What is recorded here

Bonnetstown, 1578: Richard Shee ordered a plaque bearing his arms, though he would not become a knight until 1589. By 1900 the stone had left the castle and stood in the Sheastown church, where Carrigan copied its Latin pride. Restoration in the late 1970s carried it again, setting it into the Shee Alms House on Rose Inn Street. Shee’s name still points upward, but the years have rearranged the story around him.

Armorial plaque of Richard Shee, currently on the E gable of the Shee Alms House (KK019-026100-) fronting onto Rose Inn Street. The plaque was inserted into a niche N of the two-light window at first-floor level during restoration works carried out between 1978 and 1980. Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 225) records the plaque at the medieval church at Sheastown (KK024-001001-) c. 1900 and gives the inscription as: INSIGNIA RICHARDI SHEE MILITIS QVI HOC OPVS FECIT AO D 1578. This translates as, 'The arms of Richard Shee, Knight, who made this work in the Year of Our Lord 1578' (Crotty 2009, 195). Carrigan (1905, vol. 3, 225) contends that, 'This slab does not seem to have belonged originally to the church. It was probably brought here from Sir Richard Shee's castle of Bonnetstown [KK019-003001-], or from his house in Kilkenny'. Crotty (2009, 195) notes that Richard Shee was only knighted in 1589 and thus suggests that the plaque could not have been made as early as 1578. Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 15 March 2023

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