THE BEATIFICATION OF OLIVER PLUNKET

New Zealand Tablet, 3 June 1920, Page 18

THE BEATIFICATION OF OLIVER PLUNKET

THE STORY OF HIS LIFE AND MARTYRDOM. The Blessed Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Martyr, was born at Loughcrew, near Oldcastle, Co. Meath, Ireland, in 1629. He was by blood connected with the Earls of Roscommon and of Fingall, as well as with Lords Louth and Dunsauy. Till his 16th year his education was looked after by his relative, Patrick Plunket, Abbot - of St. Mary’s, Dublin, brother of the first Earl of Fingall, and afterwards Bishop successively of Ardagh and of Meath, In 1645 Oliver went to Rome to study for the priesthood. In the Jesuit College there he shone brilliantly as a student, and was regarded by all as a model of gentleness, integrity, and piety. At the age of 25 he was ordained priest, and was deputed by the Irish bishops to act as their representative in Rome. He had perforce to remain away from Ireland, for those were the years of Cromwell’s reign of terror in that country. Shortly after his ordination he was appointed a professor of theology at the College of Propaganda, Rome. On July 9, 1669, the Holy See made him Archbishop-elect of his native • diocese of Armagh, and three months later he was . consecrated at Ghent, in Belgium, by the Bishop of Ghent. Dr. Plunket arrived in his native land in the early part of 1670, and immediately took over the administration of his archdiocese. That he found religious organisation in a most deplorable state is evidenced • from his own report to Rome in 1673, in which he wrote that since he came to his See in 1670 ho had to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to no fewer than 48,665 persons, some of them being 60 years old. The Curse of Cromwell. Education as well as religion was in a deplorable state as a result of Cromwell’s regime, and the Archibshop did all in his power to remedy matters. He established a college in Drogheda, and brought Jesuits from Rome to carry it on. There were soon 150 boys on the roil, among them being 40 who were sons of the Protestant settlers. There was also another matter which concerned tho welfare and peace of his people, and to which he devoted himself with great self-sacrifice. Cromwell had driven the peasantry from their homes and fields, and had bestowed this stolen property on his virtuous “baby-killers.” As a reward for their foolish loyalty to the house of Stuart, Charles 11. had also dispossessed many of the “mere Irish” of their lands. There was no emigration from Ireland in those days except forced emigration as slaves of English planters in the Barbadoes. The result was that those who had been robbed of their property were left without means of subsistence. Maddened at their wrongs, and with starvation and death facing them, they banded themselves together to “spoil their spoilers.” Those of them who were subjects of Archbishop Plunket had their strongholds in the Mourne Mountains, the Carlingford Mountains, and other fastnesses where they could defy pursuit. A constant guerilla warfare was being waged between them and the settlers, aided by English troops. The Peacemaker’s Reward. Oliver Plunket offered himself as mediator, and ho himself went from outlaw to outlaw among tho wild mountains of South Ulster, having been empowered by the Government to offer pardon and hope of subsistence if the “robbers” would cease their reprisals. His efforts were successful. But ho was immediately made an outlaw himself ; for he was not more than three years in Ireland when a fierce persecution of the Catholics began once more. All the churches in the archdiocese of Armagh were closed, all the schools, scattered, teachers and priests were exiled, and soon the Archbishop himself was a fugi- . tive among the mountains of Armagh and Louth. The former outlaws of the hills would not betray him who now was an outlaw himself, and for five years the hunted Archbishop escaped his pursuers. His Martyrdom. At length, on December 6,' 1679, he was seized, and sent as a prisoner to Dublin Castle. After being imprisoned there for 10 months without trial, he was removed to London,- where, after six months of further detention, he was tried on June 8, 1681. The trial was conducted in defiance of every principle of law and justice. The judges who presided were unable to conceal their hostility to him ; he was not allowed the assistance of counsel for his defence; the witnesses and documents necessary to rebut the perjured evidence of - his accusers were in Ireland, and he was refused sufficient time to bring them into court. The result was inevitable. After 15 minutes’ deliberation a naturally prejudiced jury brought in a ver-

dict of “guilty.” | The. reply, of [.the Primate , was > sublime* —it was a simple heartfelt “Deo Gratias,” Chief Justice. Pemberton, who tried him,. declared, in his judgment,, that there could be no greater crime than to endeavor- ’ to propagate the Catholic faith, “than, which,” he said,, there is not anything more displeasing to God or more; pernicious to mankind in the world.” y, On July 11 the execution took place. The .venerable* Primate was dragged on a hurdle to a gibbet, where he* hung until exhausted. Then his body was ripped open,, and Ins heart and his bowels torn out, his. arms and legs, chopped off, and finally his head, severed from his body,, was held by the hair while the words “So perish all traitors,” were uttered. A contemporary and friend, Dr. Brennan, Archbishop of Cashel, wrote in an official letter to Propaganda, that the great crowd who witnessed the execution was filled with admiration because the Primate “displayed such a serenity of countenance, such a tranquillity of mind and elevation of soul, that he seemed rather a spouse hastening to the nuptial feast than a culprit led- forth to the scaffold.” Just before his execution he spoke to.the vast multitude who surrounded him. An eye-witness of • the execution declared that by this discourse and by the heroism, of his death, Archbishop Plunket gave more glory to religion than he could have won for it by many years of a fruitful apostolate. A couple of years after the execution the martyr’s body was. brought from London to Lambspring, in Germany. here it remained till 1884, when it was transferred to Downside College, England. The head was, from the first, enshrined apart, and has been in the care of the Dominican Nuns of the martyr’s own Drogheda since 1722. This relic is in a remarkable state of preservation, and is venerated by great numbers of pilgrims from all parts of Ireland and from distant lands. The martyr’s watch and Rosary beads are (says the Catholic Press ) among the late Cardinal Moran’s treasures in the Palace, Manly. ' The Cardinal labored for the cause of his Beatification and Canonisation, which took place at Rome on Sunday, May 23. Joseph Mary Plunket, who signed the proclamation of the Irish Republic in Easter Week, 1916, and who was shot by a platoon of English soldiers three hours after his midnight marriage with Grace Gifford, was of the same Plunket family as the Irish martyr of Tyburn.