Sarsfield Homecoming Project accesses possible burial site as Limerick and huy pledge to work together

Sarsfield Homecoming Project accesses possible burial site as Limerick and huy pledge to work together. Mr Eric Dosogne, Bourgmestre of Huy with Cllr Francis Foley, Mayor of Limerick.

Huy and Limerick pledge to work together as team of Sarsfield Homecoming Project accesses the possible burial site for the first time

The Mayor of Limerick, Cllr Francis Foley, travelled to Huy, Belgium with Chief Executive Dr Pat Daly and Laura Flannery (LCCC Corporate & Governance) as Dr Loïc Guyon (Honorary Consul of France and Project Leader) and Frank Coyne (Director Archaeology Ltd) accessed, for the first time, the site where Patrick Sarsfield is thought to be buried.

The site where the former St Martin’s church used to stand was identified by Dr Guyon as the place where Sarsfield could be buried after he was fatally wounded in the service of France at the battle of Landen in 1693.

While there had been speculation that Sarsfield was buried there, Dr Guyon found historical evidence confirming it and was able to determine that a plot of land recently purchased by the Huy city council and consisting of the back garden of a townhouse was the exact spot where Sarsfield’s grave is located.

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Upon accessing the site, Dr Guyon said, “After 2.5 years of research and after a first trip to Huy in 2021 when we couldn’t access the site as the purchase had not been finalised yet, it is very moving to finally get an opportunity to see it with my own eyes and get a feel of the place knowing that the remains of Patrick Sarsfield are most likely a few centimetres below the surface. I wish to thank the Huy council and in particular Ms Stéphanie Ratz, heritage director, for clearing the site before our arrival of all the vegetation that had covered it for so many years”.

Archaeologist Frank Coyne added: “Today is the first concrete step of a long process which will hopefully see preliminary work start this Autumn and a full excavation by the summer of 2024. Visualising the site and having a clear idea of its nature and proportions was essential to enable us to plan this Autumn’s work”.

Following this first visit to the site, the Limerick delegation was invited to a meeting with the local authorities and to a reception at the City Hall hosted by the acting Mayor of Huy, Cllr Eric Dosogne, during which the Mayor of Limerick and his Belgian counterpart signed a declaration celebrating the burgeoning friendship between the two cities.

Mayor of the City and County of Limerick Cllr Francis Foley said: “Huy and Limerick are bound together by history through the figure of Patrick Sarsfield, but also by a set of common values which we celebrated today and by a shared desire to strengthen our relationship for our mutual benefit. I call on all Limerick people to join in support of the Sarsfield Homecoming Project to get a chance to bring back to Limerick one of the city’s beloved heroes”.

To raise the necessary funding to conduct the archaeological excavation, the Sarsfield Homecoming Project has partnered with registered charity Alliance Française Limerick and launched a crowdfunding campaign on Go Fund Me which has already collected €3,000 in less than three weeks.

Corporate donations are also welcome and Mary Immaculate College has already pledged €5,000 to the project.

The Go Fund Me page can be accessed here.
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