CO-SMCY-0834

In "The Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Youghal" by Samuel Hayman, 1854, p108, this tomb is described thus: " At Christmas 1579, on the occupation and plunder of the town by the insurgent Earl of Desmond,the south transept shared in the injuries inflicted on the church.It was dismantled and the tomb of the founders defaced....Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork,purchased it in 1606, of the Corporation, and re-edified it in 1619.He restored at the same time the tomb of the founders and had also "their pictures cvt in stone placed thereon"; but following the style of his own day,he fell into an absurd and ludicrous anachronism. The North transept would have afforded him two fine specimens of the effigies of the thirteenth century. Passing them by, he took for his guide the burgher costume of the Stuart era, and in this strange apparel he bade the sculptor attire the persons of those who lived more than four centuries before his time. The tomb is an oblong table of lime-stone, placed against the East Wall, on the right hand side of the central or altar window. Upon it are laid, with heads on tasselled cushions, the recumbent effigies of an aged man and woman. The male figure wears a full bottomed wig and venerable flowing beard, a small ruff and civic gown. The female has long loose hair, and she wears a cloak, once of a rich purple hue, with a cape apparently of ermine. The effigies were originally painted in colours, of which some faint traces remain.A raised entablature at the head contained an escutcheon, which has perished and was surmounted by mort heads wrought in plaster. On a stone supporting the feet (now gone) is the following inscription:- HERE LIETH ANCIENTLY ENTERRED THE BODDIES OF RICHARD BENNET AND ELLIS BARRY HIS WYFE THE FIRST FOUNDERS OF THIS CHAPPLE WHICH BEING DEMOLISHED IN TIME OF REBELLION AND THEIR TOMBE DEFACED, WAS RE-EDIFIED BY RICHARD LORD BOYLE, BARON OF YOGHALL, WHO FOR REVIVINGE THE MEMORY OF THEM, REPAIRED THEIR TOMBE AND HAD THESE THEIR PICTVRES CVT IN STONE PLACED THEREON IN ANO DNI 1619."