The Convent of Limerick was one of the largest of the whole country, its inmates numbering forty-six religious. Cornelius O’Neill, Bishop of Limerick, had been a religious of the Order. 

He had been Consulted by the King about the divorce from his lawful wife, which he wishes to bring about, and gave his opinion firmly in her favour. The King was much angered and declared he would have his revenge.

The Bishop was aware of the dangers. He called the Trinitarians together and addressed them in the following words: 

"A beginning like this does not lead to a good end. The King and his kingdom are lost. The Catholic Church is in great danger, and heresy will be introduced amongst us unless God’s omnipotence protects us."

He advised them to prepare, to sell all the Property of the monastery, even the gold and silver vessels, lest they might be profaned, and to distribute the money among the poor. He gave like warning to the other religious Orders, and the secular clergy under his jurisdiction.

When he learned of the destruction of the monastery of Adare and the death of the religious there, he called the brethren together, and solemnly intoning the ‘Te Deum,’ he earnestly besought the Most Holy Trinity to grant them courage and Strength, that they might imitate their brethren who had been martyred.

The Bishop let it be known that he would preach on the feast of St. John in the cathedral. A large congregation assembled. He set before them the grounds of the Catholic faith and the Pope’s authority; he declared that the commands of the King were heretical and that he, and all who adhered to him were anathematized and concluded by asking from God strength for himself and for all under his care to defend the Catholic faith, even at the peril of their lives.

The King’s officials, afraid to offer him any violence in the church, on the evening of that day, went to his house; and they told him that he should obey the King’s order or suffer instant death.

Throwing himself on his knees and raising his eyes to Heaven, he exclaimed: ‘Lord, to-day I offered to Thee the unbloody sacrifice of the Body of my Lord Jesus Christ. Now accept the sacrifice of my life, to Thy greater honour and glory.’ And then fixing his eyes on a picture of the Most Holy Trinity, he ejaculated ‘Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus, Miserere nobis.’ A moment after the executioner severed his head from his body.

The officials then went through the house, and seized on the religious who happened to be there, and slew them. Their anger was all the greater when they found that nothing was left for them to plunder.

The Minister and his brother, who had come to visit the Bishop, were seized the next day. They were brought to the public square and ordered to swear obedience to the King. As they refused, they were beheaded on the spot.

The other religious in the convent were also asked to take the oath; and as all refused, some were hanged, other slain, others tied to the tails of horses and dragged along until they were dead. And so all triumphed gloriously on the 25th, of June, 1539.

‘The other convents of the Order,’ says Moran, Cork, Kilkenny, Ross, Dundalk, Galway, and Cashel, showed the same fortitude. All were plundered of whatever they possessed, And there was not one of them but was adorned with the palm of martyrdom. So universal indeed was the ruin that fell upon this religious Order, that all vestige of it has disappeared from the subsequent history of our Church.[1]

[1] Archbishops of Dublin, p.26. It is very probable that Lopez had his information about the sufferings of his brethren through F. Richard Goldie, a native of Limerick, who died at Madrid in 1652. See Noticias, p.521. O’Sullevan derived his knowledge from the same source.

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

Rothe’s Analecta, p423

He was appointed Archbishop of Cashel by Gregory XIll.

He landed in Skerries and went to Slane, was given a secret room by the Baron’s wife. Later he began to sit at table, not afraid to speak with any guests. 

Robert Dillon, the Chief Justice came to the house. While at table, some words fell from the Archbishop’s lips; and made the cunning Chief Justice ask who he was, and more. 

He fled. The Baron was brought before the judges. He should get a heavy fine and imprisonment, or bring them the Archbishop. The Baron, in great terror, immediately went in search of him.

The Baron overtook him and conducted him to Dublin. Some Catholics visited him. The conversation turned on the Bishop of Ferns, who abandoned the faith. 

‘There are many,’ said he, ‘who are lions before the fight, yet are found to be timid as deer in the fight. I humbly implore our good Lord that the like may not happen to me; for he who thinks he stands, let him take care lest he fall.’ 

In Dublin, he was accused of many crimes, but could not be convicted by open trial. 

It was resolved to use military law. 

But first torture. 

They placed the Archbishop’s feet and legs in boots filled with oil, they fastened his feet in stocks, and they put fire under them. The oil, heated by the flames, penetrated the soles, legs, and other parts, torturing them in an intolerable way, so that pieces of the skin dropped from the flesh, portions of the flesh from the bared bones. He who was presiding over this torture, not being used to such strange cruelty, rushed hurriedly out of the room, that he might not look further at such savage conduct or hear the cries of the innocent Archbishop. 

The executioners wished to gratify their minds for a while with these strange cruelties, but they did not mean to be satiated thereby, for after an interval of a few days they hurried the Prelate, who had been racked and was almost expiring from the continued tortures, and had no thought then that he should be put to death so suddenly, to a field not far from Dublin Castle, at the break of day, lest the citizens should crowd to witness such cruelty, and there they hanged the innocent man from the gallows with a halter roughly made of twigs, that his sufferings might be all the greater.

Not only his feet and legs were penetrated by the hot oil and salt, not only did the skin and flesh fall from the joints, not only were the muscles and nerves, the veins and arteries, saturated with the fiery mixture, not only were the limbs and sinews and bones pierced by this fierce fluid, but his whole body was devoured by the heat, and at the same time bathed in a cold sweat.

With a loud voice he used to cry out: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me.’ 

These words he uttered aloud he repeated and pronounced sweetly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me’. 

He seemed to be exhausted by the extent of his sufferings; he lay on the ground dumb and almost lifeless; he could not move his eyes or tongue, his hands or feet, or any member of his body. 

He who was superintending the execution began to dread that while ordered only to inflict torture, he had exceeded his orders and brought about the Archbishop’s death. 

As Perrott was about to receive the sword of office on Trinity Sunday, the preceding Friday, he was put on a hurdle and taken out by the garden gate to the place where he was hanged, while he prayed to God and forgave his tormentors. 

His body was buried later buried in the ruinous chapel of St. Kevin. Many miracles are said to have been wrought at this tomb.

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

HE was a native of Connaught and parish priest of Coolrahen.[1]

When the soldiers of Elizabeth rushed into the village he took refuge in the church; but to no purpose, for these persecutors of priests and profaners of churches, the English heretics, hanged him in the church opposite the high altar, and afterwards pierced him through with their swords, and so he ended his life in a very holy way, June 12th, 1582.

See also Copinger, Molanus, O’Sullevan, Ward, and Porter.

[1] Copinger gives the name Coleraine
 

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

He was a native of the city of Cork.[1] He lived for some years in the Society of Jesus, and during that time made extraordinary progress in virtue; but after some years, owing to illness, he left the Order, with the full consent of the Fathers.[2]

He was appointed Bishop of Cork[3] November 5th 1574. But hardly had the burthen of the episcopate been laid on him, when he was taken to Dublin and imprisoned there for having opposed the unjust laws of the Queen. 

While in prison he was tortured in divers ways, and more than once he was hung up for two hours, while his hands were tied behind his back with a rope. 

Broken with these and various other sufferings, he went to receive the reward of his labours on the 4th of June, 1578, after an imprisonment of eighteen months.

See also Holing, Rothe, Copinger, and Lynch.

[1] In a papal document in the Irish Ecci. Record, 6. 147, he is said to have been a native of the (ecclesiastical) province of Dublin.
[2] Through great sickness and not without the licence of his superiors, and the advice of physicians, he was enforced to come forth out of the Society.’ Lynch, De Pres. Hib., ii. 612
[3] See Brady’s Epis. Succession, ii.86, and Irish Ecci. Record, i.316

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

(From Alegamb’es MorteS lllustre, p538)

JOHN MEAGH was a native of Cork. 

To escape the persecution, his father took him to Naples. After his father died he entered the service of the Viceroy. When the Viceroy was recalled to Spain John found himself there. 

After obtaining an annual pension he returned to Naples. He prayed to God to make known when he opened a book, the manner of life he should enter on. He opened it, and found there the Life of St. Dympna,[2] a maiden of royal birth, who fled from Ireland to avoid her father’s fury, and was later slain by him.

John thought the story of a woman unsuited for imitation, but went on reading it; again and again. ‘What if God wishes me to leave the world,’ said he, ‘and to flee from all occasions of sin, as that royal maiden did when she left her native country.’ 

Wherefore, he determined to enter religious life; and whilst hesitating somewhat, was wrongfully accused of a grievous crime. Seeing in prison a statue of St. Ignatius, he was consoled with the thought that he too, was thrown into prison though free from all guilt. Wherefore, he asked his aid. Soon, he was released. 

He set off from Rome. On the way his leg was hurt, and he was hospitably entertained by our Fathers, and nursed until he recovered. Full of gratitude, and remembering St. lgnatius too had broken his leg, he entered the Society. He was ordained, and set back to Naples. 

He entered the noviciate, and was sent to Bohemia to acquire experience before returning to Ireland to save souls. He was about to depart for Ireland, and he had prepared himself for the journey by make the spiritual exercises. 

John Pauer, who commanded the Swedish army that harassed Germany, made an incursion into Bohemia in 1639 and laid siege to Prague. 

The Fathers looked for some safe place where they might take refuge. The College of Neuhaus seemed better suited than any other place. 

Several were told to go there by different roads; these were beset with robbers, to the ruin of travellers. Moreover, many of the people were still infected with wicked doctrine, and the consequences of that evil teaching induced these rude men to assail those who strove to root out such principles by their preaching. 

Many were robbed and forced to fly. Three were slain, namely, John Meagh, Martin Ignatius, and Wenceslaus Trnoska. There are 2 reasons for asserting that they were put to death through hatred of the Catholic faith. 

One is the hatred which the heretics have for the very name of Jesuit, because they find them to be among the most active and zealous defenders and teachers of the faith. 

The second is, that they did no harm whatever to the other persons who were travelling with ours, nay, even they bade them put away all fear and take courage; this is a certain fact. 

John received one wound in the breast from a small leaden bullet. Martin was wounded in the breast, and received a deadly blow on the head from an axe. Wenceslaus was shot through the temples. The place where they were murdered is one mile from Guttenberg, on the road to Neuhas. The date was May 31st, 1639. 

Their bodies were taken away by Bernard De Gerschoff, and buried in the church of the Holy Trinity, in the village of Litz. On June 3rd they were transferred to the church of St. Barbara, at the Rector’s request. 

F. John Meagh was put to death in his 39th year, thirteen of which he has passed in the Society of Jesus.

See also Rothe, Tanner, and Bruodin.

[1] Probably a native of Cork. Several of the named were Mayors of Cork between 1379 and 1437.
[2] Her feast is o May 15”. See OHanlons Lives of the Irish Sa,ntS, v. 264

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

(Ibid., p. 442)

AMONG the chiefs who took up arms in defence of the Catholic faith professed by their ancestors against the unjust persecutions of Queen Elizabeth about the year 1580, we must reckon these illustrious champions, Viscount Baltinglass[2] and John, Baron of Dunkellin. 

The English executioners, whose thirst for the innocent blood of Catholics was insatiable, put to death in several ways many noble Catholics through hatred of the faith, under one false pretext or another, and especially because they were suspected of sharing in the sentiments of the aforesaid nobles. 

Among the many noble knights who were put to death in Dublin in the year 1581, for their constancy in the Catholic faith rather than for the above reason invented by the heretics, were Nicholas Nugent, David Sutton, and his brother John Sutton[3], Thomas Eustace and his son John[4], William Wogan, lord of Rathcoffy; Robert Sherlock, John Clinch, lord of Scrine Thomas Netherfield,[5]and Robert Fitzgerald. 

All these most famous men, no regard being had to their high birth or the respectability of their families, were hanged and then quartered in Dublin on the 26th of May, 1581.

‘Nugent,’ says Camden, ‘a man of singular good life and reputation, was merely circumvented (as the Irish report) by the cunning of his adversaries. 

He, relying upon the conscience of his own innocency, when the Lord Deputy faithfully promised him his life if he would confess himself guilty, chose rather, being guiltless, to undergo an infamous death, than by betraying his own innocency to lead an infamous[6] 1ife.’

It is to these, no doubt, the Annals of Loch Cé refer[7], under the date 1581. 

‘Eighteen heirs of the nobles of the foreigners of Meath were put to death in Dublin by the Justiciary of Erin this year.’

See also Holing, Rothe, Copinger, Molanus, and Lynch

[1] He was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
[2] An Act of parliament was passed in 1585, 27 Eliz. Ci., attainting him and his four brothers. He died in Portugal.
[3] Of Castletown, Co. Kildare. Archdall, vi. 178
[4] Copinger says : Mr Thomas Eustace, with his son and heir, said the litanies going up the ladder.’ Spic. Ossor., iii.42
[5] Or Netterville
[6] Annals, p. 311
[7] ii.447

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

(From Bruodin’s Propugnaculum, p. 449)

PATRICK O’CONOR was descended from the very ancient and royal stock of the O’Conors in Connaught. 

Abandoning the deceitful pleasures of the world in the flower of youth, he made his religious profession in the celebrated monastery of Boyle,[1] in the diocese of Elphin, in Connaught, among the most observant of the disciples of the Mellifluous Doctor,[2] in the year of our Lord 1562. 

For twenty-three years he was seen to advance in every kind of virtue, in such a way that he became a shining light to his brethren by the practice of every good work. 

He was constant in prayer, and used to shed tears in abundance while so engaged. 

He was unwearied in works of charity, especially towards the sick. 

He was kindly to all, but he was very stern in chastising his own body. 

For the last fifteen years of his life he drank neither wine nor beer. 

He abstained from flesh meat during the whole time that he was a monk.

The Almighty wishing to reward these great merits, allowed that he and Father Malachy O’Kelly, a monk of the same monastery, a religious no less illustrious for his descent from and ancient and noble family than for his great virtues, should fall into the cruel hands of the fierce soldiers of Elizabeth. 

By these they were first hanged and then quartered at the aforesaid monastery, May 19th, 1585, through hatred of the Catholic faith, which this undaunted champion preached constantly up to his last breath. 

Bruodin refers the reader to a manuscript book in the College of Prague, in which an account is given of these martyrs, and also to Henriquez’s Menologium Cisterciense.

According to Hartry, Father Malachy O’KeIIy was pierced through the heart with a sword.[3]

See also Annus Cisterciensis, Henriquez and Hartry

[1] Founded for Cistercians in 1161. See Triumphalia, xxxviii
[2] This title is often given to St. Bernard, as that of Angelic Doctor to St. Thomas
[3] Ibid., p. 257
 

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

(from Broudin's Propugnaculum, p. 469)

THIS priest was a native of Connaught, and of noble birth.

Having overcome various torments in defence of the Catholic faith, broken down by the noisomeness and hardships of the prison in which he was confined in the company of robbers, he gave up his soul to God on May 15th, 1601. 

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

(From Bruodin’s Propugnaculum, p.456)

HE was a native of Meath. 

Because he upheld the Catholic religion, he was hanged and quartered in Dublin. 

Wherefore, fighting bravely for Christ to the end, he obtained the martyr’s crown, and an increase of honour of his most illustrious family.

He suffered May 6th 1588.

This is probably the same person who is called by Copinger Sir Patrick of the Anally.[1]

[1] Spic. Ossor., iii.42

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.

(from Broudin's Propugnaculum, p. 432)

MAURICE GIBBON, a native of Munster, and Archbishop of Cashel, a prelate endowed with every kind of virtue, was confined in prison for many years[2] in Cork because he refused to take the oath of Supremacy, and endured therein endless misery. 

He ended his life very holily there[3],on May 6th, 1578.

See also Sander, Bridgewater, Bozius, Rothe, Copinger, and Arsdeken.

[1] Or Fitzgibbon. He is also called Maurice Reagh. See his Life in Renehans Collections, i.241.
[2] In his letter to Pope Gregory XIII. He speaks of his creberrims vincula.’ Spic. Ossor., i.70
[3] Holing, however, says he died at Oporto. Ibid., p.83

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.