Are you an O'Meara from Toomevara? This might be a carving of your forefather.

Are you an O'Meara from Toomevara? Then this may be a carving of one of your forefathers from the 600 years ago. I stumbled across this recently.

"Leaning against the inside of the north wall of the ruined church standing on the south of the modern Church is a wedge shaped tombstone. It has a band of inscription down either side and the top half is occupied by an equal armed cross with an inscription below the arms. A band of conventional gothic foliage separates it from a figure of a man carved in deep false relief on the centre of the lower portion of the stone. He is dressed in a tight-sleeved gown arranged in a curious pyramidal fashion below, and with a hood over his shoulders, the gole hanging down his chest in a point. His hands are shown together in front of him below his waist. The top of his head is flat, with what are presumably intended for curls with a band below them. The Black Letter inscription round the sides of the slab is only partly legible. Commencing on the sinister side at the level of the commemorated man's shoulders, the inscription is....

HIC JACET IOHES OMAR?

Here lies John O'Mar?

The style is bold but crude and angular, and the suggested date is late fifteenth century."

Churches in the Deanery of Ormond part II / Dermot F. Gleeson (1952) North Munster Antiquarian Journal

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The Tipperary Antiquarian

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