This is our second attempt to visit this grave slab in the churchyard adjacent to Beaulieu House, north of Drogheda.
Our first attempt was last year, but the gates of the churchyard and the house were shut and nobody was around. After waiting for about half an hour under a cold drizzle we decided to go away.
This time the gates to Beaulieu were open, but a man at the gates told us that the churchyard is closed to the public all year round.
So the best we could do was to take some photos from the churchyard rusty gate, just like we did last year.
This grave slab is a cadaver slab, like the ones in St. Peter's Church in Drogheda.
It depicts a male figure in decomposition. He misses his eyes but his ears are still in place. His ribs and other bones of the lower part of the body are exposed. It seems that the upper section of his chest still has some flesh attached to the bones. Here, some bugs and worms are banqueting on the rotting flesh.
Unlike the figures in Drogheda, in his abdomen there are still some organs visible, like two kidneys and the caudal end of his heart.
The figure is partially wrapped in a shroud which is opened frontally to show the decomposing body while the top is tied into a knotted rope.
We noticed that since last year the slab has been clamped to the church wall with two strong brackets to avoid that the slab is stolen.
To the north of this slab is another grave slab, also recently clamped to the wall, decorated with a Latin cross whose ends open in a fleur-de-lis motif.
Because the slabs are in a churchyard closed to the public, I wasn't able to take any measurement of them, and the coordinates for this page refer to the padlocked gate.
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