Within its south wall lies a remarkable Jacobean monument featuring two kneeling figures in period dress, facing each other across a draped prie-dieu. This memorial commemorates Sir Richard Hansard and his wife Dame Anne, both of whom died within days of each other in October 1619.

The monument’s lengthy inscription tells an extraordinary tale of military service, plantation politics, and posthumous legal complications. Sir Richard Hansard, originally from Bishopthorpe in Lincolnshire, studied at Cambridge before pursuing a military career in Ireland. He served as Governor of Lifford during both the Nine Years’ War against Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and later during Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s rebellion. For his service, King James I granted him the town of Lifford and four quarters of Crohan to establish a corporation there. When Hansard died, he attempted to leave his lands to various people sharing his surname, though not closely related to him, along with provisions for building this church, a school, and annual payments to various town officials and educators.

However, Hansard’s charitable intentions nearly came to nothing due to a legal technicality; lacking proper documentation to dispose of his lands by will, the property automatically passed to his younger brother William in Lincolnshire. Hansard’s executors, Sir John Vaughan, Sir George Marbury, and Thomas Perkins, were forced to purchase the lands back from William for £1,500 to ensure the church and school were built as intended. The executors also secured the perpetual endowments Hansard had specified: £20 annually for the Warden of Lifford, £40 for the Recorder, £6 for two sergeants, £30 for the schoolmaster, and £20 for the usher, ensuring his vision for the town’s civic and educational infrastructure would endure.