In a quiet medieval graveyard associated with the ruins of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) in Lucan stands a substantial rectangular, flat-roofed stone vault surmounted by decorative iron railings that discourage access to the roof slab. Its presence in a graveyard and its form makes clear that it is a burial vault, once accessed by four steps leading down into a chamber below ground. What is not immediately apparent, however, is who lies within. The structure itself, clearly of some expense, offers no clue.
While the full range of its occupants is not immediately clear, a weathered headstone, positioned at the far side of the structure, opposite the entrance and facing inward towards the vault, provides an important clue:
“IN MEMORY OF
THOMAS PUREFOY ESQR MD
OF LUCAN
WHO DIED DECR 23D 1868 IN THE 61ST
YEAR OF HIS AGE
ALSO OF ANGEL WRAY PUREFOY HIS
DAUGHTER WHO DIED JUNE 18TH 1858
AGED 15 YEARS”
The inward-facing orientation of the headstone might appear unusual. However, headstones commonly face the burial they mark. As the vault is the place of burial, then the alignment is entirely conventional.
Image of the Purefoy vault, displaying the steps leading into the blocked entrance. The iron railing on top, and the head stone facing the vault on the opposite end.
Thomas Purefoy was a physician of some standing, who practiced in Lucan, and clearly a man of some means, able to provide a family vault. The death of his daughter Angel at the age of fifteen in 1858 might well have prompted its construction.
Neither Thomas Purefoy nor his daughter appear in the Lucan Church of Ireland burial register commencing in 1876, as both deaths predate it. It is possible they were recorded in an earlier parish register, but that record was lost in the destruction of the Public Record Office in 1922. The later register, however, provides crucial evidence that other members of the Purefoy family, namely his wife, Alice Maria (née Dancer), a son, Richard, and two daughters, Alicia Maria and Anna Catherine, were buried in the parish between 1889 and 1920.
Sir Richard Dancer Purefoy was a prominent Dublin physician, serving as Master of the Rotunda Hospital (1896–1903) and later as President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (1912–14). The 1911 census shows him living with his sister and three servants at Merrion Square, reflecting a comfortable social position. Despite his prominence, the exact place of Sir Richard Purefoy’s burial is not recorded and is a mystery.
Presidential portrait of Sir Richard Dancer Purefoy. Reproduced by permission and courtesy of RCSI University of Medicine and Health Science
Neither Sir Richard, his mother Alice, nor sisters Alicia and Anna, are commemorated by a surviving headstone elsewhere in the BVM graveyard or at any other burial location in Lucan. This absence is striking, as families of this standing would normally be marked by prominent headstones. As they appear in the Lucan parish burial register, and with no other known place of burial, it is highly likely that they are interred in the family vault located in the BVM graveyard. The vault itself is imposing, measuring just over three metres in length and roughly two and a half metres in width. Its full internal height is unknown, but the visible structure above and below ground indicate a minimum internal height of approximately one and a half metres. These dimensions suggest a vault that could accommodate at least six coffins, depending on how they were arranged.
Taken together, the vault, the burial register, and the surviving headstone point strongly to the conclusion that several members of the Purefoy family, including Sir Richard, were buried here. While certainty is not possible, the evidence strongly suggests that this unmarked vault is the final resting place of at least two generations of the Purefoy family, hidden in plain sight within the BVM graveyard.
Suggested Further Reading:
Callaghan, S. & Society for Old Lucan. Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Lucan, Co. Dublin. Lucan: Society for Old Lucan, 2022.
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