Eustace Effigy - (Monochrome) KD029-011011-

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This knightly effigy was originally located at Old Kilcullen where it was sketched by Austin Cooper in 1782. It also appears in an etching of 1792 propped against Old Kilcullen’s church. Lord Walter Fitzgerald (Vol. IX No.6. JCKAS) informs us that it was removed to Barretstown Castle for its preservation about 1858 by Sir Erasmus Dixon Borrows. In 1919, his son, Sir Kildare Dixon Borrows, transferred it to its present location in St John’s Church at Ballymore Eustace. According to Fitzgerald, the chain-mail was recut while the monument was in the care of Erasmus at Barretstown, also the legs and part of the sword were cast in cement to repair the damage that prompted its original relocation.

A possible representation of a stag, a heraldic device of the Eustace family, is carved on the helmet of the knight. In the 19th century local people identified the effigy with ‘Rowley Eustace’. Hunt (1974) dated the effigy to the 16th century, which would fit with Roland, 2nd Viscount of Baltinglass, who died in 1578.