search for the remains of Irish war hero Patrick Sarsfield
There are reasons to be optimistic that the remains of Irish war hero Patrick Sarsfield will be identified, writes Clodagh Finn
Patrick Sarsfield standing tall in Limerick.
SAT, 08 JUL, 2023 - 02:00
Clodagh Finn
Archaeologist Frank Coyne used his mobile-phone torch to guide his way down the rungs of a ladder into the cellar of a derelict house which now stands on the site where Patrick Sarsfield, famous defender of Limerick and first Earl of Lucan, is thought to be buried.
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He couldn’t believe what he found.
Someone had been there before him and had dug an exploratory trench about one metre long in the very spot which Honorary Consul of France in Limerick, Loïc Guyon, has identified as the final resting place of the daring cavalry commander.
Could they, too, have been looking for Patrick Sarsfield, the Irish war hero exiled to France with thousands of Jacobite soldiers in 1691 in what became known as the Flight of the Wild Geese?
Or were they simply interested in the ancient church of Saint Martin which today lies under the garden and cellar of a house on 21 Avenue des Fossés in Huy, a Walloon city in the Belgian province of Liège?
Nobody knows.
“The work,” says Guyon, “was done about 30 years ago, but it was professionally done.”
That is good news because, as the impromptu inspection confirmed, the cellar had not collapsed and, more significantly, the unexpected trench revealed the location of the ancient church floor.
The small trial trench, dug by archaeologists about 30 years ago, reveals the floor of the ancient church.
“This is hugely significant,” says a clearly relieved Mr Guyon. He and a team that included archaeologist Frank Coyne, the Mayor of Limerick Francis Foley and local council officials travelled from Limerick to Brussels in late May to begin a preliminary examination of Patrick Sarsfield’s probable burial site.
There were other moments of suspense awaiting the team as they were granted access to the area for the first time.
“I have to admit that I didn’t sleep very well the night before,” says Guyon.
“There was a sense of excitement, but also worry as I had only seen the site from Google Earth and I thought, perhaps I will find that it is very different.”
He worried, for instance, that the calculations he had made based on more than two years of research would not be right.
In a sense, it was a moment of reckoning for the Sarsfield Homecoming Project, a venture launched in November 2020 with the objective of locating, identifying, and repatriating the remains of Patrick Sarsfield.
Honorary Consul of France in Limerick Loïc Guyonat the site in Belgium which he has identified as the final resting place of daring cavalry commander, Patrick Sarsfield.
As associate professor and head of the Department of French Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Guyon is accustomed to research, so he knew where to look when he started searching for the grave of Patrick Sarsfield, a man revered in Limerick for his daring defence of that city against William of Orange in 1690.
The 17th-century soldier, swashbuckling though he was, is also credited with negotiating the Treaty of Limerick, which allowed his army of some 12,000 soldiers and their families to go safely into exile in France.
In his adopted country, Sarsfield, like many others, continued to fight William and his allies, but for the French king Louis XIV (the famous Sun King who built the palace of Versailles). He died in the service of France in Huy. He was wounded in the battle of Landen/Neerwinden on July 29, 1693 and died about two weeks later.
Up to now, there were vague references to that burial in the grounds of Saint Martin’s Church in Huy, but little more.
Research and records
Almost three years ago, Guyon began a systematic search of the registers of all the Catholic churches in Huy. Some of them had long since disappeared, although their records had survived.
With help from the Huy city council, the search homed in on the church of St Martin d’Outre-Meuse, a small and relatively quiet parish.
Stéphanie Ratz, who is in charge of heritage at Huy City Council and very supportive of the project, on the site with Dr Loïc Guyon and archaeologist Frank Coyne, director of Aegis Archaeology.
“My study of the church registers has revealed that a total of 24 people were buried in the building between 1689 and 1795. Out of those 24 people, however, only 10 were adult men,” he explains.
All of the 24 people buried inside Saint Martin’s church are named, bar two anonymous French officers. They are referred to as a “French officer” (un officier Français) and “another officer from the same regiment” (un autre officier du même régiment). The dates of their respective burials — August 8 and 12, 1693 respectively — suggest that one of them may well be Patrick Sarsfield.
The timeframe fits exactly with the date of Patrick Sarsfield’s burial. The fact that he wasn’t identified when buried is not too surprising given the utter chaos in Huy at that time, Guyon says.
The church register which refers to the officers. The second entry indicates that the officers are buried near the door of the 17th-century church, which explains the Irish team’s determination to locate it.
“He was of a very high rank in the French army (maréchal de camp), but he was nonetheless a foreigner who wouldn’t have been widely known amongst French troops and who didn’t have the aura of the other high-ranking French officers who were all from prominent aristocratic families.”
The evidence was mounting, but Guyon did further research and received several documents from Huy City Council which corroborated his belief that one of the two anonymous soldiers is Sarsfield: “I can’t be 100% sure, but I’m at least 75% confident his remains are there.”
The doorway
The next question is how archaeologists will gain access to them.
That was the question on Guyon’s mind when he first visited the site and got what he terms “a big surprise”.
He is being rather sanguine because it was more of a shock to find that he couldn’t see the frame of the 17th-century church door that had been so clearly visible from the street view on Google Earth and when he visited Huy, without being able to access the site at the time, in July 2021.
Now, he was standing on the other side of that wall and had a moment of panic when he examined the ancient wall of the church and failed to see the remains of the doorway.
“That door is essential because it determines the area where those two anonymous officers were buried.
The wall was covered with cement, and I thought that maybe it was behind the cement.”
He went back out on to the street to look at the door he had seen in 2021 and got a second “big surprise”.
“Then we realised that when we were standing in the garden, we were not where I imagined we were before, which was just above the floor of the church. We are three metres higher — that’s why we couldn’t see the frame of the door.” In other words, developers had put tonnes of soil on top of the ancient church’s floor when they were building houses and gardens more than a century ago.
“It was good news — and bad news too,” the consul says.
“It’s good news because it means the floor of the church has been protected and preserved since 105t of soil were put there at the beginning of the 20th century when those houses were built.
The view from the other side of the site’s wall, and the moment when the Irish team realised that part of the ancient church is under three metres of soil.
“But it’s bad news because it means that if we want to get to the floor of the church, we will have to remove 105t of soil.”
The area to excavate is much bigger than first anticipated, but that brings with it an increased chance of finding the remains of the two anonymous French soldiers.
There is more encouraging news. Nearly three-quarters of the €20,000 needed to begin the initial phase of the excavation has been raised through a Sarsfield Homecoming Project GoFundMe page, organised by Loïc Guyon on behalf of the registered charity Alliance Française, Limerick.
Obstacles ahead
Later in the summer, pending permission from Huy City Council, a Belgian company will fully map the site, providing a detailed 3D digital model. That will help the project’s archaeologist Frank Coyne decide if the tonnes of soil need to be removed, or if there is an easier way into the church through the cellar.
Once they get into the church, identifying the remains of Patrick Sarsfield will pose the next challenge, although there are already very significant clues. The imposing physique of a man who stood well over 6ft tall in life is unusual now, but it was rare in the 17th century.
His eventful and violent life will also be written on his body, so to speak. According to his biographer Piers Wauchope, he had a shoulder injury from his first duel, was stabbed through the abdomen in his second duel, and sustained a hand injury before the battle of Sedgemoor in 1685. At the battle proper, he was knocked unconscious after falling from his horse and, later, was wounded in several places.
Archaeologist Frank Coyne, director of Aegis Archaeology, thinks that the shoulder injury is most likely to have left a mark, although the stab wound through the abdomen might have left some trauma on the ribs. Strontium and oxygen isotope analysis from a bone or tooth might also reveal his geographical origin.
“Ultimately, of course,” says Guyon, “only DNA will enable us to know for sure. We’ll be comparing the DNA of the remains (in particular the Y-DNA) to that of Tim Sarsfield, a living descendant of the Cork branch of the Sarsfields of Ireland, who gave us a DNA sample in 2021.”
There are also plans to compare Tim Sarsfield’s DNA with that of other men with the surname Sarsfield who are living in Ireland.
If the remains of Patrick Sarsfield are identified and repatriated — and there are reasons to be optimistic — where will he be interred here?
That, says Guyon, is a question for the Irish Government. His main focus as honorary consul of France in Limerick is to highlight the connections between Ireland and France and, in particular, between Limerick and France.
Celebrating Sarsfield
With that in mind, he organises the annual Bastille Day Wild Geese Festival in Limerick to commemorate the city’s Wild Geese heritage and celebrate the friendship between Ireland and France. This year, it takes place on Saturday and Sunday, July 15 and 16, with a series of events showcasing food, art and sport.
One of the most-anticipated events, according to the programme, is the screening of The Flight of the Wild Geese, a film written, directed, shot on location and produced by teachers Fionnuala Bromell and Diarmuid Hickey from Corpus Christi Primary School, Moyross.
It tells the story of the 1690 and 1691 sieges of Limerick and stars fifth-class pupils in the roles of the Jacobites, the French, and the Williamites.
The early life of the real Patrick Sarsfield — his dismissal from the army, his fondness for duels and his part in the abduction of two wealthy widows — is often glossed over, although it’s generally acknowledged that he was a larger-than-life character whose adventures continue to capture the public imagination.
The Patrick Sarsfield statue in Limerick.
He certainly played a key role in the history of Limerick city and that is one of the reasons Loïc Guyon believes the Sarsfield Homecoming Project is so important:
“He contributed to saving Limerick from William of Orange’s siege in 1690, notably thanks to his daring raid at Ballyneety where he destroyed some of the weapons that were being brought to destroy the city.
“And then, in 1691, he was forced to surrender, but he negotiated a very important treaty which enabled the Jacobites to keep all their men and weapons.
“That is not always granted by the opposite side, and it could have ended up in bloodshed.
“Or very differently. He also negotiated very important rights for the Catholics of Ireland at the time, but that part of the treaty was completely betrayed by William of Orange later on.”
Now, another chapter in the Patrick Sarsfield story is beginning as efforts to find his remains reveal new clues every day. The Sarsfield Homecoming Project keeps an international audience informed on social media.
As Professor Niamh Stack of Mary Immaculate College once put it: “The past has never had so much breaking news.”
- Loïc Guyon will present the findings of the Sarsfield Homecoming Project at the Alliance Française in Dublin at 6pm on July 13 and at the University of Limerick on October 5.
- exa
