Wall monument, Naas, Co. Kildare

Co. Kildare |

Religious Objects

Wall monument, Naas, Co. Kildare

Set into the outer face of the south wall of St David's Church in Naas is a limestone monument that most passers-by would likely overlook entirely. Split into two sections, it commemorates Edward Fisher, who died in 1659, and survives in a fragmentary but legible state: the upper portion, roughly sixty centimetres high and fifty-seven wide, carries the Fisher coat of arms worked in false relief, a technique in which decorative elements are carved to appear raised while the background remains flush with the surface. Below it, four separate pieces fitted together form a larger slab bearing an inscription in a mixture of Roman and Gothic lettering, the combination of typefaces being fairly typical of mid-seventeenth-century funerary stonework in Ireland, when both scripts were still in common use.

The monument dates to 1659, placing it in a period of considerable upheaval in Irish and Kildare life. The Cromwellian settlement of the 1650s had redistributed enormous amounts of land across the country, and families like the Fishers, whatever their precise circumstances, were navigating a society in significant flux. Wall monuments of this kind, built into the exterior fabric of a church rather than placed inside, were not uncommon, and their survival on an outer wall is often a matter of luck as much as intent, exposed as they are to weathering and structural change. That this one survives in recognisable condition, coat of arms intact and inscription still present across its four lower pieces, makes it a quietly useful document of both a family and a moment.

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Pete F
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