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Major development in Patrick Sarsfield homecoming project as human remains found

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Major development in Patrick Sarsfield homecoming project. Part of the Sarsfield Homecoming Project’s team with (from left to right), Dr Gerard Riordan (Archaeologist, Aegis Archaeology Ltd), Frank Coyne (Lead Archaeologist and Director of Aegis Archaeology Ltd), Dr Caroline Laforest (Forensic Anthropolgist, Royal Institute of Natural Sciences) and Dr Loïc Guyon (Project’s Director).

Major Development in efforts to bring the remains of national hero Patrick Sarsfield back to Ireland with homecoming project

Major Development in efforts to bring the remains of national hero Patrick Sarsfield back to Ireland with homecoming project
Noah Gaens (KU Leuven) taking a tooth from the second skeleton for DNA extraction 

The Sarsfield Homecoming Project was launched in November 2020 by Dr Loïc Guyon, Honorary Consul of France and Head of the Department of French Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick with the aim of locating and repatriating the remains of national hero Patrick Sarsfield to Ireland.

During the group’s latest trip to Huy, from 19 to 24 January last, the team made an exciting discovery while exploring an area of the site located in what is nowadays the cellar of the townhouse.

Commenting on the discovery, Project Director Dr Loïc Guyon said, “For the first time since we began the archaeological excavations last year, I can say that there is a chance that we might have found the remains of Patrick Sarsfield.”


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The team indeed discovered the first skeleton they were able to identify as that of a man. Although that man could not be Sarsfield because of his estimated age (over 40 years old, while Sarsfield was in his thirties when he died) and because of his size (only 1.5 meters, while Sarsfield is known to have been a tall man), the team discovered another grave just next to the first one containing the upper half of a skeleton which appears to be that of a strongly built man (the lower half of the skeleton was unfortunately destroyed during the building of the townhouse in the 20th century).

According to Lead Archaeologist Frank Coyne, “DNA will give us a 100% confirmation of the sex of the second individual but the features of the skull as well as the size of the deceased (about 1.76 meters, estimated by Dr Laforest based on the length of an arm bone) both suggest that we are in the presence of a man.”

Another piece of evidence of how tall that individual was was uncovered by archaeologist Dr Gerard Riordan, who works for Aegis Archaeology Ltd, when he managed to find the trace left in the soil by the decomposed coffin and precisely measure its length at 180cm.

“While we have to remain cautious until we get the results of the radiocarbon dating and of the DNA test carried out by Noah Gaens from the university of Leuven, it is fair to say that what we found ticks all the boxes of what we are looking for and that the second skeleton could well be that of Sarsfield”, said Dr Guyon. Test results will be known in about three months.

If it is confirmed that the remains found in Huy are indeed those of Patrick Sarsfield, further tests and analyses will be carried out and it is hoped that a facial reconstruction will be attempted in order to find out what Sarsfield really looked like. If however it turns out that the remains are not Sarsfield’s, the team is determined to carry on excavating the entirety of the site despite all the logistical and administrative challenges that such an endeavour would entail.

After signing the Treaty of Limerick in 1691, Patrick Sarsfield emigrated to France with thousands of his soldiers and enrolled in the army of the king of France Louis XIV to continue the fight against William of Orange and his allies. It is while fighting in the service of France that he was fatally wounded at the battle of Landen in July 1693. Conflicting versions of the circumstances of his death meant that the location of his burial remained a mystery up to recently. In 2022, after nearly two years of research, Dr Guyon was indeed able to determine based on historical records that Sarsfield was most likely one of the two anonymous French officers who were buried in August 1693 in the church of Saint-Martin d’Outre-Meuse in Huy, Belgium, some 35 km south of Landen.

In February 2023, Dr Guyon partnered with Aegis Archaeology Ltd, an Irish company led by archaeologist Frank Coyne, and gathered a team of scientists including Dr Caroline Laforest (a French forensic anthropologist based in Belgium) and geneticists Prof. Maarten Larmuseau and his PhD student Noah Gaens from the University of Leuven. Together, in December 2023, they began conducting archaeological excavations on the Belgian site where the ancient church used to stand and which is now a derelict townhouse built in the early 20th century. The works are entirely funded by private funds thanks to the fundraising campain launched by Dr Guyon in May 2023.

The Sarsfield Homecoming Project is dedicated to the memory of Alexandria Fitzgerald, a student from Salesian College in Pallaskenry, Co. Limerick who was passionate about the project and who sadly passed away last year. You can support the project through their GoFundMe.

Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.