THE PAST AND PRESENT ORMONDES

New Zealand Tablet, 9 January 1913, Page 15

THE PAST AND PRESENT ORMONDES

At the late anti-Horne Rule meeting held at Kilkenny Castle (writes „the Very Rev. Canon Murphy, A Kilmanagh), special compliments were paid to tlie House or Ormonde, as it its representatives were always supporters of the Ascendancy anti-Irish faction. It may be news for the majority of the Kilkenny Unionists that the . present House of Ormonde is descended in a direct line from one whom the Nuncio Rinucinni styles an excellent Catholic (Catholicus perfectissimus), Colonel Richard Butler, of Kilcash, brother of the great Duke of Ormonde. He was commissioned by the Supreme Council of the Catholic Confederation to congratulate the Nuncio on his safe arrival and to escort him from Macroom to Limerick with a select bodyguard of horse soldiers. We have here in Kilmanagh a very beautiful Benediction monstrance of Irish manufacture, presented by Colonel Butler, bearing his own and his wife’s crests, and the following inscription:— ‘ God be marciful to the Honnoiable Collonell Richard Butler and his Right Honnorable Lady, Frances Butler, alias Touchet ’ (Castle-' haven) The humeral veil which accompanies it has the following inscription 11 The gift of Mrs. Butler. Pray for the soul of Walter Butler, Esq., of the Castle of Kilkenny, who departed this life the 2nd of June 1783. ’ ’ Every time the priceless monstrance is made use of in the Benediction service, there must go up to heaven a plea for the return to the faith of their fathers of a family which did so much for the preservation of the faith m Ireland in the dark days of persecution, which gave so many saintly and learned ecclesiastics to the Church, including Dr. Christopher Butler, Archbishop of Cashel from 1712 to 1757, of whom De Burgo writes that ‘ he might be justly compared to the bishops of the golden age of the Church,’ and which was distinguished by a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to the Immaculate Mother of God. . In the year 1650, in the bustle of Cromwell’s cam- • paign in Ireland, Colonel Richard Butler fell into the hands of the Parliamentary forces. .Cromwell granted him the following ‘ safe conduct ’ for the purpose stated therein. The document is preserved in Kilkenny Castle: * April 29th, 1650.—Forasmuch as Colonell Richard Butler, of Kilcash, in the County of Tipperary, stands engaged for some moneyes for the ransomming of some prisoners at Dublyn, who are since released and doth desire leave to go to the Lord of Ormond the Lord of Inchiquin, or any other of the enemies paitie to disengage himself of the-obligation aforesaid: ™cc are therefore to require and strictly to charge all officers and soldiers under my command quietly to pel nut and suffer the said Colonell Butler, with James Lea, James Comerford, and Vincent Daulton, his servants, and their horses, riding armes and other necessanes, quietly to pass to the Lord of Ormond, the Lord of Inchiqum, or any of the enemies party to procure his discharge of the aforesaid ineamt. and to return to my headquarters without any lett or interruption Provided the same be done before the twelfth day of May next. And I do hereby declare that if within the - tune aforesaid the said Colonell Butler shall discharge his said mgagmt, that then the said Colonell shall be free and at liberty from his imprisonment. Given under my hand this 29th day of April, 1650.—0. Cromwell.’ , Ihe Ormondes were such staunch, devoted Catholics and always so liberal and humane, it must be regarded as a perversement of history and also of the fitness of ? things that they should be held up as figureheads in ~f t ei L°n n C °r nty for ..anything derogatory to Ireland , n £ S® rehgion which was that of their ancestors up to the year 1764. The local papers of the period tel! us what manner of man the first pervert, John of ~™e, was-a weed flung over the Pope’s garden