Gardai in Athenry, Co Galway, are investigating the vandalism of an 18th-century tomb in the ruins of the local Dominican priory. Vandals managed to breach the tomb and expose the coffin of the last person buried there.
Dúchas, the Heritage Service, is repairing the tomb following the attack.
Locals in the heritage town were shocked by the vandalism. They say the vandals would have needed to scale a wall to gain access to the tomb, in the chancellery of the locked ruins of the priory. Considerable force was used to break in through one side of the tomb. Some have suggested the attack took place over two nights and that a sledge-hammer or crow-bar may have been used.
The motive for the attack is unknown, but there is a feeling locally that the perpetrators could have believed valuables were buried inside.
The tomb is of particular local importance as it is the final resting place of the last of the de Bermingham family, Lady Mathilda Bermingham, who died in 1788.
The tomb itself has been described by a London expert as a "unique" example of Coade stone monuments, and is one of just a handful of structures in the west of Ireland to feature the stone-like fired clay found on London's Westminster Bridge and Buckingham Palace.
Popular in its heyday in the late 18th century, the inventor of the manufacturing process, Mrs Ellen Coade, took her secret to the grave, and nobody has ever been able to replicate it in the years since her death in 1840.
Dúchas said it was alerted to the incident and quickly dispatched a team to carry out repair work on the tomb. The State service said vandalism was not a huge problem in relation to the national monuments for which it was responsible.
This week, however, locals were still in shock at the ferocity of the attack which was reported to Athenry gardaí on October 8th. One local woman said: "When you think that the tomb has stood there for so long without any harm coming to it, despite everything that has happened since the end of the 18th century, it's shocking that somebody would be this vengeful and purposeful about trying to desecrate it."
Gardaí said yesterday their investigation was on-going.