186 



topher Plunket, whose name occurs in this inscription, was 

 the son of Alexander Plunket, who was made Lord Chan- 

 cellor of Ireland 11th June, 1492, and died in the year 1500. 



The inscription is one of some value, not only as one of 

 the few existing records of the objects had in view by persons 

 who erected churchyard and way-side crosses in Ireland, but 

 also as recording the holding of a provincial council by five 

 bishops, of which, possibly, no other memorial has survived. 

 The tombstone of the same Christopher Plunket, which is in 

 another part of this church, states his death to have occurred 

 on the fifth day of March, in the year 1519, the same year in 

 which the above-mentioned tablet records the erection of the 

 cross. His wife appears, by the blanks left in the following 

 inscription for the date of her decease, to have survived him. 



The inscription on this tombstone is as follows : 



" Hie jacet Cristoforus Plunket deRathmore, Miles, cum 

 Domina Katerina Preston uxore sua. Obiit quinto die men- 

 sis Martii Anno Domini M= CCCCC° XIX. Et dicta Ka- 

 terina obiit ... die mensis Anno Domini 



Quorum animabus propicietur Deus, Amen." 



The base of the cross yet remains in the churchyard, on 

 the north side of the church. Its shaft and cruciform head 

 are probably buried somewhere in the ruins. A few words, 

 however, of a mutilated inscription on the base, in which the 

 name and date are yet discernible, sufficiently identify it with 

 the cross referred to in the tablet above described. Rathmore 

 was originally the estate of the Cruises, and was brought into 

 the Plunket family by the marriage of Thomas Plunket with 

 Maria Cruise. On the still remaining base ofa cross with eccle- 

 siastical figures, on the demesne of Killeen, is this inscription : 

 " Thomas Plunket — Maria Cruys." 



And the obit of Sir Thomas Plunket is thus given in the 

 Killeen mortiloge, Cusake MSS. : 



" Obitus Thome Plunket militisdnide Rathmore, Capitus 

 lustic' Do. Regis Hibn. qui obiit xiii. die Junii, Anno dii 

 m.cccc.lxx° i°." 



