Thomas Kirk was born in 1781. He was the son of William Kirk, a native of Edinburgh, who had settled in Newry and later in Cork, where Thomas was born. He studied at the Dublin Society’s Schools where he won prizes in 1797 and 1800. He later worked for the stone-cutter Henry Darley. One of his earliest commissions was the statue for Nelson’s Pillar in Sackville Street, Dublin. He executed numerous church memorials throughout Ireland and his trademark relief was ‘The Good Samaritan’, which particularly suited memorials to either doctors or clergy. One of his most charming reliefs is on the Memorial to Jane Vernon in Carlow Church. She was wife of the Rector of Carlow and died at the age of 29. The Memorial to the Reverend George Hill at Comber, County Down has a relief of the Good Samaritan and above it a kneeling figure of Grief under a willow tree. There are several memorials by Kirk in St Anne’s Church, Dublin, among them Reverend Cotton, Bishop Dickinson, and Daniel McKay. In St George’s, Dublin the elaborate Greek revival tablet to the memory of John Chambers is signed by Kirk. For his Memorial to Thomas Abbott in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Kirk has placed a statue of an orphan girl weeping at an urn. Also in Christ Church is the memorial, with a bust, to the memory of Sir Samuel Auchmuty. In the crypt is the mutilated tomb of Nathaniel Sneyd, generally regarded as being Kirk’s masterpiece. Sneyd is represented lying dead with a female figure weeping over him. In the north aisle of Christ Church is the unfinished Memorial to Sir John Stevenson (1843). Stevenson wrote the music for Moore’s Melodies. His monument has a bust and a single choirboy. Originally there were two choir boys, but the sculptor found such difficulty in extracting payment for his work, that he removed the second one. In St Patrick’s Cathedral is Kirk’s Memorial to Dr Spray. Also in St Patrick’s is Kirk’s Memorial to Thomas Ball (d.1826). In the Pro-Cathedral, Dublin his Monument to the Reverend Thomas Clarke has relief figures of Religion and Charity on either side of an urn. This was Kirk’s first exhibited work,  according to Strickland, exhibited as Piety and Chastity at the Society of Artists in Hawkins Street in 1810. The Memorial to Thomas Dillon, also in the Pro-Cathedral, has a relief of the Good Samaritan and may be attributed to Kirk; and nearby the William and Ann Bayly Memorial is also probably by him. In Dundalk, a larger Good Samaritan than usual commemorates Dr George Gillichan (1819) and in Greyabbey, County Down an architectural tablet commemorates William Montgomery. The Bishop of Ossory, the Reverend Robert Fowler, is commemorated by a simple tablet in Kilkenny Cathedral. Two Kirk memorials in Kilruch, County Clare are elaborate. They commemorate the Rt Hon John Ormsby Vandeleur and Lieutenant-Colonel Seymour Vandeleur. The George Pentland Memorial in the same church may also be by Kirk. Kirk’s best small-scale reliefs are in Monaghan. Both exhibited at the Royal Hibernian Association in 1843, they commemorate members of the Rossmore family. Mary Anne Rossmore, the first wife of Warner William Westenra, Baron Rossmore is commemorated by the relief entitled The Parting Glance. Lord Rossmore, restrained by his son, takes his last look at his deceased wife; at the foot of the death-bed a dog, symbolising fidelity. One of their sons, the Hon Charles Westenra, lieutenant, 8th Hussars, is commemorated by The Soldier’s Funeral executed with a spurred boot reversed in the stirrup. At Rosscarbery in County Cork, the Reverend Horatio Townsend is also commemorated by a Good Samaritan. At the end of his career, Kirk visited London in 1842 and was sent for by Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, who asked him to sculpt one of the statues of the three distinguished admirals that the House of Commons had determined would be commemorated in London. Kirk sculpted the life-sized white marble statue of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith (1845), which may be seen on the Upper Deck of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. It would be his last commission and he died in Dublin later that year.