If Walls Could Talk: Statue for Sarsfield a long time in the making

JUST a few weeks before it was due to be unveiled, a journalist writing in the Limerick Chronicle asked ‘when will the Sarsfield Memorial be erected, if it ever will be?’

This succinct question captured the mood of Limerick citizens in 1881 as plans to commemorate Patrick Sarsfield, who defended Limerick during the Siege of 1691, reached a final impasse, and characterised a project that spanned four decades.

From as early as 1840, the citizens of Limerick desired to commemorate General Patrick Sarsfield by erecting a statue to his memory. An anonymous letter printed in the Limerick Reporter suggested that an equestrian statue of Sarsfield should be erected close to the Treaty Stone… ‘as an ornament to our city nothing could be finer, or in a spot more appropriate.’

The writer adding that ‘the statue of Sarsfield in his military dress, on the very spot, and pointing to the very stone on which the living man signed the treaty, would vividly remind us of bygone glories.’

In February 1843 the Corporation began its search for a sculptor to produce the work. The favourite contender was John Hogan (1800-1858) who is best remembered in Limerick for his bronze figurative sculpture of Daniel O'Connell, unveiled in 1857.

The project generated much commentary in the local and national press. In May 1843, a lengthy article in the Tuam Herald argued that ‘Sarsfield’s face and dress (armour) should be copied from his portrait, of which there is a fine engraving now in the possession of Mr Geraghty, bookseller of Angelsea Street, Dublin… and let us have no ancient dressing of the man in costume.

Finally, let the surrounding features, both artistical and economical, be on a massive and great scale, or let the work be left undone until better times: a middling or shabby monument would be worse than nothing.’ The writer succinctly concluded that ‘Limerick is nothing without Sarsfield’s dust.’

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The question of a fitting location for the statue began as early as 1844 when the Town Council announced that the statue would be erected on the centre of Thomond Bridge ‘making the ever-memorable Treaty Stone the pediment on which it is to rest.’

They also expressed their hope that funding would not be an issue for ‘a work which is to last for centuries to honour the memory of the illustrious General so imbued with national spirit.’

The Corporation invited those who ‘remember with pride the glorious exploits of Sarsfield at Aughrim and Limerick, and the delicate regard he had for Irish honour’, to contribute to the cost of the project estimated to be in the region of £5,000.

Despite much public interest in the project, it lingered on at a snail’s pace for several more years until the late 1850s when Thomas Baker Jones, secretary of the Sarsfield Testimonial Committee, revived the endeavour. The Limerick Chronicle reminding its readership that the name of Sarsfield is a household word within the walls of the city, and that it should not be suffered to lie longer neglected.’

Baker Jones opened a public subscription in April 1859 and donations came in from all over the world: Patrick Donohue and Friends, Boston, Lieut.-Col. French, London, Thomas Parker, Bloomsbury Square, Mr Harslum, Birmingham, and from clergy of all denominations. Within a few months, the sum of £600 consisting of shillings and sixpences, had been collected through ‘spontaneous offerings from hardship and toil.’

The noted Limerick artist and photographer, Henry O’Shea (1832-1907) drew the initial sketches for the statue which were subsequently refined by John Lawlor (1820-1901) whose skill as a sculptor was widely recognised, he having produced busts of other nationalist luminaries such as Daniel O’Connell and William Smith O’Brien.

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Once finished, a fractious debate erupted as to where to place the statue. Suggested sites included Mathew Bridge, the People’s Park or Bank Place. Finally, after a more than forty year wait, Lawlor’s accomplished bronze statue of Sarsfield was installed on the grounds of St. John’s Cathedral in 1881.

Sarsfield stands in an attitude of advance, atop a limestone pedestal, dressed in seventeenth-century costume with his sword drawn. The inscription reads: ‘To commemorate the indomitable energy and stainless honour of General Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, the heroic defender of Limerick during the sieges of 1690 and 1691, died from the effects of wounds received at the Battle of Landen 1693.’

The annual Limerick Bastille Day Wild Geese Festival, launched in 2019, also commemorates the memory of Patrick Sarsfield and the Wild Geese. The 2023 festival will take places between the 15th and 16th July and celebrates the longstanding friendship between Ireland and France, now our closest EU neighbour.

Dr Paul O’Brien lectures at Mary Immaculate College