Graveslab in Townparks North

The original chancel of St Patrick’s parish church (ME036-048012-) in Trim is presently inaccessible for safety reasons, but the graveslab of Thomas Ashe has been recorded by Conwell (1872-3, 401-03) as: In the north-eastern corner of the old chancel, level with the surrounding green sward, is a flat stone, measuring 6 feet long, 3 feet 3.5inches wide and 5 inches thick, and covering a vault beneath. The stone is from the quarry of Ardbraccan, about eight miles distant, and is apparently of about the date 1657. It has been broken into pieces, as will be seen from the accompanying engraving, all of which have been placed in juxtaposition, with the exception of that forming the left-hand lower corner of the slab, with which fragment is lost the commencement of the last three lines of the epitaph, which we have here ventured, on supposition, to restore in brackets. The upper portion of the stone is devoted to armorial bearings. On a shield – a chief ermine, three pheons, impaling two chevronels for Ashe; with two crests – a griffin’s head on a coronet, and a squirrel for Ashe (sic). On the lower part of the stone, in raised letters about 2 inches high, was cut the inscription, which we propose to restore as follows: Love and age have joynd in one / To lay th [ese] two under this stone / Sir Tho [mas] Ash his Lady Elizabeth / [Unite their ] ashes in this house of death / [and n]ow both having run their glasses / [They hop]e to be reviv’d from ashes. The author, whoever he may have been, of these doggerel lines, appears to have had no higher object than to make wordy capital out of the names of Elizabeth and Ashe. …. Sir Thomas Ashe was returned as Member of Parliament for the borough of Trim in 1613; but we have been unable to ascertain the date of his death. The family of Ashe held property in different parts of the county, as will be seen from an inspection of the Meath Inquisitions. One branch of the family, from the neighbourhood of Oldbridge, migrated immediately after the Battle of the Boyne to the North, and settling in the vicinity of Magherafelt, in the County of Londonderry, soon became intermarried with the principal families in that locality. (FitzGerald 1921-25, 222) Date of upload: 17 February, 2015