Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/144

122 consideration. The Iconoclastic rage of the reformers of the sixteenth century has, indeed, left the ecclesiastical edifices of Ireland without one fair specimen of the numerous works of monumental sculpture by which they were once adorned, and the battering trains of Cromwell in the succeeding century, which only ceased to thunder and destroy, to be echoed, as it were, by the more powerful cannon of the Jacobites or the Hanoverians, swept from their very foundations many of the early military structures in that country, and not a few of those which were erected in later times by the Norman settlers, or the more powerful of the native chieftains. Still there exist many monuments of the thirteenth and succeeding centuries which are worthy of careful preservation; they may serve to illustrate similar remains in England, and supply evidences of the taste and skill of native Irish artists during those periods.

The four effigies to which I wish now to call attention, are to be seen built into the grave-yard wall of St. John's church at Cashel, and I have been enabled to gather the following particulars relative to their history. About seventy or eighty years since, when the Roman Catholics commenced the erection of a chapel at Cashel, the site which was given to them was that spot which was occupied by the ruins of the Franciscan abbey, founded and erected by William Hacket, during the reign of Henry III. The workmen engaged in clearing away the ancient masonry discovered a crypt situated under the old abbey church, or, according to some, under a detached stone-roofed building, which adjoined the abbey. In this chamber, which was known amongst the Irish as the "room of rest," were found a number of stone, coffins, with lids of the same material, upon which were sculptured effigies in high relief: of these several were destroyed, and the remainder were scattered about in wanton neglect. One stone coffin only was preserved, and is now to be seen in the Roman Catholic chapel, where it serves as a receptacle for holy water: of the effigies, four still exist, as also the fragment of a fifth, which is to be seen built into the exterior wall of the chapel. Some description of these memorials will be necessary in explanation of their peculiarities, to accompany the representations which are now submitted to the readers of the Archæological Journal.