Gravestone Rubbing
Gravestone rubbing at Kilkea Castle
Kilkea Castle was first built in 1180 on the orders of Hugh de Lacy for Walter de Riddlesford. In 1426, the fifth Earl of Kildare made so many changes and additions to the original building that it was basically a completely new castle.
There is an ancient and ruined church and cemetery in the grounds of the castle, and that is where we went to learn about rubbing as a method of printing.
We drew walking maps for people who were never in Kilkea before. While walking to the cemetery from our school, we had to remember things to add to our walking maps like: the avenue of trees, the pet cemetery, the castle, the old schoolhouse, and the mermaid.
We walked around the graveyard looking for symbols, we stopped by the carving of the monkey on the wall and the carved mermaid, which were carved 600 years ago. We chatted about the monkey saving the baby. We also looked at some of the symbols on the headstones and talked about their meaning in old times.
Working in groups of three, first we brushed down the headstones with a soft brush. Next we attached the paper to the headstone and sprayed it with water. Then we rubbed it very lightly with the gravestone rubbing paste. We used wet mulberry paper and paste to make sure we didn't damage the stone. The paste was made from different pigments and non-yellowing oils.
Finally, the rubbings were sprayed with a fix to make sure they don't smudge.
The class split into two groups for this part of the residency. Each group spent an entire session on the castle grounds and an entire session researching the history of the castle and its church & cemetery as well as Ernest Shackleton and Antarctica.
School staff helped us when we were doing the grave rubbings, and guided the classroom-based research work. We did this in our journals, as well as taking some time to write about our experiences and make sketches and complete our maps. These types of activities were all done by Shackleton and his crews on their Antarctic expeditions!
