Conleth Mannning

Conleth Manning of the Office of Public Works describes the discovery of and background to an Irish inscription that gives insights into 16th-century society.
"Archaeology Ireland" Vol.8, No.3, Issue no. 29

When excavating at Clonmacnoise a few years ago I visited the fine tower house at Coole near Ferbane in the company of some members of the excavation team. We met the owner, Jim Egan, who kindly gave us access to the interior, which he keeps locked. In conversation he mentioned that a date could be seen high up within the dark vaulted interior when the sun shone at a certain angle through one of the windows. Returning sometime later we were able to see an inscription above a fireplace on the second floor with the aid of a torch but were unable to get close to it because the wooden floors had not survived. The date 1575 was clearly visible but certainty regarding the remainder of the inscription was impossible because of its inaccessibility. Subsequently, through the courtesy of Mr. Egan, who borrowed an extending ladder for me, I was able to get a rubbing of the inscription. It is in perfect condition, having always had the protection of the stone vault above it, and reads as follows: SEAGHA MACOCHL DO TINDSCAIN O SEO SUAS *1575*

With the contractions expanded, the first two words read SEAGHAN MACOCHLAIN and the entire inscription can be translated: "John Mac Coghlan began from here up *1575*".

This man was the Mac Coghlan of his day, Sir John Mac Coghlan, who died in the year 1590, an event recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters as follows:
"Mac Coghlan (John, son of Art, son of Cormac) died. There was not a man of his property, of the race of Cormac Cas, who had better furnished or more commodious courts, castles, and comfortable seats, than this John. His son, John Oge, was appointed in his place." The Mac Coghlans were the chiefs of Delbna Bethra or Delvin Mac Coghlan, a territory roughly corresponding with the present barony of Garrycastle, Co. Offaly. We know from other sources, including his will, that Sir John owned Coole Castle. A second inscribed stone plaque also referring to him, this time in Latin, was recorded by Lord Walter Fitzgerald at Lawrencetown, Co. Galway, in 1913. It must have been taken from one of the Mac Coghlan castles in Offaly and was translated in its incomplete state as follows: "This tower was built by the energy of Sir John Mac Coghlan, Knight, chief of his sept, at the proper cost of Sabia O'Dallaghan, on the condition that she should have it for her lifetime, and afterwards each of her sons according to their seniority, with her...". This plaque is most likely to have come from Coole Castle because, in his will, Sir John left Coole to his wife "as long as she should live unmarried" but if she married it was to be restored to her son John (Oge) Mac Coghlan, who in fact succeeded his father as the Mac Coghlan. This Latin inscription could well have been incorporated over the now missing doorway of the tower house or over the gateway of the bawn if it had such a feature. I would be grateful for information on the present whereabouts of this stone because the house where it was in 1913 (Belview, Lawrencetown) has since been demolished and I have not been able to trace it.

The background to this was that Sabia ODallaghan was Mac Coghlan's second wife, whom he married while his first wife (O'Molloy's daughter) was still alive and had apparently borne him sons. Mathew de Renzy, writing scurrilously about the Mac Coghlans in 1616, states that Sir John "growing weary of her (his first wife) put her away and took the daughter of Hugh 0 Dalaghan from her owne marryed husband, a gentleman of Connaght, and begott on her 9 or 10 bastards whereof this Sir John (John Oge) is one". One can understand Sabia's concerns in having the Latin inscription erected to act as a permanent record of what could have been something like a prenuptial agreement. The tower house has some fine decorated features, such as patterned dressing on many of the quoin and jamb stones and five decorated ventilators. Two of these are in the form of a triscele, one of which is surrounded by a circle of interlacing. Two of the ventilators serve garderobes (toilets); the remaining three serve other small mural chambers. One is tempted to see the woman's touch in these fine decorative embellishments and in the provision of two garderobes, the equivalent, in their day, of en suite bathrooms.

The date on the new inscription is not inconsistent with the building but the reason for carving it is a puzzle. It would appear to indicate that the building operations were interrupted and then resumed by Sir John in 1575. As there is no noticeable change in the style of the masonry above the level of the inscription the interruption would not appear to have been of any great duration. The Annals of the Four Masters record an event which may have been responsible for the cessation of work and this was the rebellion of the sons of the Earl of Clanrickard in 1572 who actually went through Delvin Mac Coghlan with their army. Matters remained unsettled in Ireland until the return of Sir Henry Sidney as Lord Deputy in 1575, the same man who had knighted Mac Coghlan in 1570. The likelihood of peaceful conditions may have prompted Sir John to resume work on the tower house and record the event. It may be significant that what was probably the more public inscription was in Latin while the inscription in Irish was in a more private location within the building. He had his gravestone carved in the following year (the 19th year of Queen Elizabeth's reign) and this survives in the old graveyard in Banagher. The inscription, which is in Latin, also records that in that year the tribute payable to O'Melaghlin (the overlord of Mac Coghlan) was suppressed, probably by Sidney who, according to the Four Masters, was abolishing the exactions of lords and overlords in Munster in the year 1576.

The carving of inscriptions on tower houses and other buildings in Ireland became popular towards the end of the 16th century and continued throughout much of the following one. Often the inscription was carved on the lintel or arch stones of a fire-place and in many cases it consists only of the initials of the owner and his wife along with the date. This may only date the fireplace and not the entire building, as at Barryscourt in Co. Cork. The inscription at Coole is different from many of these in that it is not an integral part of the fireplace and in fact dates the resumption of building work. Mostly the inscriptions are in Latin. I have come across only one other inscription in Irish on a building of this general period and that is the plaque from the Mac Egan law school at Park, Co. Galway, dated 1627.