Recording old grave inscriptions and the story of Gertrude Clements

TIMES PAST

In the Spring of 2009 as the days began lengthening, I spent my spare time during February and March of that year recording the headstone inscriptions from the graveyard at the parish church in Ashfield, on the outskirts of Cootehill. At times, the rain came down in buckets, as I stood under an umbrella with a notepad and pen. On another day, a large flat lying tombstone shaded under a yew tree caused me some difficulty and required a period of three days, by when the sun was positioned at different angles, so as to have the light directed from a beneficial position in order to decipher the full wording. The completed list of inscriptions were published in the Breifne Journal.

On one of those days, as I studied the headstones, I got speaking to Cynthia Burns who arrived on a Saturday to prepare the Church for the next day’s service and I asked if I might be permitted to note down inscriptions inside the building. As I was doing so, Cynthia produced a photograph of Gertrude Clements and pointed out that she had an interesting life story and how highly she was revered within the parish. Having obtained a copy of the photograph, it was my intention to one day, write something about Mrs Clements.

Gertrude’s family

Gertrude Caroline Lucy Markham was the youngest daughter of the Reverend David Frederick Markham, Rector of Great Horskesley, Essex, and Canon of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and his wife Catharine Markham (née Milner) of Nun Appleton Hall, Yorkshire. Gertrude had three brothers and two sisters. Her brother, Sir Clements Robert Markham, noted President of The Royal Geographical Society, attained fame for his work in regard to polar exploration and it was at his behest that Robert F. Scott was chosen to lead the National Antarctic Expedition of Great Britain. Scott of the Antarctic’s doomed expedition in 1912 was afterwards immortalised as an example of selfless heroism during the recruitment drive for soldiers in the First World War.

On December 3, 1868, Gertrude Markham and Henry Theophilus Clements of Ashfield Lodge were married at St Gabriel’s, an Anglo-Catholic church in Pimlico, London. The Clements family, into which she married, possessed numerous estates to their name in Ireland, and held property in the counties of Cavan, Limerick, Kildare and Leitrim. Her husband Henry Theophilus, Lieutenant Colonel of the Leitrim Rifles, had been high Sheriff of Cavan in 1849 and was the only son of Colonel H.J. Clements MP. They had four sons and a daughter named Gertrude Mary Catherine.

A window was erected by Gertrude and Henry in the parish church in 1876 to commemorate family members including their own two children, Alfred William Clements, aged five, and Robert Markham Clements, aged five weeks, who both died in 1876.

Writer

In August 1862, the year preceding her marriage to Henry, Gertrude spent a holiday in Torquay where she recorded her stay in the form of a sketchbook that included some earlier ‘loose sketches’ she did in 1859. The sketchbook is held as part of the Clements Papers at Trinity College Dublin and can be consulted by prior arrangement.

As was not unusual for the age in which she lived in, Gertrude seemed keen to document her travels to interesting places and, in 1880, she kept a ‘journal of a visit to the Maam Valley’ in Connemara, Co Galway. In 2015, her journal was the central focus of a paper by Brigid Clesham in the Journal of the Galway Archeological and Historical Society. Gertrude recorded the six days that she and her husband spent in the Maam Valley, staying at the Maam Inn, which was on their Galway estate.

It seems, that tenants, in the winter prior to the Clement’s visit, underwent severe hardships and found themselves unable to pay the rent. Word soon spread of the visit and tenants walked from far and wide to put their case to the Clements and it was noted that Gertrude showed great sympathy to the people, especially to the women. Being a mother herself, she could empathise with the terrible conditions they faced. In her paper, Brigid Clesham stated that, Gertrude’s journal demonstrated how she ‘was willing to chat’ with the women, and ‘listen to their problems, visit their homes’ and how ‘she purchased large quantities of their knitted socks and flannel’. Of interest also are the pen and ink drawings she did of the people and places she encountered. Maam will be familiar to many as one of the locations featured in the film, ‘The Quiet Man’.

Mothers’ Union

In 1876, Mary Summer of Hampshire, founded the Mothers’ Union, as an Anglican support group for ‘mothers of all kinds in bringing up their children’ and following a speech in 1885 many more parishes began similar groups. Today, the Mothers’ Union is an international Christian charity with branches established in 84 countries, including Ireland, for the purpose of: ‘helping to restore and strengthen relationships in families and communities, the movement gives a sense of belonging and acceptance to the stigmatised and vulnerable’.

In 1897, Gertrude was instrumental in establishing its first branch in the Church of Ireland Diocese of Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh, at Lough Rynn in Ardagh, and in the following year, she set up a Mothers’ Union at Ashfield. Gertrude had lived for many years at Kiladoon near Cellbridge, Co Kildare, before moving to live on a permanent basis at the family’s lavish country pile, Ashfield Lodge, Ashfield, in 1898. Thereafter, further groups were formed at Boyle, Ardacarne and Lissadell, all in Elphin. More information on the organisations history can be found at www.mothersunion.ie

While thumbing through my copy of the Breifne Journal, I recalled the day that I recorded the inscriptions in the Clements family plot. I had observed that Gertrude’s husband Henry had died in 1904 at the age of 83 years, and that she survived him by another 27 years, until 1931. As I glanced over the other names in the article, my eye was drawn to a lovely inscription that impressed upon me all of those listed who were now gone to their eternal reward. The quotation was for a family named Scanlen, and it simply read: ‘Say not goodnight but in some brighter clime bid me good morning’.

Now, that is beautiful, I thought to myself.