Recently I took a trip to the Representative Church Body (RCB) Library and Archive in Churchtown, Dublin, to see if I could learn anything further about Forde’s birth or death and burial. The RCB Library is the repository for Church of Ireland records, including baptisms, marriages, and burials, as well as minute books which record church appointments and significant decisions made by individual parish churches.

Unfortunately, I was unable to uncover any additional information about Forde, but it was an enjoyable experience to look through the manuscripts and read the accomplished and ornate hands that filled the minute books. Another reward was the very friendly and helpful staff there. I arrived knowing what I wanted to find, but having no idea how to go about it or what precise sources I should be requesting. However, after just ten minutes, Forde’s dates, and some uncertain suggestions about where he may have worshiped, I had the St Finbarre’s registry in front of me and was checking the baptismal and burial records for Forde’s name. No luck, as above, but the archivists very helpfully supplied me with contemporaneous material from other Cork churches in case he had been attached to another congregation. Again, no joy. However, I left with much good advice and encouragement – a very positive research experience.

Later that afternoon I headed to the National Library of Ireland to read an anonymous memoir of Forde in the Dublin University Magazine of 1845. This lengthy piece turned out to be a goldmine of personal insight and knowledge into Forde’s person and his life. Alas, no author’s name attached. Could it even have been Daniel Maclise, years later lamenting his short-lived friend?! Of all the noteworthy items in this piece, the most striking was that Forde was indeed buried in St Finbarre’s churchyard, but under a stone bearing the name Henry Murrough!

Later, I sat with Mike in a small restaurant on Carey’s Lane in Cork, just by the site of the chapel Forde sat in for hours contemplating the copy of Guido Reni’s Crucifixion, and told him everything I’d found! So many anecdotes about Forde, his contemporaries, and the life of the School of Art itself. We agreed that the revelation about Forde’s burial calls for a return visit to the RCB to establish when Henry Murrough was buried. Is it possible that Forde was buried under a different name? And what was his association with Henry Murrough? To the Batcav-, I mean, RCB!!!