Boyle Monument
St Mary's Church, Youghal, Co. Cork

Cromwell is reported to have said of Richard Boyle 'If there had been an Earl of Cork in every province it would have been impossible for the Irish to have raised a rebellion.'
The Great or First Earl of Cork was an adventurer who arrived penniless in Ireland from Canterbury in 1588. He acquired vast tracts of land in Munster, giving Sir Walter Raleigh £1000 for the estate and town of Youghal, which was granted to Raleigh by Elizabeth I in 1586. He built towns such as Bandon, founded iron-smelting and linen-weaving industries and brought in English settlers.
Boyle erected this elaborate Renaissance monument to himself, his wives, his mother and nine of his 16 children. There's a similar but much larger Boyle monument in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

Illustration by Kieran Doyle O'Brien
Text by Marcus Patton
from the Appletree Press title ULSTER An Illustrated Yearbook 1992