St. Audoen's Church - Memorials

Memorials

In the main porch is stored an early Celtic gravestone known as the Lucky Stone which has been kept here or hereabouts since before 1309. It was said to have strange properties, and merchants and traders used to rub it for luck. It was first mentioned when Jon Le Decer, Mayor of Dublin, erected a marble cistern for water in Cornmarket in 1309 and placed this stone against it, so that all who drank of the waters may have luck. The stone was stolen on a number of occasions but always found its way back this neighbourhood. In 1826 it disappeared for twenty years, until found in front of the newly-erected Catholic Church in High Street.

In the porch of the western door lie the fifteenth-century monuments of Sir Roland Fitz-Eustace, Lord Portlester, who died in 1496, and his wife, Margaret. Fitz-Eustace was Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, then Lord Chancellor of Ireland and finally Lord High Treasurer of Ireland. His refusal to surrender this last post led to a break with the king and almost to civil war. He was buried at Cotlandstown, County Kildare. Peter Talbot the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, who died in prison in 1680, is said to have been secretly entombed nearby.

Among those buried in the church are Sir Thomas Molyneux, his son Capel, and brother William Molyneux, Edward Parry, the Bishop of Killaloe and his sons John Parry and Benjamin Parry, successively Bishops of Ossory, and Lady Frances Brudenell.

During excavations in the 19th century an Anglo-Norman font, dating to the 12th century, was found and is now on display in the church.

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