Babylon the Bleak

Most Rev. Patrick Francis Moran, Historical Sketch of the Persecutions Suffered by the Catholics of Ireland under the Rule of Cromwell and the Puritans (Dublin: Gill and Son, 1884) pp. 5-31.

Our divine Redeemer repeatedly forewarned his disciples that they would have to suffer trials and persecutions in this world, and to drink the bitter cup of affliction to the dregs. "You shall lament and weep," said He to them, "but the world shall rejoice; and you shall be made sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be changed into joy" (John 16:20). "I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues" (Matt 10:16). "And they will put you out of their synagogues: yea, the hour cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doth a service to God" (John 16:2).

What our Lord foretold was accomplished to the letter. The disciples and apostles whom he sent to overthrow idolatry and superstition, and to purify the earth from the corruption with which it was infected, instead of being welcomed as benefactors, were everywhere opposed by the perversity and malice of man; and every human effort was made to impede the success of the heavenly mission in which they were engaged. Edicts were published prohibiting their teaching; their doctrines and practices were proscribed; and when they persevered in their work of charity and religion, they were cast into prison, or sent into exile, or condemned to suffer tortures and death. All the apostles merited the crown of martyrdom; and all sealed their testimony to the faith by shedding their blood in its defence, with the exception of St. John, who, having merited the honours of a martyr when thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil in Rome, was providentially preserved, in order to prevent the spread of errors which sprung up against the divinity of our Lord.

The immediate successors of the apostles, and the inheritors of their authority, together with innumerable multitudes of other Christians, had to undergo the same persecutions and afflictions as their masters in the faith, and to be made like unto the Author of our holy religion, who, for our salvation, became the reproach and outcast of the people, and satisfied for our sins by His agony on the cross.

The blood of the first Christians was shed in torrents in every country where the doctrines of their Divine Master was preached, and His Church established. They were reviled, calumniated, and excluded from the pale of society; they were proclaimed the enemies of the human race, and charged with crimes which they abhorred; they were sent into exile, condemned to work in the mines, subjected to unheard of torments, and condemned to cruel deaths. But, like sheep among wolves, bearing everything for Christ's sake with patience and resignation, they edified the world by their virtues and good works; and their blood became the seed of new and fervent Christian congregations. The more they were cut down, the more did Christians increase; and, in the course of three centuries, by their prayers, their patience, and virtues, they conquered the whole Roman empire; the cross was raised triumphant on the Capitol and Pantheon, and the proudest monuments of Greece and Rome were consecrated to the worship of the true God.

What happened in the first centuries was repeated in the following ages: the Church was always a prey to persecution; but, notwithstanding all the efforts of her enemies, she increased and prospered; and the fertile vine, planted on Mount Calvary, and watered by the blood of our Redeemer, spread its branches to the remotest regions of the earth, affording protection and refreshment to those who had been languishing in darkness and error.

As nothing could be more edifying than the constancy of Christians in professing their faith, and in protesting against the perverse doctrines and practices of idolatry, so it cannot be a matter of surprise that great care was taken to preserve the names of the martyrs, and to record the sufferings and circumstances of their death: the acts of those heroes of the cross were drawn up by faithful hands; their answers to the tyrants declaring how they adhered to the doctrines of Christ, and detested the worship of idols and false gods, were accurately reported; and their constancy and courage in encountering torments and death were minutely described. Even at the present day, through the simple narratives that have been preserved, everyone is familiar with the sufferings of a Laurence, a Vincent, a Sebastian, and an Ignatius, and with the superhuman courage of the Agneses, the Agathas, the Catherines, and other virgins, in whom we admire the triumph of that faith which raised them above the weakness of their age and sex.

To cherish the remembrance of those who shed their blood for the truth, and to obtain their prayers and protection at the throne of mercy, festivals were established on the day of their victory, pilgrimages were instituted to the spot where they suffered, their sacred remains were preserved with the greatest respect and veneration, and some of the noblest temples of the universe were erected to their memory.

This same anxiety to do honour to the heroes who laid down their lives in her defence, and to propose their glorious deeds to her children for their encouragement and instruction, has been manifested in every age by the Church. It is also in this spirit that our present venerable Pontiff, Pius IX (who has himself suffered so much from the enemies of religion, and whose courage and constancy in defending the rights of the Holy See, have merited for him the admiration of mankind) determined to canonise several martyrs of Japan, proposing their heroic virtues to the imitation of the faithful in those times of irreligion and indifference, and securing new patrons for the Church in the period of trouble and confusion in which we live. The writers of a wicked and unbelieving press may scoff and sneer at the pious anxiety of the Church to extol the faith and courage of her children; they may call the glorious martyrs of Japan traitors and rebels to the government under which they lived, but all faithful Christians will receive with gratitude the decisions of the Pontiff, and avail themselves of the patronage and intercession of the Christian heroes whom he has placed on our altars.

Whilst it was ever the anxious desire of all Christians, and especially of the supreme pastors of the fold of Christ, to preserve the acts and the memories of the martyrs, it would be strange if the Catholic Church of Ireland were careless about her children who suffered for the faith, or allowed their memory to be forgotten. Far from her the charge of such neglect; she encouraged her children to fight a good fight, and to finish their course with honour; she preserved their memories with veneration, and repeated with gratitude and thankfulness the names of many who shed their blood in order to preserve the faith of St. Patrick pure and uncontaminated, and to transmit to posterity the blessings of true religion which they now enjoy.

Unfortunately, however, we have no regular acts of our martyrs, nor special histories of the unexampled sufferings which they had to undergo during the three centuries of persecution and penal laws through which our country has passed. Our forefathers acted like true soldiers of Christ, and preserved the faith, covering their country and religion with glory, and securing for themselves an imperishable crown; but the circumstances of the country were so deplorable, and war was carried on so actively against religion, that few written records could be kept, and the glorious achievements of so many Christian heroes were preserved only in the memory of the faithful. As an instance of the difficulty of preserving written documents, it may be mentioned that the martyred archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Plunket, in a letter to Rome, states that on a certain emergency, when an outburst of persecution was feared in Armagh, he had to burn all his foreign letters, even the brief of his consecration. "This happened," he adds, "last June twelvemonths (1670), on the vigil of St. John, when it was circulated by the Presbyterians that the Catholics had conspired to murder, on that night, all the Protestants."¹

Under such circumstances it were vain to seek for a complete and consecutive history of the persecutions of our forefathers; and hence, although we have, on every side, proofs the most authentic of the fearful persecutions of the Irish Church, yet it is only in private letters and documents, referring but casually to such matters, that the sufferings of individuals are described. When all the materials of this kind shall have been examined and published, it is to be hoped that a history of the martyrs of the Irish Church may be written.

With a view of contributing to this desirable result, the following Historical Sketch of the Sufferings of the Catholics during the Puritan sway in Ireland has been compiled. In it are collected many extracts from unpublished contemporary writings, and from printed works rarely to be met with. The greater part of it was written as an introduction to the Memoirs of Dr. Plunket, but it now appears in an enlarged form, and contains many new documents. It is hoped that it will aid the future historian in describing the virtues and constancy of Irish Catholics at a time when, because they were unanimous in defending their country, their king, and their religion,² they were sacrificed in thousands by sanguinary hordes of fanatical Puritans, and other furious enemies of the Catholic religion, who pretended to be lovers of liberty, but in reality were enemies of all rights, human and divine.

Though the practice of the Catholic Church and the experience of the past ages show that great edification is derived from the history of those who suffered for the truth, and the faithful are encouraged to constancy and patience in the time of trial, by remembering the sacrifices made by others in its defence, yet, there are some who seem to think otherwise, and who will not fail to condemn the historical sketch now presented to the public. Why, they say, do you occupy yourself with penal laws, and the confiscation of property, why record the massacre of so many Catholics? Such unpleasant recollections ought not to be preserved. It is the tendency of the present age to repair the wrongs of past times, and to heal the wounds then inflicted; why put yourself in opposition to so praiseworthy a spirit? Why not let past grievances be forgotten?

In reply, perhaps, it would not be out of place to examine whether the present age is so liberal as it pretends, or whether the Catholic religion, and the Catholic people in general (and the poor especially) have been treated in Ireland with such generosity as to make them forget all past grievances. It might also be asked whether the spirit of former times is not still active, and still tending to obtain, by indirect and occult means, the same ends which were so long sought for by open persecution. But passing over such questions, we may be allowed to observe that motives of prudence or feelings of delicacy did not prevent the early Christian writers from recording innumerable deeds of pagan cruelty, and describing the noble constancy and courage of their persecuted brethren. Every Christian felt that the propagation or preservation of his religion in the midst of trials and sufferings, was a proof of the truth of Christ's promise to be with his Church in all ages, and the fear of displeasing pagans, or of exciting the feelings of the sufferers against their oppressors, was not considered a sufficient ground for passing over in silence great historical facts, both useful and edifying.

Why should not we act in the same way? For, do not the sufferings of past times supply us with new illustrations of the power of Christian faith, and with motives of thankfulness and gratitude to God for having preserved our religion? The struggle in which our predecessors in the faith were engaged was a very unequal one: they were so weak that, humanly speaking, they could not have resisted the powers that were brought to bear on them for their destruction; yet, through the mercy of God, their poverty was more powerful than the wealth of others, and in their weakness they preserved the most precious of all treasures, their faith, and transmitted it to their posterity, in whom it is now producing an abundance of fruit in their virtues and good works, and in the institutions with which they are covering the land. And here may we not say, with the apostle: "The foolish things of the world hath God chosen that he may confound the wise, and the weak things of the world hath God chosen that he may confound the strong... That no flesh should glory in his sight" (1 Cor 1:27, 29).

Nor is it to be supposed that the memory of past grievances always excites feelings of hatred and rancour. Where the sufferings of true Christians are related, a contrary effect is produced. Their patience and resignation to the holy will of God, the prayers they poured out, like our Divine Redeemer on the cross, for their persecutors, serve to make us patient and obedient, and to act in a spirit of charity and forbearance, even towards those who afflict and persecute us.

Besides, the condition of Ireland is quite unintelligible, unless we keep before us the history of the past. Irish Catholics are frequently taunted with the want of a Catholic literature, and with the rags and poverty of their country. We are even told that our ignorance and our poverty are proofs of the demoralizing effects of our holy religion. Look to the condition of Protestants and Presbyterians: they are rich and flourishing; they have numerous schools and colleges richly endowed; travelling through the country you cannot but observe the superior wealth and comfort of the Protestant or Presbyterian occupier of the soil - all this difference is a proof of the advantages of Protestantism.

Statements of this kind are made every day: they are repeated in almost all the little anti-Catholic tracts so widely circulated at present. To answer such charges it is necessary to go back to the penal laws, and to past persecutions which fully explain the cause of the anomalous position of Ireland. If Catholics were behind others in education and intellectual acquirements, if they had not so many colleges or literary institutions, the reason was, that Catholic education was prohibited in the country, and all Catholic schools and places of instruction were confiscated and handed over to Protestants. A Catholic was not allowed to teach or to keep school at home, and laws were enacted to prevent him from sending his children to be educated abroad. As all this was done by the Protestant parliaments of England and Ireland, is it meet that the evils thus produced should be charged to Catholics, the sufferers in the case? But though education was so strictly prohibited, the Catholics still preserved a thirst for knowledge; they sought for it in foreign lands, and, since the relaxation of the penal laws, they have covered the country with schools, colleges, and other educational establishments. Thus, a reference to past times shows who were the real friends, and who the enemies of progress and knowledge.

In regard to the poverty of the Catholic portion of the Irish people, it is very easy to explain its origin. The Catholics were persecuted for their religion, and rather than consent to renounce their God and their faith, they submitted to the confiscation of their property, to exile, and death. A great part of Ireland was confiscated several times; the property and the estates of Catholics were handed over to Protestants; the rich lands, the fertile plains, and all places of commerce, were reserved for those who had been found ready to apostatize at the bidding of the ruling powers. Adventurers from England, oftentimes of the lowest class and most degraded character, and covenanters and followers of John Knox, from Scotland, were enriched with the property of the old inhabitants of the country who had remained faithful to the religion of their fathers. Special privileges were granted to the towns and seaports occupied by Protestants and Presbyterians; their trade and manufactories, especially in Ulster, were encouraged, and everything was done to promote their interests, whilst the worst arts were employed to ruin the industry or to occasion the beggary or total extermination of the original inhabitants. Indeed, it was considered a great favour to allow Catholics to live in the bogs and mountains; and even, when the bogs were reclaimed, they were driven from them, and ordered to seek for refuge in more desolate places. Under such circumstances, we cannot be surprised that the Catholics of Ireland should have been reduced to poverty, but it must be a matter of amazement that they were at all able to preserve their existence in the kingdom.

However, the energy of the Irish race was not to be broken down by confiscation and penal laws; notwithstanding the spoliation and sufferings to which they had been subjected, they displayed a persevering industry, and many of them, overcoming all obstacles, have had their energy rewarded by the acquirement of wealth and station. Yet, as it has been said, the general condition of the country, and the poverty of so many of its Catholic inhabitants, as well as the wealth and prosperity of many Protestants, cannot be explained without continual reference to the history of the past, and showing how the former were robbed and persecuted in order to enrich the latter.

In conclusion, it appears to us evident that it is most useful and edifying, and conformable to the practices of the Catholic Church, to preserve and publish the records of those who suffered for their faith. Their patience and humility edify us, and teach us to be submissive and obedient in the time of trial and affliction; their courage and constancy show us how firmly we ought to be attached to our faith; their prayers for their enemies afford us a lesson of forbearance and charity, and the success with which they fought the good fight, and merited an imperishable crown, must excite our gratitude to heaven, and at the same time convince us that our Faith is "the victory which overcometh the world."

Since this "Historical Sketch" was first published several valuable works have appeared illustrating the period to which it refers, and we have made use of some of them at almost every page. To avoid the necessity of repeated reference, it may suffice to here insert the titles of the works in full:

The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, by John P. Prendergast. Second Edition. London: Longmans, 1870.

Aphorismical Discovery of Treasonable Faction, i.e., A Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland from 1641 to 1652, edited by John T. Gilbert. In three Volumes. Dublin: for the Irish Archaeological Society, 1879.

History of the Irish Confederation and the War in Ireland, 1641-1643, by Richard Bellings. Edited by John T. Gilbert. In two Volumes. Dublin: Gill and Son, 1882.

Cromwell in Ireland, by Rev. Denis Murphy, S. J. Dublin: Gill and Son, 1883.

Collections Relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, by Rev. M. Comerford, P.P. Dublin: Duffy, 1883.

Transactions of the Ossory Archaeological Society. Kilkenny: Vol. the First, 1879; Vol. the Second, 1883.

The Rise and Fall of the Irish Franciscan Monasteries, and Memoirs of the Irish Hierarchy in the Seventeenth Century, by Rev. C. P. Meehan. Fifth Edition. Dublin: Duffy, 1877.

Pii Antistitis Icon: or, The Life and Death of the Most Rev. Francis Kirwan, Bishop of Killala, edited by Rev. C. P. Meehan. Second Edition. Dublin: Duffy, 1884.

General Proscription of the Irish Catholics by the Puritans

1. Lord Clarendon and others explain the designs of the Puritans to exterminate the Catholics. 2. Acts of Parliament and Orders of the Lords Justices. 3. Fierce spirit of Puritan Writers. 4. Testimony of Various Historians. 5. Conduct of Tichbourne, Sir William Cole, Sir Charles Coote, &c. 6. Fate of Sir Simon Harcourt and Sir Charles Coote. 7. Some instances of barbarous cruelty. 8. Dr. John Lynch describes the sufferings of Catholics. 9. Division of this Sketch.

1. The persecution carried on by the Puritan Parliament and Cromwell against the Catholics of Ireland has scarcely a parallel in the history of the Church. Without a special providence of God watching over His children, whom He was chastising in His mercy, the Catholic faith could not have been preserved in so frightful and so trying an ordeal. It is the mercy of the Lord that we have not been consumed. No sooner had the Puritan faction become predominant in England, having dethroned their sovereign, and imbrued their hands in his blood, than they resolved on the utter extermination of the Irish people, who had been true to Caesar and to God, and they did not hesitate to declare that thus alone could Catholicity be rooted out from our island. In fact, the extermination of the Irish Catholics became a leading feature in their political programme. "The Parliament party," writes Lord Clarendon, "had grounded their own authority and strength upon such foundations as were inconsistent with any toleration of the Roman Catholic religion, and even with any humanity to the Irish nation - and more especially to those of the old native extraction, the whole race whereof they had upon the matter sworn to extirpate."³ Dr. John Lynch in Cambrensis Eversus corroborates this statement,⁴ and adds: "Three thousand Irish Puritans signed a document in which they earnestly insisted either that the Catholic religion should be abolished in Ireland, or that the Irish race should be extirpated." He writes that the Irish Puritans "rioted in the promiscuous slaughter of women, old men, and children; and the English auxiliaries openly avowed that they would strain every nerve to extirpate, without mercy, the Irish race."⁵ The contemporary author of the Aphorismical Discovery published for the I. A. S. by Gilbert, also states that "it was blazed abroad by the best note of Protestants, that all Ireland by that time twelvemonth must either go to church, be executed, or endure banishment or exile."⁶ And the Irish Bishops, in an official document in 1650, attest the cruelty of the Puritans "whose practice daily is, and hath been, to extirpate the Catholic Religion and the professors thereof, to the loss and profanation of churches, altars, use of sacraments, and everything that is dear to a Catholic, as also the shedding of Prelates' blood even to death, and contrary to the public faith, and the daily persecution of Priests, friars, nuns, and their imprisonment, and banishment by public proclamation."

2. As early as the 8th of December, 1641, an act was passed in Parliament to the effect that the Catholic religion should never be tolerated in Ireland;⁷ and in order to carry this act into execution, the Lords Justices issued the following order to the commander of the Irish forces: "It is resolved, that it is fit his Lordship do endeavour, with his Majesty's forces, to slay and destroy all the said rebels, and their adherents and relievers, by all the ways and means he may; and burn, destroy, spoil, waste, consume, and demolish all the places, towns, and houses where the said rebels are or have been relieved and harboured, and all the hay and corn there, and kill and destroy all the men there inhabiting able to bear arms."

All the subsequent acts of Parliament and orders of the Lords Justices are dictated in the same sanguinary strain. As an instance we may cite the enactment by the Lords and Commons of England, on 24th October, 1644: "that no quarter shall be given to any Irishman, or to any papist born in Ireland."

3. The writers of the party were animated by the same exterminating spirit; and, though the soul shudders at the recital, we shall present an extract from one of the political pamphlets of the period, that the reader may fully appreciate the virulence of Puritan hatred against the Catholics of Ireland: "I beg upon my hands and knees that the expedition against them may be undertaken whilst the hearts and hands of our soldiery are hot, to whom I will be bold to say, briefly: 'happy is he that shall reward them as they have served us; and cursed is he that shall do the work of the Lord negligently.' Cursed be he that holdeth back his sword from blood; yea, cursed be he that maketh not his sword stark drunk with Irish blood - that maketh them not heaps upon heaps, and their country a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment to nations. Let not that eye look for pity, nor that hand be spared that pities or spares them; and let him be accursed that curseth them not bitterly."

4. It would be tedious to enter into full details of the cruel extermination by which the army in Ireland sought to carry into effect the desires of their English masters. The whole history of their sanguinary career may be well summed up in the words of the Protestant historian, Borlase, "the orders of Parliament were excellently well executed."⁸ Leland and Warner refer to the letters of the Lords Justices themselves for the fact that the soldiers "slew all persons promiscuously, not sparing even the women." And Dr. Nalson, another Protestant historian, appeals to the testimony of officers who served in the Parliamentary army, "that no manner of compassion or discrimination was shown either to age or sex." Lord Ossory, too, himself a bitter enemy of the Catholics, in a letter to Ormonde, informs him how the Puritan Lord President of Munster "caused innocent and guilty to be alike executed," and commemorates some instances of barbaric cruelty for which we would seek in vain a parallel in the fiercest persecutions of paganism.

At the first outbreak of the revolution the Lords Justices were in great alarm, but when they discovered that the Irish were without arms, "they took courage," says a contemporary writer, "and rushing out with horse and foot completely armed, they slew man, woman, and child, as they came under their lash, as well those that held the plough as the pike, the goad as the gun. Thousands were thus killed; and the Lords Justices were known not to favour any officer that did not, upon his return from these birdings (as they called them) give a good account of their sport, though their game was unarmed men, and too often women and children."⁹

5. One of their officers, named Tichbourne, who commanded in Dundalk in 1642, was able to boast that in his district "there was neither man nor beast to be found in sixteen miles between the two towns of Drogheda and Dundalk, nor on the other side of Dundalk, in the county of Monaghan, nearer than Carrickmacross."¹⁰

A Protestant dignitary, Dean Bernard, describing this scene of desolation wrote: "By the death of so many men about us, having their houses and all their provisions either burnt or drawn hither, the dogs only surviving are found very usually feeding upon their masters, which taste of man's flesh made it very dangerous for the passengers in the roads, who have been often set upon by these mastiffs, till we were careful to kill them also."

Another officer, Sir William Cole, who commanded in a few counties of the North, slew, in a short period, as Borlase informs us, together with 2,400 swordsmen, "seven thousand of the vulgar sort."¹¹ And the same historian adds that "after this manner did the English fight in the other quarters."¹²

When in May, 1642, the Earl of Clanrickard induced the citizens of Galway to submit, and took them under the king's protection, he received a reprimand from the Lords Justices, declaring that he should have persecuted them "with fire and sword." Moreover, to prevent like clemency for the future, "they issued a general order to the commanders of all garrisons, not to presume to hold any correspondence or treaty with any of the Irish papists dwelling or residing in any place near or about their garrisons, or to give protection, immunity, or dispensation from spoil, burning, or other prosecution of war to any of them, but to persecute all such rebels with fire and sword, according to former commands and proclamations in that behalf."

Sir Charles Coote was one of the leading champions of Puritanism in Ireland, and of him in particular, and his associate officers, M'Geoghegan writes: "There were no exceptions in the barbarous orders which they gave to their soldiery, when letting them loose to make their bloody hunts amongst the Irish Catholics." Yet far was the Parliament from reproving the conduct of this sanguinary monster; and when he was slain at Trim, in April, 1642, we are informed by Borlase that "floods of English tears accompanied him to the grave."¹³

One instance of his cruelty will for the present suffice. He received an order from the Council in Dublin, in 1641, to proceed to the county Wicklow, against the O'Byrnes. "His troops killed all that came in their way, both man, woman, and child; nay, they would murder women, in their very travail." One of his troopers carried on the point of his spear the head of a little babe which he cut off, after killing the poor mother, "which Coote observing, said that he was mightly pleased with many such frolicks."¹⁴ The younger Sir Charles Coote rivalled his father in those deeds of cruelty. He commanded the army in Ulster at the time of the death of Owen Roe O'Neill. The author of the Alithinologia attests that as soon as this Irish leader, the only check to his ravages, was removed, he acted like another Attila, devastating the provinces of Ulster and Connaught, and spreading desolation everywhere, "massacring the inhabitants, destroying the sacred edifices, and putting to death the clergy" (vastationem agris, hominibus caedem, templis ruinam, Ecclesiasticis exterminium).¹⁵

6. Sir Simon Harcourt, another of the military leaders, was no less remarkable for barbarity and hatred of the Church. He gave orders for the indiscriminate slaughter of the Irish; not even the infirm and decrepit or the women and children were to be exempted from this cruelty. His career however was soon brought to an untimely close. A few days after setting out on his campaign he summoned a castle near Dublin belonging to Mr. Walsh to surrender, and this being refused, he declared that the castle should be razed to the ground. When a large piece of ordnance was levelled against the castle, he wished himself to see that it was properly aimed, and in the act of sighting it, was shot dead by one of the nine men who alone formed the garrison. The troops at once abandoned the siege of the castle, and returned to Dublin.

The supplement to the Alithinologia states that, at Trim, Sir Charles Coote the elder caused the statues of SS. Peter and Paul, which were held in great veneration, to be hewn in pieces, and thrown into the fire. A very ancient image of our Blessed Lady, engraven in wood, was also venerated there. Sir Charles ordered it to be brought to Mr. Lawrence Hammond's house, at which he stopped. It, too, was accordingly hewn in pieces and put into the fire, at which he sat. Whilst he was yet seated there, it was announced that a body of Irish troops was at hand, and before he could quit the spot he was shot dead.¹⁶

7. When the Government and chief officers were so bent on cruelty, we can no longer be surprised at individual deeds of barbarity perpetrated by the soldiery on the defenceless inhabitants; it is thus we find them deliberately knocking out the children's brains against the walls at Clonakilty, county Cork; we find them turning the Irish into their houses, to which they then set fire, as in Bantry, to enjoy the screams and agony of their victims; we find them, at Bandon Bridge and Newry, tying the Catholics back to back, and casting them from the battlements of the bridge, to perish in the river beneath. In the Commons' Journals of 1644¹⁷ it is recorded that Captain Swanley having captured a vessel at sea, and thrown seventy individuals overboard, because they were Irish, was summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, "and had thanks there given him for his good service, and a chain of gold of £200 value." And Lord Clarendon writes, that this was not an exceptional case; but, on the contrary, with officers of the navy, "it was a rule, whenever they made Irish prisoners, to bind them back to back, and cast them overboard."¹⁸

One of the first acts of the Irish Confederates was to forward an address of loyalty to the king, in which they declared that before appealing to arms "they had, with all submission, addressed themselves, by petition, to the Lords Justices and Council, for a timely remedy against the then growing evils, but that therein they had found, instead of a salve for their wounds, oil poured into the fire of their discontents." They add that they had with a firm hand repressed the attempts of those who appeared bent on plundering the Puritans, "though the measures offered to the Catholic natives here, in the inhuman murdering of old decrepit people in their beds, women in the straw, and children of eight days old; burning of houses, and robbing of all kinds of persons, without distinction of friend from foe, and digging up of graves, and then burning the dead bodies of our ancestors, have not deserved that justice from us." And Carte, in his Life of Ormonde, writes: "That they did not exaggerate in this particular, is plain from a letter of Lord Clanrickard's, who says, that while he was at Tyrellan, in treaty with Lord Forbes, the commander of a Parliament ship of war, though Lord Ranelagh, President of Connaught, was then in the fort of Galway, he saw the country on fire, his tenants' houses and goods burnt, and four or five poor innocent creatures, men, women, and children, inhumanly murdered by Forbes's soldiers, who, having taken possession of Lady's Church in Galway, the ancient burying place of the town, did, upon their departure, not only deface it, but digged up the graves and burnt the coffins and bones of those that were buried there."¹⁹

8. Dr. John Lynch, Archdeacon of Tuam, and for some time Vicar Apostolic of Killala, was eyewitness of many of these outrages, and in his invaluable work entitled Cambrensis Eversus thus depicts the excess of Cromwellian barbarity: "All the cruelty inflicted on the city of Rome by Nero and Attila, by the Greeks on Troy, by the Moors on Spain, or by Vespasian on Jerusalem - all has been inflicted on Ireland by the Puritans. Nothing but that pathetical lamentation of Jeremias can appropriately describe her state. 'With desolation is the whole land laid desolate; our adversaries are our lords, our enemies are enriched; the enemy hath put out his hand to all our desirable things; ...our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the air; they pursue on the mountains, and lie in wait for us in the wildernesses; we have found no rest; our cities are captured, our gates broken down, our priests sigh, our virgins are in affliction.' From Ireland all her beauty is departed; they that were fed delicately have died in the streets; they that were brought up in scarlet have embraced the dung; when her people fell there was no helper. All that has ever been devised by the ingenuity of most cruel tyrants, either in unparalleled ignominy and degradation, or in the savage and excruciating corporal torture, or in all that could strike terror into the firmest soul - all has been poured out on Ireland by the Puritans. They plundered our cities, destroyed our churches, laid waste our lands, expelled citizens from their cities, nobles from their palaces, and all the natives from their homes; nay, they forbade countless numbers of men even to enjoy the sight of their native country, or to breathe the air which they had inhaled at the moment of their birth... Some of our priests they put in chains and dungeons (that was the most lenient punishment); others they tortured with stakes and strapadoes; some were shot to death, others hanged or strangled. From the priests they turned their fury against all sacred things and places consecrated to the worship of God, which were first sacrilegiously pillaged, then all the paintings and images were destroyed, the statues were cloven in pieces with the axe, and either thrown into the flames or consigned to stables and brothels. Those temples where the priest performed his sacred functions, where the sacred canticles of the Church ravished the ears of the faithful, and sacred orators encouraged the people to piety by their ceaseless exhortations, where the people often poured forth their prayers to God, and devoutly attended all the functions and mysteries of religion: these now resound with the yells of drunkards, the neighing of horses, the barking of dogs, the clamours of quarrelsome soldiers, and the howling of women. Within them we now see taverns instead of altars, blasphemy for prayers, the cursing of heretics instead of pious and orthodox sermons, obscenity and impurities instead of chaste conferences."²⁰

9. To proceed with order in detailing the progress of this dire persecution of the Catholics by the Puritans we shall:

First, see the violence with which it raged in the chief districts in Ireland, down to the year 1652;

In the second part we shall examine the penal laws subsequently enacted by the Cromwellians for the avowed purpose of rooting out Catholicity from this "Island of Saints;"

And in the third part we shall detail some particular instances of the persecution, and trace its course even after the restoration of Charles II.

The matters referred to must be treated very briefly: but the extracts from contemporaneous writers, here produced, will show how intense were the sufferings of our forefathers, and how generously they fought the good fight, and preserved their faith, the most noble of all treasures, though they were stripped of all the earthly property they possessed. To the laws of this period may well be applied the words with which the illustrious Edmund Burke described the penal enactment of a later time: "The code against the Roman Catholics was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance; and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."

[1] See Memoirs of Dr. Plunket by Dr. Moran, p. 190.

[2] The motto of the Council of Kilkenny was "Pro Deo, Rege et Patria, Hibernia unanimis." V. Hibernia Dom., p. 876.

[3] The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, by Edward Earl of Clarendon, vol. i, p. 215.

[4] Lynch, op. cit., vol. iii, pp. 85-90.

[5] Ibid., p. 99.

[6] Aphorismical Discovery, vol. i, p. 12.

[7] "Rushworth's Collections," p. 455.

[8] History of the Execrable Irish Rebellion, by Edmund Borlase, p. 62.

[9] Apud. Prendergast, op. cit., p. 56.

[10] Apud. Curry, p. 169, and Vindiciae, p. 417. Cambrensis Eversus, vol. iii., p. 97, states that the Puritans of the North shot down the Catholics as wild beasts, and made it their special delight "to imbrue their swords in the heart's blood of all the male children."

[11] Borlase, op. cit., p. 112.

[12] Ibid., p. 113.

[13] Ibid., p. 104.

[14] Aphorismical Discovery, vol. i, p. 13.

[15] Alithinologia, p. 71.

[16] Aphorismical Discovery, vol. i, p. 32.

[17] Vol. iii, p. 517.

[18] Clarendon, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 478.

[19] An History of the Life of James Duke of Ormonde, by Thomas Carte, vol. iii, p. 109.

[20] Lynch, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 181.