Wall monument, Dublin South City, Co. Dublin

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Religious Objects

Wall monument, Dublin South City, Co. Dublin

Inside St Audoen's, Dublin's oldest surviving medieval parish church, the south wall of St Anne's Chapel holds something easy to walk past without a second glance: the remains of a plaster wall monument to the Malone family, dated 1592.

Plaster monuments of this kind were not uncommon in late sixteenth-century Ireland, but they were rarely as elaborately conceived as this one, and fewer still have survived. What remains here gives a clear enough impression of what the full piece once looked like, and it is a good deal more ambitious than the modest medium might suggest.

The monument is rectangular, roughly 1.4 metres tall and just under a metre wide, and is topped with a triangular pediment whose edges carry a bead and reel design, a decorative motif of alternating rounded and elongated forms borrowed from classical architecture. At its centre, it once displayed an achievement of arms, the full heraldic arrangement of a coat of arms with its accompanying helmet, crest, and supporters, here flanked by pillows and by caryatids, which are sculpted female figures used as architectural columns. A frieze of rosettes ran along the monument as well. The date of 1592 places it in a period when Renaissance decorative ideas were beginning to filter into Irish funerary art, often by way of England, and the combination of classical ornament with heraldic display is characteristic of that transitional moment. The Malone family for whom it was made were clearly people of some local standing, though the monument now exists in fragmentary form.

St Audoen's stands just off High Street in the Liberties, close to the old city walls, and is accessible to visitors. The church itself is managed by the Office of Public Works, and the medieval nave is open during summer months, though it is worth confirming opening times before travelling. St Anne's Chapel is within the medieval structure rather than the later Church of Ireland addition alongside it, so it pays to be clear about which part of the building you are entering. The monument sits in the south wall of the chapel; given its condition, it requires a little patience to read, but the surviving detail, particularly the pediment and its decoration, repays close attention.

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