The Portlester Effigy

This annotated model has been uploaded without a “texture” (i.e. photographic image data projected onto a 3D model) in order to remove colour information and other details, such as lichen, that can distract the eye and obscure the true form of the surface topography.

Tomb Effigy – National Monument KD028-040002- located at New Abbey, Kilcullen, County Kildare, Ireland

The New Abbey effigy depicts Roland FitzEustace (c.1430–1496), Baron Portlester, and one of his three his wives. Although it is stated on an adjacent plaque – and also in much of the literature discussing the effigy – that the wife depicted is Marguerite d’Artois, it is more likely to be one of his later wives. Marguerite is commemorated, in terms that suggest she was already dead, on another effigy dated to the mid-fifteenth century that is located at St Audoen’s Church in Dublin, where Roland paid for the construction of a chantry chapel.

The effigy at New Abbey was moved from its longstanding position in 2001 and mounted close-by in an upright position under a purpose built pointed arch attached to the wall of the modern cemetery. Still in use until recent years, this cemetery is located on the site of New Abbey, a Franciscan house established by Roland in 1486. No traces of this friary remain except for some architectural fragments, which are to be found mostly along the south wall but also scattered throughout the cemetery. These fragments include window tracery (which should be brought together and secured in a wall – perhaps enough exists to recreate a window?), a piscina (half buried and leaning against a headstone just inside the pedestrian gate), and some fonts encased in the lower walls of a post-Catholic Emancipation church that functioned as the parish church for Kilcullen before the consecration of the J.J. Mc Carthy designed church of the Sacred Heart and St Brigid located closer to the village.

Roland FitzEustace was the Father-in-law and ally of Gerald FitzGerald (Garrett More), the 8th Earl of Kildare. FitzGerald was arguably the most powerful figure of the late 15th Century ‘English Pale’ – the much reduced area under English law that centred on the North Leinster region following the shrinking of the Anglo-Norman colony in the aftermath of the Black Death pandemic and the resurgence of the Irish. Roland FitzEustace was a powerful figure in his own right within the Pale establishment, however, and held a number of the highest ranking governmental positions during his life. These positions made him a very wealthy and powerful individual, enablling him to finance the Franciscan establishment on his lands beside the Liffey at Kilcullen Bridge. This wealth also allowed him to commission such monuments as the elaborate box tomb, the partial damaged remnant of which is the focus of this model.

FitzEustace, as mentioned above, also commissioned an effigial tomb that was installed in a chapel he financed at St Audoen’s Church in Dublin. This further exemplifies his wealth and displays a typical medieval concern for piety in the pursuit of a place in the afterlife – helped along by the commissioning of chantries – and friaries – where prayers would be forever (in theory) offered for the donor’s soul. The effigy located at Audoen’s is almost identical to that at New Abbey, but is perfectly preserved and still has its text inscription intact; although its original side panels are also no longer extant. The effigial sculpture at Audoen’s has retained the facial features, which are stylised types rather than life-like portraits, and this undoubtedly would have been the case with the New Abbey effigy also.

Features of the Portlester Effigy at New Abbey

Sir Roland FitzEustace, Baron Portlester, died on the 19th of December, 1496, and the iconography on the stone is typical of that era’s funerary monuments of the aristocracy. FitzEustace is depicted wearing a full suit of armour with a bascinet on his head; this is a conical type of helmet that extends over the ears with a face visor, which is depicted in an upright position. His feet are resting on a dog, which is another typical motif in late Medieval funerary effigies; an example of which can be seen in another FitzEustace effigy now located in St John’s Church in Ballymore Eustace. In this New Abbey example, the dog is presently missing its head. Other areas of damage to the effigy are the missing lower portion of Roland’s sword and the missing edges extending from Roland’s left elbow to the corner over his head. The facial features are completely eroded and the textual inscription in gothic characters that once ran around the perimeter of the top surface are long since illegible.

Margaret, or more likely his last wide, is depicted wearing a high-horned bonnet that divides at the crown. From beneath this fall two ribbons on her right side and a long ringlet of hair beneath running along her shoulder. Two ringlets of hair also extend from under the bonnet on her left side.

The dress is depicted as being of pleated material and extends from her neck to her feet. It is divided at the waist by a belt with raised bosses in the form of roses.

Both Roland and his wife are depicted with their arms bent from the elbow and their hands resting on their chest, palms down, in a gesture of prayer. The couple’s heads rest on cushions with corner tassels. Each pillow is supported by an angel, both of which are placed between the couple one facing the female figure and the other facing the male.

Box Tomb

The effigy was originally recumbent and part of a box tomb (see image below) that was located in the choir of the chapel at New Abbey – its location being noted in a description and plan by Austin Cooper when he visited the site on August 15th, 1782. He wrote of New Abbey:

About a mile from Old Kilcullen, near the river Liffey, are the ruins of New Abbey, so called to make a distinction fom the most ancient place [Old Kilcullen]. Here was a beautiful and extensive abbey which has been very much destroyed – at present the choir, refectory, and confessional chapel only remain entire. In the centre formerly stood a beautiful steeple, which fell down about eighteen years ago. In the choir is the raised tomb of the founder – on it the figure of a man, a sword by his side and a dog at his feet. On his right side his wife with a high head dress and flowing lappets, round it an inscription, now so defaced, as to have only a letter here and there intelligible. The side stones were ornamented, but now sunk in the ruins.

Austin Cooper – 15th August 1782

As is evident from Cooper’s description and a sketch that he made of New Abbey, the structure was already a roofless ruin in the 18th century; and it was likely to have been so since the 17th century. It is therefore not surprising that, despite being carved in high relief, many of the finer details, such as facial features, are completely gone due to being subjected to the chapel’s structural collapse and the subsequent centuries of exposure to the elements.