Graveslab, Callan, Co. Kilkenny

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Tombs & Memorials

Graveslab, Callan, Co. Kilkenny

A graveslab broken into pieces and scattered across different corners of the same church is an unusual fate for what was clearly an ambitious piece of commemorative stonework.

At St Mary's church in Callan, County Kilkenny, the upper portion of a limestone slab lies flat at the western end of the south aisle, its surface carved in relief with a three-armed cross-head decorated in a combination of rectilinear and curvilinear interlace, the arms terminating in fleur-de-lys flourishes. A knop, a small decorative boss or protrusion, sits beneath the cross-head, and the slab is broken horizontally just below it. The moulded edges carry a Latin inscription in raised Black Letter script, the formal Gothic lettering common to monumental stonework of the period, beginning in the upper right corner and running along the top and down the sides. The initials flanking the cross-head, T.C. and L.S., are carved in an elaborate interlace style that matches the quality of the cross itself.

The inscription, fragmentary as it now is, commemorates Thomas Comerford, formerly Sovereign of the town of Callan, who died the day after an unspecified date in January or February 1627. The Sovereign was the chief civic officer of an Irish corporate town, roughly equivalent to a mayor, so the slab marks a man of local standing. The Reverend William Carrigan, writing in 1905, transcribed and translated what could still be read at that time, identifying the commissioner of the monument as Comerford's wife, whose Latin inscription reads that she had the monument made after his death. Carrigan believed her maiden name was Shee, likely Lettice Shee, which would account for the initials L.S. carved to the left of the cross. By the time Carrigan was recording the slab, it had already been broken into several pieces; he found three fragments, one at the north side of the church, one at the south, and a third small piece bearing the date lying loose somewhere nearby. A section carrying part of the lower inscription has since been separately catalogued and is located at the west tower of the church, meaning the monument is, in effect, distributed across the building it was made to grace.

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