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Authors: Tim Robinson
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23, John died in “Ianvary” 1754 aged 25, and Peter died in March 1754 aged 17. And on the back:
PRAY • FOR • PATR ICK • FITZ • PATRICK • & • HIS • WIFE • MARGRETT FITZ • PATRICK WHO • ERRECTED • THIS • MONNV MENT • IN • THE • YEARE • OF • OUR • LOR D • 1754 • & • THEIR • POSTERETY
Surely it must have been the loss of three young men over the winter of 1753–54 that prompted Patrick and Margrett to build this memorial. (A local tradition, that is perhaps no more than an old speculation, is that the three died of typhus.) And perhaps the opportunity was taken of commemorating the loss of an earlier generation at the same time, for the two pillars are so nearly identical , apart from the lettering of the plaques, as to suggest that they were built as a pair.
Having puzzled out this much, one turns to the smaller monument , which has just one plaque. Above the inscription is an incised motif like a downward-pointing arrow, which I take to represent the three nails of the Crucifixion with their points together below. The inscription itself is illegibly worn, and only by taking a rubbing does one find, disappointingly, that it duplicates the inscription to “ SARAMSWEINY ” on the taller monument beside it. (Uncrabbed, her name must have been Sara Mac-Sweeney .)
But how can one pray for a soul of whom one knows so little? Only a believer in a vast essentialist bureaucracy of the hereafter can send up a prayer labelled with a name and a date of decease, and be confident that it will be credited to the right account. The secular equivalent is more difficult. These people, Sara, John, Patrick and the rest, have gone beyond hearing; they will not answer to our historical echo-soundings, and the pious best we can do—for ourselves, not for them—is to inform ourselves enough to understand something of them and their times, and so, by reflection , of ours.
Of course all biography is potentially interminable, and our brief lives demand brief pieties. Fortunately, without going beyond the first few chambers of the archival labyrinth, we can know something of these Fitzpatricks, thanks to the nineteenth-century Galway historian James Hardiman. Among the generous stuffing of miscellaneous information in the appendices to his 1846 edition of Roderic O’Flaherty’s West or H-Iar Connaught. is this:
In the early part of the last century the family of “Fitzpatrick, of Aran,” was one of the most opulent families of this part of Ireland; but the name is now extinct, or sunk in poverty. It may, however, be curious to trace it a little, in consequence of its having been, with some probability, supposed to be a branch of the ancient and noble stock of Upper Ossory. It appears … that in A.D . 1642, Richard Fitzpatrick was seneschal of Ibrickan, in the County of Clare, and receiver there for the Earl of Thomond; also, that Teige (Thady) Fitz-Patrick resided there at the time. Ibrickan lies next to Aran. In A.D. 1686, John Fitzpatrick, gent., resided at Loughmore … in the south island. His son Richard, in the same year, married Joan French, of Spiddle … Richard died A.D. 1701, leaving four sons, Scander, Denis, Peter, Patrick. John, the father, died A.D . 1709, at the house of his son-in-law, George Morris, in the west suburb of Galway … leaving chattels to the amount of £6000, and £1500 in silver and gold, which he kept in a cellar of his in that town. John had a second son, Edmond, who married Annable Martin, of Dangan, and died about A.D . 1717, leaving a son, Rickard. Annable hisrelict intermarried with Michael O’Flaherty, the son of our author [ i.e. Roderic O’Flaherty]. Rickard represented Galway in the Irish Parliament for several years, and died A.D . 1761, without issue. Edmond Fitzpatrick, his nephew, sheriff of Galway, A.D . 1769 and 1797, left an only son James, who died without issue. Whether any of the name now exist the Editor has not ascertained.
In the reign
PRAY • FOR • PATR ICK • FITZ • PATRICK • & • HIS • WIFE • MARGRETT FITZ • PATRICK WHO • ERRECTED • THIS • MONNV MENT • IN • THE • YEARE • OF • OUR • LOR D • 1754 • & • THEIR • POSTERETY
Surely it must have been the loss of three young men over the winter of 1753–54 that prompted Patrick and Margrett to build this memorial. (A local tradition, that is perhaps no more than an old speculation, is that the three died of typhus.) And perhaps the opportunity was taken of commemorating the loss of an earlier generation at the same time, for the two pillars are so nearly identical , apart from the lettering of the plaques, as to suggest that they were built as a pair.
Having puzzled out this much, one turns to the smaller monument , which has just one plaque. Above the inscription is an incised motif like a downward-pointing arrow, which I take to represent the three nails of the Crucifixion with their points together below. The inscription itself is illegibly worn, and only by taking a rubbing does one find, disappointingly, that it duplicates the inscription to “ SARAMSWEINY ” on the taller monument beside it. (Uncrabbed, her name must have been Sara Mac-Sweeney .)
But how can one pray for a soul of whom one knows so little? Only a believer in a vast essentialist bureaucracy of the hereafter can send up a prayer labelled with a name and a date of decease, and be confident that it will be credited to the right account. The secular equivalent is more difficult. These people, Sara, John, Patrick and the rest, have gone beyond hearing; they will not answer to our historical echo-soundings, and the pious best we can do—for ourselves, not for them—is to inform ourselves enough to understand something of them and their times, and so, by reflection , of ours.
Of course all biography is potentially interminable, and our brief lives demand brief pieties. Fortunately, without going beyond the first few chambers of the archival labyrinth, we can know something of these Fitzpatricks, thanks to the nineteenth-century Galway historian James Hardiman. Among the generous stuffing of miscellaneous information in the appendices to his 1846 edition of Roderic O’Flaherty’s West or H-Iar Connaught. is this:
In the early part of the last century the family of “Fitzpatrick, of Aran,” was one of the most opulent families of this part of Ireland; but the name is now extinct, or sunk in poverty. It may, however, be curious to trace it a little, in consequence of its having been, with some probability, supposed to be a branch of the ancient and noble stock of Upper Ossory. It appears … that in A.D . 1642, Richard Fitzpatrick was seneschal of Ibrickan, in the County of Clare, and receiver there for the Earl of Thomond; also, that Teige (Thady) Fitz-Patrick resided there at the time. Ibrickan lies next to Aran. In A.D. 1686, John Fitzpatrick, gent., resided at Loughmore … in the south island. His son Richard, in the same year, married Joan French, of Spiddle … Richard died A.D. 1701, leaving four sons, Scander, Denis, Peter, Patrick. John, the father, died A.D . 1709, at the house of his son-in-law, George Morris, in the west suburb of Galway … leaving chattels to the amount of £6000, and £1500 in silver and gold, which he kept in a cellar of his in that town. John had a second son, Edmond, who married Annable Martin, of Dangan, and died about A.D . 1717, leaving a son, Rickard. Annable hisrelict intermarried with Michael O’Flaherty, the son of our author [ i.e. Roderic O’Flaherty]. Rickard represented Galway in the Irish Parliament for several years, and died A.D . 1761, without issue. Edmond Fitzpatrick, his nephew, sheriff of Galway, A.D . 1769 and 1797, left an only son James, who died without issue. Whether any of the name now exist the Editor has not ascertained.
In the reign
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