Disappointing news for KKAP

Finally, after nearly six months of a delay the INSTAR awards have been announced. Unfortunately however there is no funding available for the Kilkenny Archaeological Project. For more information on the 2009 awards please visit here.

Stepping into Kilkenny’s History launched

Stepping into Kilkenny’s History was officially launched by President McAleese yesterday. The magnificentally illustrated publication and cd provides a wealth of knowledge on Kilkenny’s archaeology and history. It is intended as an educational resource for schools though it will be of interest to anyone with an affection for Kilkenny’s past. A website accompanies the pack. Congratulations to Ann Murtagh, Tony Patterson and the Kilkenny Educational Centre.

400 photos by Edwin Rae of Kilkenny’s medieval sculpture now online!

St. Canice’s Cathedral: Painting on W. wall of chapter house (Lady Chapel). Does this still survive today?

Prof. Edwin C. Rae was Professor of the History of Art at the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana. During World War II he was Fine Arts Chief for the military government in Bavaria and responsible for returning thousands of art objects looted from conquered countries by the Germans. The subject of his Harvard Ph.D dissertation however, was the Architecture of Medieval Ireland and in the later years of his career he published a number of important articles on the subject, all illustrated with photographs from this collection. In 2001 Prof. Rae donated his photographs to the History of Art Department at TCD. Since 2003 they have been administered by the Irish Art Research Centre (TRIARC) as part of their larger archive of Irish art.

The collection of photographs, which date to c.1930-1970 are focussed principally on Irish Later Medieval (c.1250-1600AD) tomb sculpture, wayside crosses, architecture and architectural detailing. Monuments from nearly all counties, including the North of Ireland are represented, and there is a small collection of comparative material from England and France. Holdings are particularly significant for counties Kilkenny and Dublin, areas which formed the focus of a number of Rae’s publications. The collection includes material in state-, church- and privately-owned monuments as well as some museum material.

Figure of an angel on the west doorway St. Canice’s cathedral. ‘Restoration’ of this doorway in the 1990s more-or-less destroyed most of the the medieval carvings over the west door.

Rae’s Kilkenny collection comprises over 400 photographs (and the occasional drawing) of medieval ecclesiastical sculpture from the county. St. Canice’s cathedral and St. Mary’s parish church figure prominently. The Kilkenny material is available here.

Quaternary Science Reviews and JRSAI papers by KKAP team members

Congratulations to Richard Jennings of the KKAP team on his publication in the May Quaternary Science Reviews!: New dates and palaeoenvironmental evidence for the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic occupation of Higueral de Valleja Cave, southern Spain. The paper may be downloaded here.

Also, the latest JRSAI (vol.137) carries a publication by Cóilín Ó Drisceoil of the KKAP on one of the rarest sites in Ireland, an Iron Age settlement. It may be downloaded here .

Major new publication on Kilkenny’s funeral monuments 1600-1700

The 2009 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy includes a very important paper by Paul Cockerham on the seventeenth century burial monuments that are found in Kilkenny.

Abstract:

The seventeenth-century funeral monuments of Co. Kilkenny are documented in this
study and changes in their design and meaning related both to local socio-economic
factors and wider historical events. The traditional ‘box-tombs’ of the start of the century,
displaying Christo-centric iconography and manufactured by Walter Kerin, were
slowly abandoned in favour of more visual monumental forms. Heraldic wall plaques
were commissioned, together with much larger mural structures made by Patrick Kerin,
which were based on a classical architectural paradigm of inscriptions and heraldry
being equally crucial in communicating to the observer. This religious ambivalence
assisted their survival in Protestant parish churches as visible markers perpetuating the
burial rites of Catholic families in their traditional locations. Monumental enthusiasm
during the Kilkenny Confederacy (1642–9) was terminated abruptly by the Cromwellian
invasion; following which, a lack of both suitable patrons and skilled sculptors
hindered the resumption of the custom until well into the eighteenth century.

The tomb of Richard Rothe (1637) in the monuments room St. Mary’s church, Kilkenny. This is one of the few tombs of this period that has survived the savage mutilations by Kilkenny’s citizens over the past ten years.

The paper may be downloaded here [5.7 MB, Pdf].

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