What is recorded here

Graveslab in Taghshinny is a 17th-century tombstone inside an 18th-century church in County Longford, marking Pierce Pettit, murdered by Robert Sams on 1st August 1684. The name was later chizzled out, perhaps by an old clerk named Ayres, yet the story of a duel and death in a sacred aisle still lingers beneath the stones.

Within the interior of an 18th-century church (C of I) that may incorporate the fabric of an earlier 17th-century church, which was built by the Annelly family of Tennalick (Anon. 1898, vol. 4 no. 1, 265). The church may have built on the site of a medieval church (LF023-097----). This 17th-century graveslab was described in 1848 by James Lyster, the rector of the parish, as 'an old tombstone in the aisle of the church to Mr. Pierce Petit, who was murdered by 'Robt. Sands'-16 (shot, I understand, in a duel). The name is chizzled out, which was done, I understand, by an old clerk named Ayres, about forty years ago' (ibid.). Later in 1891 the full inscription was recorded as 'HER LYETH THE BODY OF | PIERCE PETTIT WHO WAS MURDERED | BY ROBERT SAMS YE 1ST OF AUGUST | 1684 AND LIKEWISE THE BODY OF …' (Anon. 1893, 445). Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 5 June 2013

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