Irish Catholic Martyrs () were 24 Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for both a life of heroic virtue and for dying for their Catholic faith between the reign of King Henry VIII and Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
The more than three century-long religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland came in waves, caused by an overreaction by the State to certain incidents and interspersed with intervals of comparative respite.Barry, Patrick, "The Penal Laws", L'Osservatore Romano, p.8, 30 November 1987
The 1975 canonization of Archbishop Oliver Plunkett, who was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 1 July 1681, raised considerable public interest in other Irishmen and Irishwomen who had similarly died for their Catholic faith in the 16th and 17th centuries. On 22 September 1992 Pope John Paul II beatified an additional 17 martyrs and assigned June 20, the anniversary of the 1584 martyrdom of Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley, as their feast day.CREAZIONE DI VENTUNO NUOVI BEATI: OMELIA DI GIOVANNI PAOLO II, Piazza San Pietro - Domenica, 27 settembre 1992.
History Henry VIII
Religious persecution of Catholics in Ireland began under King Henry VIII (then Lord of Ireland) after his excommunication in 1533. The Irish Parliament adopted the Acts of Supremacy, which declared the Irish Church subservient to the State. In response, Irish bishops, priests, and laity who continued to pray for the pope during Mass were tortured and killed. The Treasons Act 1534 defined even unspoken mental allegiance to the Holy See as high treason. Many were imprisoned on this basis. Alleged traitors who were brought to trial.Hale's History of Pleas of the Crown (1800 ed.) vol. 1, chapter XXIX (from Google Books). King Henry and Thomas Cromwell continued Cardinal Wolsey's policies of centralizing government power in Dublin Castle and sought to destroy the political and military independence of both the Old English nobility, the Irish clans, and the Gaelic nobility of Ireland. This, in addition to the King's religious policy, ultimately triggered Old English aristocrat Silken Thomas, 10th and last Earl of Kildare, to launch a 1534-1535 military uprising against the rule of the House of Tudor in Ireland.R. Dudley Edwards (December 1934), "Venerable John Travers and the Rebellion of Silken Thomas", Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, pp. 687-699.
On c.30 July 1535 John Travers, a graduate of Oxford University and the Chancellor of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, was executed in Dublin for writing a volume denouncing the Act of Supremacy. He was burned at the stake in the Common then known as, "Oxmantown Green", part of which has since become Smithfield Market on the city's Northside."Martyrs of England and Wales" New Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9 (1967), p. 322.Philip O'Sullivan Beare (1903), Chapters Towards a History of Ireland Under Elizabeth, pages 2-3.
Elizabeth I The focus of religious persecution turned from Catholics to Protestants after the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary, but after Mary's death in November 1558, her half-sister Queen Elizabeth I arranged for Parliament to pass the Act of Supremacy of 1559, which re-established the control by the State over the Church within her dominions and criminalized religious dissent as high treason. While reviving Thomas Cranmer's prayerbook, the Queen ordered the Elizabethan religious settlement to favor High Church Anglicanism, which preserved many traditionally Catholic ceremonies. Meanwhile, the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (1559), the Prayer Book of 1559, and the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) mixed the doctrines of Protestantism and Caesaropapism."The Reign of Elizabeth I" by J.P. Sommerville, University of Wisconsin. From the early years of her reign, pressure was put on all her subjects to conform to the "Established Church" of the realm or be considered guilty of high treason. Prosecutions for Recusancy and refusals to take the Oath of Supremacy, the issuing of torture warrants, and the use of priest hunters escalated rapidly.
In 1563 the Earl of Essex issued a proclamation, by which all Catholic priests, secular and regular, were forbidden to officiate, or even to reside in Dublin or in The Pale. Fines and penalties were strictly enforced for Recusancy from the Anglican Sunday service; before long. Catholic priests and others were hunted into the Mass rocks in mountains and caves; and the parish churches and few monastic chapels which had escaped earlier destruction were also destroyed.Cusack, Margaret Anne, An Illustrated History of Ireland, libraryireland.com; accessed 11 July 2015. It ultimately resulted in Pope Pius V's 1570 papal bull Regnans in Excelsis, which, "released [Elizabeth I's] subjects from their allegiance to her".
In Ireland the First Desmond Rebellion, led by James FitzMaurice FitzGerald and which sought to replace Queen Elizabeth I with Don John of Austria as High King of Ireland, was launched in 1569, at almost the same time as the Northern Rebellion in England. The Wexford Martyrs were found guilty of high treason for aiding in the escape of James Eustace, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass and refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy and declare Elizabeth I of England to be the Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland.
The ongoing religious persecution also became highly significant as the primary cause of the Nine Years War, which similarly sought to replace Queen Elizabeth with a High King from the House of Habsburg. The war formally began when Red Hugh O'Donnell expelled English High Sheriff of Donegal Humphrey Willis, but not before Red Hugh listed his reasons for taking up arms against the House of Tudor and alluded in particular to the recent torture and executions of Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley and Bishop Patrick O'Hely.Philip O'Sullivan Beare (1903), Chapters Towards a History of Ireland Under Elizabeth, page 68.
Beatified Martyrs of this period include Margaret Ball, former Lady Mayoress of Dublin, who died as a prisoner of conscience in Dublin Castle for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, in 1584. Dominic Collins, was Jesuit lay brother and former Catholic League military officer, under the nom de guerre "Captain de la Branche", who served during the Brittany Campaign of the French Wars of Religion. Captured following Battle of Kinsale and the 11-day Siege of Dunboy. Officially hanged for high treason, but in reality for refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, outside the walls of his native Youghal, County Cork, 31 October 1602
King James I
According to D.P. Conyngham, "It was fondly hoped by the Catholics of Ireland that the accession of James would bring peace and repose to the Church in that distracted and oppressed country. A general feeling of relief and joy pervaded all classes. Many of those who had been forced into exile returned to their native country: churches were rebuilt - monasteries repaired - the sacred duties of the sanctuary were resumed, and the offices of the Church were performed with undisturbed safety throughout the Kingdom. This state of comparative tranquility was not, however, suffered to continue..."D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Page 104. A Royal edict issued on 4 July 1605 announced that Elizabethan-era Recusancy laws were to be rigorously enforced and added, "It hath seemed proper to us to proclaim, and we hereby make it known to our subjects in Ireland, that no toleration shall ever be granted by us. This we do for the purpose of cutting off all hope that any other religion shall be allowed - save that which is consonant to the laws and statutes of this realm."D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Pages 104-105.
King Charles I According to historian D.P. Conyngham, "Ireland was torn by contending factions, and was oppressed by two belligerents during the reign of Charles. The Catholics took up arms in defense of themselves, their religion, and their King. Charles, with the proverbial fickleness of the Stuarts, when pressed by the Puritans, persecuted the Irish, while he encouraged them when he hoped their loyalty and devotion would be the means of establishing his royal prerogative. For eight years Ireland was the theatre of the most desolating war and implacable persecution."D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Page 137. Beatified Martyrs of the era included Peter O'Higgins, Dominican Order, hanged outside the walls of Dublin at St Stephen's Green, on 24 March 1642.Edited by Patrick J. Cornish and Benignus Millet (2005), The Irish Martyrs, Four Courts Press, Dublin. Pages 148–156.
The Commonwealth and Protectorate of England On 24 October 1644, the Puritan-controlled Rump Parliament in London, seeking to retaliate for acts of sectarian violence like the Portadown massacre during the recent 1641 uprising, resolved, "that no quarter shall be given to any Irishman, or to any papist born in Ireland." Upon landing with the New Model Army at Dublin, Oliver Cromwell issued orders that no mercy was to be shown to the Irish, whom he said were to be treated like the Canaanites during the time of the Old Testament prophet Joshua.D.P. Conyngham, Lives of the Irish Martyrs, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, New York. Page 138. After taking Ireland in 1653, the New Model Army turned Inishbofin, County Galway, into a prison camps for Catholic priests arrested while exercising their religious ministry covertly in other parts of Ireland. Inishmore, in the Aran Islands, was used for exactly the same purpose. The last priests held on both islands were finally released following the Stuart Restoration in 1662.Nugent, Tony (2013). Were You at the Rock? The History of Mass Rocks in Ireland. Liffey Press. Pages 51-52, 148. Officially beatified martyrs of the era include Theobald Stapleton, (), slain during the Sack of Cashel, 15 September 1647. Another beatified martyr was John Kearney (1619-1653) who was born in Cashel, County Tipperary and joined the Franciscans at the Kilkenny friary. After his novitiate, he went to Leuven in Belgium and was ordained in Brussels in 1642. Returned to Ireland, he taught in Cashel and Waterford, and was much admired for his preaching. In 1650 he became erenagh of Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary. During the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland, he was arrested by the New Model Army while continuing to exercise an illegal and underground priestly ministry throughout the valley of the River Suir and executed by hanging at Clonmel, County Tipperary on 21 March 1653. He lies buried in the chapter hall of the suppressed friary of Cashel.Edited by Patrick J. Cornish and Benignus Millet (2005), The Irish Martyrs, Four Courts Press, Dublin. Pages 165–175.
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