The 2009 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy includes a very important paper by Paul Cockerham on the seventeenth century burial monuments that are found in Kilkenny.
Abstract:
The seventeenth-century funeral monuments of Co. Kilkenny are documented in this
study and changes in their design and meaning related both to local socio-economic
factors and wider historical events. The traditional ‘box-tombs’ of the start of the century,
displaying Christo-centric iconography and manufactured by Walter Kerin, were
slowly abandoned in favour of more visual monumental forms. Heraldic wall plaques
were commissioned, together with much larger mural structures made by Patrick Kerin,
which were based on a classical architectural paradigm of inscriptions and heraldry
being equally crucial in communicating to the observer. This religious ambivalence
assisted their survival in Protestant parish churches as visible markers perpetuating the
burial rites of Catholic families in their traditional locations. Monumental enthusiasm
during the Kilkenny Confederacy (1642–9) was terminated abruptly by the Cromwellian
invasion; following which, a lack of both suitable patrons and skilled sculptors
hindered the resumption of the custom until well into the eighteenth century.
The tomb of Richard Rothe (1637) in the monuments room St. Mary’s church, Kilkenny. This is one of the few tombs of this period that has survived the savage mutilations by Kilkenny’s citizens over the past ten years.
The paper may be downloaded here [5.7 MB, Pdf].