ensemble clearly judged the shapes compatible. A second shallow octagonal limestone basin is set vertically into the wall directly behind the piscina and very likely served as a companion basin for the same liturgical functions. The Trim piscina connects to a broader pattern across County Meath, where fonts at Dunsany, Killeen, and Clonard also feature winged angels holding armorial shields, and where carved monsters appear on fonts at Crickstown and Kilcame; it also has close formal parallels with a group of elaborate fifteenth-century octagonal fonts from East Anglia, where angels bearing shields and wild beasts in relief are equally characteristic.