St. Etchen’s Church of Ireland, Killucan - Gravestone of Reverend Henry Ferris, Curate of Killucan
This neo-classical gravestone is located in the graveyard of St. Etchen’s church at Killucan, County Westmeath and carried the inscription:
SACRED
To the memory
of
THE REVD HENRY FERRIS
CURATE
of the Parish of Killucan
who departed this life
April 20th 1848
Aged 45
I am the Resurrection and
the life he that believeth in
me though he were dead
yet shall he live.
.
The biblical quotation is from John 11:25 and taken from the St. James’ version of the Bible.
The Reverend Henry Ferris (c.1802-1848) was ordained as a Church of Ireland clergyman about 1827 and served his first ministry as a curate within the Diocese of Kildare. He had been appointed curate for the Parish of Killucan in 1847 but contracted typhus from visiting parishioners and in April 1848 died from the disease.
Typhus had always been endemic amongst the poorer classes throughout Ireland but it was those from middle and upper classes, such as clergymen and doctors that had regular exposure to typhus who were more susceptible to becoming infected and suffered much higher mortality rates from ‘the fever’. A typhus epidemic raged throughout Ireland from 1846 to 1849 amongst the poorer populations, exasperated by the effects of the Great Famine (1845-1849). Back then typhus was generally known as the fever, jail fever or workhouse fever and it was not until 1928 that it was confirmed the disease was spread by the human body louse.
Recent research by Sunand Tryambak Joshi (b.1958) has established Henry Ferris as the author of stories and essays on the supernatural which were published in the Dublin University Magazine from 1839 onwards. Ferris’ works were never published in book form and were written under the pseudonym of Irys Herfner, an anagram based on his own name. The writings of Henry Ferris were heavily influenced by his travels through Germany and German folklore.
A selection of works by ‘Irys Herfner’ are;
The high cross by Bonn, a story of the Rhine (1839)
German ghosts and Ghost-seers (1841)
A leaf from the Berlin Chronicles (1843)
A few more words about mesmerism (1844)
A night with Mephistopheles (1845)
On the Nightmare (1845)
Fireside Horrors for Christmas (1847)
A night in a haunted house (1848)
A night in the Bell Inn (1850) (a posthumous publication or by a different author?).
Another tragic twist was that less than four months after Henry’s death, his wife gave birth to their daughter on the 4th August 1848 in Killucan.
www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1848/AUG.html (States “August 4, at Killucan, the lady of the late Rev. Henry FERRIS, of a daughter” - Anglo-Celt newspaper of Cavan 4th August 1848).
mullingarunionofparishes.net/killucan.html (Mullingar Union of Parishes, CoI website).
homepage.tinet.ie/~gerryo/intrist.htm (Killucan and St Etchen’s Church).
A Night with Mephistopheles: Selected Works of Henry Ferris by S.T. Joshi. Tartarus Press, 1997.
ISBN 1872621260
St. Etchen’s Church of Ireland, Killucan - Gravestone of Reverend Henry Ferris, Curate of Killucan
This neo-classical gravestone is located in the graveyard of St. Etchen’s church at Killucan, County Westmeath and carried the inscription:
SACRED
To the memory
of
THE REVD HENRY FERRIS
CURATE
of the Parish of Killucan
who departed this life
April 20th 1848
Aged 45
I am the Resurrection and
the life he that believeth in
me though he were dead
yet shall he live.
.
The biblical quotation is from John 11:25 and taken from the St. James’ version of the Bible.
The Reverend Henry Ferris (c.1802-1848) was ordained as a Church of Ireland clergyman about 1827 and served his first ministry as a curate within the Diocese of Kildare. He had been appointed curate for the Parish of Killucan in 1847 but contracted typhus from visiting parishioners and in April 1848 died from the disease.
Typhus had always been endemic amongst the poorer classes throughout Ireland but it was those from middle and upper classes, such as clergymen and doctors that had regular exposure to typhus who were more susceptible to becoming infected and suffered much higher mortality rates from ‘the fever’. A typhus epidemic raged throughout Ireland from 1846 to 1849 amongst the poorer populations, exasperated by the effects of the Great Famine (1845-1849). Back then typhus was generally known as the fever, jail fever or workhouse fever and it was not until 1928 that it was confirmed the disease was spread by the human body louse.
Recent research by Sunand Tryambak Joshi (b.1958) has established Henry Ferris as the author of stories and essays on the supernatural which were published in the Dublin University Magazine from 1839 onwards. Ferris’ works were never published in book form and were written under the pseudonym of Irys Herfner, an anagram based on his own name. The writings of Henry Ferris were heavily influenced by his travels through Germany and German folklore.
A selection of works by ‘Irys Herfner’ are;
The high cross by Bonn, a story of the Rhine (1839)
German ghosts and Ghost-seers (1841)
A leaf from the Berlin Chronicles (1843)
A few more words about mesmerism (1844)
A night with Mephistopheles (1845)
On the Nightmare (1845)
Fireside Horrors for Christmas (1847)
A night in a haunted house (1848)
A night in the Bell Inn (1850) (a posthumous publication or by a different author?).
Another tragic twist was that less than four months after Henry’s death, his wife gave birth to their daughter on the 4th August 1848 in Killucan.
www.irelandoldnews.com/Cavan/1848/AUG.html (States “August 4, at Killucan, the lady of the late Rev. Henry FERRIS, of a daughter” - Anglo-Celt newspaper of Cavan 4th August 1848).
mullingarunionofparishes.net/killucan.html (Mullingar Union of Parishes, CoI website).
homepage.tinet.ie/~gerryo/intrist.htm (Killucan and St Etchen’s Church).
A Night with Mephistopheles: Selected Works of Henry Ferris by S.T. Joshi. Tartarus Press, 1997.
ISBN 1872621260