What is recorded here

Marian and Bedell stood at the edge of the graveyard, neither speaking of the reason they had come so far north. The tomb sat low against the wall, its stone worn smooth by rain and time, but the name still emerged when the light struck it at the right angle. Bedell touched the ridge with one finger, not in reverence but in recognition, as if marking a boundary between what could be remembered and what must be carried. Marian watched him change, the usual certainty leaving his face and something quieter taking its place. They walked back through the driving rain without looking behind, each holding a different version of the same event.

Mounted on top of a mausoleum inside the W wall of the graveyard associated with the old cathedral (CV025-070004-) of Kilmore towards its S end. When William Bedell, the Protestant Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh since 1629, died in February 1642 he was buried in accordance with his wishes in an obscure corner of the graveyard, but the funeral was attended by many of the Catholic rebels who had recently imprisoned him at the castle of Clough Oughter (CV020-060----) as he was greatly respected as the compiler of an Irish grammar and (in collaboration with three others) was the first translator of the Old Testament into the Irish language (Manning 2013, 2506). A vault had been provided by 1739 (King 1892, 10) and it may have been renewed shortly afterwards with the graveslab supported on the roof. The sandstone tablet (dims 2.04m x 1.03m; T 0.08m) has a bevel or chamfer on its upper edge and the carving is in false relief. Beneath a crest with a mitre are the memento mori of an open book, a skull and cross-bones and an hour-glass. The incised legend is now almost illegible but it has been recorded (Lyster 1896) as: GUILELMI BEDELI / QUONDEM KILMORENS / IS EPISCOPE…. / DEPOSITUM, which is also carved around the tympanum over the W doorway of the modern cathedral (Blacker 1904, 226). Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 16 March 2020

Chest tomb, 17th century. Associated with William Bedell, Protestant Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh, significant for its historical and ecclesiastical connections.

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