plete enumeration, especially as regards the period from 1640 to 1680.

I have undertaken to collect the biographies of those who suffered for the Catholic faith, not to write a contribution to the political history of Ireland; hence the scheme of my work does not embrace the lives of those, however glorious their career, however noble the cause for which they suffered, who did not suffer directly for that faith. The same rule has been observed by those who preceded me. Thus Bruodin says: "Neminem hic nomino in bello justissimo a Catholicis in Hibernia, pro defensione fidei, regis et patriæ incepto occisum, inde eorum hic facio memoriam qui omni jure, nominari merentur inter eos qui pro Christo certando occubuêre." (P. 698.)*

In the case of laymen, I have thus been led to omit many who no doubt were persecuted really on account of their religion, but nominally for political reasons; in the case of priests there is much less difficulty. Bishop Heber MacMahon indeed, who fell at the head of his troops, although one of the noblest characters of his age, is excluded by Bruodin's rule; but priests who, although non-combatants, were put to death in the discharge of their sacred duties when attending the dying on the battle-field, or exceptionally slain after the surrender of towns because priests, are clearly to be enumerated as martyrs. In the great majority of cases, however, there is no question whatever the priests and bishops were imprisoned and put to death simply on account of their religion. Although, as in England, they may have been tried for treason, the treason consisted either of " a second refusal to take the oath acknowledging the queen's supremacy, or having a second time defended the supremacy of the Roman See," (5 Eliz. cap. i.,) or "obtaining any bull, or persuading any one to be reconciled to the Church of Rome," (13 Eliz. cap. ii., and 23 Eliz. cap. i., and 3 Jac. cap. iv.,) or, "having been consecrated priest abroad, entering or remaining in the kingdom, or receiving, hiding, or assisting a priest," (27 Eliz. cap. ii.) And if my readers will turn to the lives of

So also Morison: "Non recenseo hic ullum in bello occisum, quamvis fidei causa occideretur."

Archbishop O'Hurley, Archbishop Creagh, or Archbishop Plunket, they will see how little their deaths were due to anything save their religion. As, however, a good deal of misapprehension exists on this subject, it may be well briefly to trace the position of the Irish bishops and priests in relation to the civil government from the reign of Henry VIII. The church had never condemned, nay, she had sanctioned the resistance of the Irish to the English invaders; but from the time that their power became firmly established and was the only existing government within the pale, the ecclesiastics subject to their sway preached obedience to what was henceforth, in those districts, the only representative of authority. The case was very different in those parts of the country which preserved their independence for centuries later; but, as I have before mentioned, there was not from the thirteenth century a national government exercising, or even claiming, supreme authority over the whole kingdom. In the sixteenth century the suzerainty of the English king was pretty generally acknowledged; even the great O'Neill, although preserving a virtual independence, did not claim a perfectly independent sovereignty; and from the reign of Elizabeth, the sovereign of England was acknowledged as the only de facto ruler of Ireland. Hence bishops and priests, in pursuance of their duty of obedience to the powers that be, not only submitted themselves, but preached the duty of submission to others. Thus Dr. Roothe under James I. wrote:

"I know that the inhabitants of Ireland, the subjects of our king, are contented with the present peace, (as the subjects of the Roman empire under Augustus ;) I know how they detest the tumults of war, and desire to devote themselves to the arts of peace and enjoy its sweets; I know they desire nothing more than the happiness of the king and his offspring, and that under their auspices may be firmly established the much-desired peace and indulgence toward the Irish, both in respect to other matters and especially in those matters which regard religion, the divine worship, and the profession and practices of the ancient faith."

On the accession of Charles I. the Irish acknowledged him as their legitimate king; and when his English subjects rebelled

against him, the Irish defended his cause with arms; and the Catholic synod of Kilkenny in 1641, presided over by Hugh O'Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh, declared: "Whereas, the war which now in Ireland the Catholics do maintain against sectaries, and chiefly against Puritans, is for the defence of the Catholic religion, for the maintenance of the prerogative and royal rights of our gracious King Charles," and ordered the following oath to be taken by all: "I, A. B., do profess, swear, and protest, before God and his angels, that I will, during my life, bear true faith and allegiance to my Sovereign Lord Charles, by the grace of God King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, and to his heirs and lawful successors." The Confederates of Kilkenny, indeed, very rightly sought at the same time to secure freedom for their own religion, and the exercise of their own civil rights; but it is essential to remember that the Confederation of Kilkenny sought to maintain the rights of Ireland under the existing dynasty and government, (which, although alien and wrongful in its introduction, could then claim to be established by time,) not to substitute by revolution a new government for it. The scheme of making the Duke of Lorraine king of Ireland found little favor, even when Charles was wholly unable to afford that protection which is the correlative of obedience. The Irish of the middle of the seventeenth century were, indeed, called rebels, and treated as such, but it was by those who were themselves really rebels against their legitimate sovereign, the republicans of England; and the Cromwellian persecution smote them alike for their fidelity to their religion and to their king.

Under Charles II., also, the Irish Catholics were faithful subjects; they were only too faithful to his brother James. But from the time when the dynasty of Orange was established on the throne, it was obeyed by the Catholic priests of Ireland, whose one rule was to mix as little as might be in secular politics, and under those successive and different governments, all alike alien in their origin, to observe the apostle's precept to be subject to the powers that be. This is well stated in the synodal decrees of the province of Armagh given by Dr. Renehan :* "All priests

• Renehan's Bishops, p. 118.

are to take care not to mix themselves up, either publicly or privately, with affairs of state or of temporal government, nor to incur the enmity of the king's majesty or of the temporal governors, unless only it be by discharging their duty to God and their flocks in the administration of spirituals, leaving to Cæsar what is Cæsar's, and to God what is God's."

But if they were ever ready to obey in worldly matters the various temporal rulers who governed Ireland, they were inflexible in preserving their own and their people's higher spiritual allegiance to their Divine Ruler and his vicegerent on earth, and to them we owe the preservation of our noblest and most enduring nationality, our Catholicity. Of them it may well be said, "They took care of their nation, and delivered it from destruction." Rightly may we "praise these men of renown and our fathers in their generation," for they preserved for us the faith, through such a persecution as has rarely, if ever, elsewhere been endured: "they had trials of mockeries and stripes, of bands and prisons, they were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword, they wandered about in sheep-skins, in goat-skins, being in want, distressed, of whom the world was not worthy. But in all these things they overcame, because of him who loved us ;" and by their sufferings has been preserved to Ireland, not only the faith, but also the spirit of fidelity and sacrifice of which they have left such glorious examples. The roll of those who suffered open violence for the faith closes with 1745, but not then ended the tale of those who were faithful even unto death.

For one hundred years more (until 1829) did Irish Catholics submit to the privation of every worldly advantage rather than abandon their faith,* "accounting all things as dross that they might gain Christ." Nay, even at a later date, when in 1847 famine and pestilence smote the land; when "our skin was burnt as in an oven by reason of the violence of the famine; when the tongue of the suckling child stuck to the roof of his mouth for thirst; when the little ones asked for bread and there was none to break it to them, and they breathed out their souls on the breasts of

• "Manum suam misit hostis ad omnia desiderabilia ejus."

their mothers;" when it might truly be said, "It was better with them that were slain by the sword than with them that died with hunger;" and when the generous people of England, of France, of Italy, and of every other Christian land sent abundant alms to our famishing people, there were found in some districts of Ireland men base enough to use hunger as an instrument of torture to make the poor forswear their religion, who offered food and clothing as the price of apostasy, and tempted our starving peasants to barter, like Esau, their birthright of faith for a mess of pottage. And there were found hundreds, I might say thousands-old men, and weak women, and tender children, whose names, unrecorded here, are registered in heaven-who spurned the temptation, as their ancestors had done before them, turned fainting from the food that was the wages of sin, and purchased an eternal kingdom by a death of hunger, imitating him who "chose rather to be afflicted with the people of God than to have the pleasure of sin for a time," because, like him, "they looked to the reward." And others there were who, when called upon by the representatives of that alien church, which for three centuries had sought in vain to bring them into its fold, either to send their children to schools of error or to abandon the occupation of the land on which they lived, hesitated not, but left home and country and all that made life dear, and became dwellers in a strange land. Truly they remembered "that we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come; for they that do these things signify that they seek a country and that they desire a better, that is to say, a heavenly country."

It cannot, then, be doubtful that the brief records of those who suffered for the Catholic faith in Ireland will be welcome to their descendants; nor will they be without interest even for strangers and members of another church. The age of strife and religious persecution is past: the descendants of the persecutors and the persecuted are now citizens of a common country, and can respect the noble deeds of all her former children. The valor and endurance of her martial sons are a subject of pride, whether displayed in the defence of Londonderry or of Limerick, at Clontarf or Benburb. Far more does the record of undeserved sufferings heroically endured for conscience' sake claim the respect of all;