1752 – St. Peter’s Church of Ireland, Drogheda, Co. Louth

Built on the site of an earlier church, St Peters is a wonderful example of a Georgian church. It has been described as “probably the finest provincial Georgian church in Ireland”. The present interior of the Church is largely the result of a major reordering in the late 19th century. The original box pews were removed and the present rows of pews installed in their place. The sanctuary area was reordered in 1907 and the present pulpit and prayer desk installed circa 1909. The organ, for which the Corporation of Drogheda gave £300 in 1771, was built for the Church by John Snetzler in London.

Within the churchyard of St. Peter’s can be found many interesting and varied funerary monuments. Of these, perhaps the most interesting and visited is a “cadaver stone” taken from the tomb of Sir Edmond Goldyng and his wife Elizabeth Fleming. It is built into the churchyard wall, east of the present building and shows two cadavers enclosed in shrouds which have been partially opened to show the remains of the occupants of the tomb. Helen M. Roe in the Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquities, 1969 estimates that a date for the tomb would seem to fall within the first quarter of the 16th century.