Memorial stone, Dublin South City, Co. Dublin
Co. Dublin |
Memorials
Lying on the floor of a medieval nave, a broken limestone slab commemorates a man whose name most Dubliners have never encountered.
The stone, missing one corner and measuring just under two metres in length, marks the resting place of Samuel Dismyners, who died in 1690. Whatever inscription was once cut clearly into its surface has been worn to near-illegibility over the centuries, the letters softened by time and foot traffic into something that requires patience and a certain angle of light to read at all.
The slab sits inside St Audoen's Church on High Street, the only surviving medieval parish church in Dublin city. The building dates to the late twelfth century and takes its dedication from St Ouen of Rouen, a seventh-century French bishop whose cult was brought to Ireland by the Normans. By the time Samuel Dismyners was buried here in 1690, the church had already weathered the upheavals of the Reformation and the political convulsions of the seventeenth century. Dismyners himself remains a somewhat obscure figure; the memorial stone is among the few surviving traces of his existence, recorded as part of the National Monuments Service database and compiled by archaeologist Geraldine Stout in 2012.
St Audoen's is accessible from High Street, adjacent to the old city walls and close to the Cornmarket area of the Liberties. The medieval church, now in State care, is open to visitors during the summer months, though it is worth checking opening times in advance as hours can be limited. The Dismyners slab lies in the nave, the central longitudinal body of the church where the congregation would historically have gathered, and is easy to walk past without registering what is underfoot. The worn incised lettering rewards a slow look, particularly in low or raking light that catches the shallow cuts in the limestone and draws the faded text back, briefly, into legibility.