Efforts being made to repatriate suspected remains of 17th-century Limerick war hero
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Researchers hoping to return the 17th-century remains of Patrick Sarsfield to Limerick are awaiting the results of forensic analysis on bones found in Belgium to confirm his identity.
Sarsfield, who led the defence of Limerick against William of Orange in 1690, was exiled to France with Jacobite soldiers in 1691.
He died in the Belgian city of Huy two years later after being injured while fighting for France.
He was believed to have been buried in a church in the city.
Archaeological works began at the church site last December and continued up to last month, led by Frank Coyne of Limerick-based Aegis Archaeology Ltd.
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It is now the site of a house, with almost half of the former interior of the church now below the cellar.
Honorary Consul Loic Guyon, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of French Studies at Mary Immaculate College, is spearheading the project.
“The remaining 60% of the church is located below what is nowadays the back garden of the house,” he said.
“Two hundred cubic meters of soil were put on top of the church floor on the garden’s side when the house was built so, in order to access that part of the church floor, we will have to have that soil removed.”
He said the project will be very costly as a result and a Gofundme campaign has been set up to help with funds.
In the meantime, Mr Guyon said the original cobbled floor of the building was removed, revealing that many graves were dug through the floor of the church at some point.
The focus of the search for Sarsfield’s remains is on an intact grave found in a section of the church last year.
“Last March, we dug out the grave we had identified in January and uncovered our first skeleton in situ,” Mr Guyon said.
“Only the upper part of the skeleton was found. The lower part was unfortunately destroyed by some people who dug out an archaeological trench in the cellar a few decades ago.
“However, what remains of the skeleton is very well preserved.”
It was not possible to establish if the remains were male or female, and a tooth taken from the skeleton has now been sent for DNA analysis, with results of testing expected within the coming months.
“If the skeleton is that of a man and if his DNA shows that he was from Ireland, we will most certainly have found the remains of Patrick Sarsfield and will conduct a range of further analyses of the bones and the DNA to confirm it,” Mr Guyon said.
“If not, we will have no other choice but to explore other graves until we find the right one which will, obviously, take a lot of time and effort.
“A total of 24 people were buried inside the church, of which 10 were men of about the same age as Sarsfield (late 30s/early 40s), but our recent findings have shown that other people, not appearing on the records, have very likely been buried there too.”