What is recorded here

Kilfenora cathedral holds a clumsy bishop carved in the first half of the 14th century. His stiff chasuble and haphazard limbs still occupy the porch, displaced from his original chancel home. The angular folds and uncertain hands suggest a carver learning rather than mastering death itself.

Lying recumbent close to the W wall of the porch of Kilfenora Church of Ireland church (CL016-015004-) which occupies the nave of Kilfenora cathedral (CL016-015002-). A rectangular slab with the effigy of a bishop, not in its original location. The figure is described by Hunt (1974, vol. 1, 128) as ‘carved in low relief with a cusped niche, supported by slim columns bearing angels with outspread wings containing the figure of a bishop. On the head is a mitre. The right hand is raised in blessing; on the middle finger of the right hand is a ring. The left hand holds a crozier with knop and out-turned volute. The apparel of the amice is high and stiff. The chasuble is treated as a flat, pointed panel of rigid angular folds. The head and hands show a degree of skilful though not assured treatment, but the assembly of the various details, as head, limbs and hands round the rectangle of the body, has a haphazard appearance and is clumsy and awkward.’ Hunt dates the carving to probably the first half of the 14th century. (Hunt 1974, vol. 2, pl. 88) The following image is uploaded: CL016-015012-_01.jpg Effigy in its former location set upright in the chancel of Kilfenora cathedral. CL016-015012-_02.jpg Effigy in its current location in the porch of the cathedral. Compiled by: Mary Tunney Date of upload: 5 September 2018

Effigial tomb, medieval period. The tomb is significant as a rare surviving example of medieval funerary art in the region, depicting a bishop and associated with the historic Kilfenora Cathedral.

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