At Carrickfergus, in Antrim, the church of St Nicholas — an Anglo-Norman building deeply remodelled at the time of the Plantation — shelters the finest Jacobean funerary monument in Ireland. It is linked to the central figure of the colonisation of Ulster: Sir Arthur Chichester.
Chichester's church
An originally Anglo-Norman church, St Nicholas was deeply rebuilt in 1614 at the instigation of Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland and great organiser of the Plantation of Ulster. A tablet in the church proclaims it: 'This Worke Began A.D. 1614 … Vivat Rex Jacobus' ('This work began A.D. 1614 … Long live King James'). Chichester, the man who redistributed the lands of Ulster to the English and Scottish colonists, thus marked with his imprint the church of Carrickfergus, his town of residence — a gesture of piety and assertion of colonial power.
A Jacobean funerary masterpiece
The treasure of St Nicholas is the Chichester monument (1625), the finest Jacobean tomb in Ireland. Made of alabaster and marble, doubtless by Italian craftsmen, it depicts Sir Arthur Chichester and his wife Lady Lettice, as well as — a poignant detail — the small coffin of their dead baby. The monument also includes a statuette of Sir John Chichester, Arthur's brother, the governor beheaded by the MacDonnells at Carrickfergus in 1597. This tomb thus unites, in a single memorial, the grandeur, the family tragedy and the violence of the conquest of Ulster. To see: the Chichester monument (alabaster and marble, 1625), the tablet 'This Worke Began A.D. 1614 … Vivat Rex Jacobus', the Anglo-Norman pillars, the Donegall/Chichester wing.
Did you know?
The 1625 monument of St Nicholas tells a whole family in stone: Sir Arthur Chichester and his wife kneeling, the tiny coffin of their child dead in infancy, and the statuette of Sir John, the brother beheaded in 1597. It is one of the few funerary monuments to depict thus side by side the living, a dead baby and a murdered relative — a condensed image, in a work of art, of the grief, the piety and the violence that ran through the families of the colonial conquest of Ulster.
Notes
St Nicholas' Church lies at Carrickfergus, County Antrim; a working church, open to visits. Hours to check.
Quiz
- Who had St Nicholas rebuilt in 1614?
- Sir Arthur Chichester (organiser of the Plantation)
- Sorley Boy MacDonnell
- The pope
- What does the church shelter?
- The finest Jacobean funerary monument in Ireland (1625)
- An Armada treasure
- A Gothic spire
- Who is depicted on the monument, beheaded in 1597?
- Sir John Chichester (Arthur's brother)
- Guy Fawkes
- Mary Stuart