HOPES are high that human remains found at the site of an ancient church in Belgium could be those of Irish war hero Patrick Sarsfield.
The Sarsfield Homecoming Project, launched in November 2020 by Dr Loïc Guyon, Honorary Consul of France and Head of the Department of French Studies at Mary Immaculate College (MIC), has spent the past number of years locating and repatriating the remains of the national hero to Ireland.
Sarsfield is best known for his defence of Limerick against the forces of William of Orange in 1690, in an event now known as the Siege of Limerick. Sarsfield, fighting for King James II, was eventually defeated; however, he helped negotiate the famous Treaty of Limerick, which ended the Williamite War in Ireland – and from which Limerick gets its nickname as the ‘Treaty City’.
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 was 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 had remained a mystery up until recently.
In October 2020, Dr Guyon launched the Sarsfield Homecoming Project with one objective: to try to locate, identify, and bring back to Ireland the remains of Irish national hero, Patrick Sarsfield.
After nearly two years of research, Dr Guyon and his team were 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 35km south of Landen.
“While the first aim of the Sarsfield Homecoming Project is to find and repatriate the remains of Patrick Sarsfield, a secondary aim has always been to bring Sarsfield and the whole historical episode of the Flight of the Wild Geese back into the spotlight and educate, in particular the younger generations, about that important part of Limerick’s history, Ireland’s history, and the history of the ties between France and Ireland,” he explained.
