mised the lives and fortunes, nay, even brought to the verge of final ruin the whole Romish nobility and gentry, was pronounced at the beginning, and is maintained ever since to have been, a just, a necessary, and holy war. But inasmuch as it is here inferred that the higher ranks of the Irish Romish people were rather passively than actively involved in the war, it may be well to examine briefly how it was that the clergy could plunge a people into such an awful enterprize, without the hearty and leading concurrence of the higher orders. But the fact was, since James I. broke down the hereditary power of the Irish chieftains over their followers, and since the greater number of these old tanist families were annihilated and gone, the people, being deprived of their natural leaders, threw themselves into the hands of the Priests, where they remain to this very day and certainly their spiritual lords were not backward, at the period in question, in confirming and upholding their power-which has stood for centuries, as the convincing exhibition, how far design can operate on ignorance; and we may smile, even while sorrowing, to observe an intellectual people controlled and retarded in their march to character and respectability, by a craft which, in the very machinery it has employed to govern and to guide, has evinced an entire contempt for their understandings, and a thorough reliance on their slavishness.*

these terms: He would not ask the success of the Catholic cause from God in mercy, but in justice; and that now, if it did not triumph, for his part, he would let the Devil take them and their religion ever after.'"

*For instance, Bishop Burke, in his laboured book, "The Hibernia Domini cana," published so lately as 1762-a book thought fit for the meridian of Ireland even at that later day (and it may be remarked, that it was the period of the Whiteboy insurrection,)-repeats what Fathers Porter, and Con of Colerain, in the 17th century, tell of a Protestant Bishop, who, in order to turn the Catholic religion, its rites, and its priesthood into ridicule, had that part of a Priest's vestments which is called a chesuble, and which he had carried off from some plundered altar, transformed into a lower garment, whose name, in modern days, is inexpressible. But, lo! the moment he attempted to encase himself in the garment, he became enveloped in blazes, and before his friends and attendants could divest him of the integument, he was burned to death. Another story which the Priests industriously circulated, and which is also repeated by Burke; that Brutus Babington, the Protestant Bishop of Derry, had the impious audacity to seize on a miraculous image of the Virgin Mother of God, that was worshipped with intense adoration in the town of Colerain; and the misbeliever ordered two of his apparitors to cast the image on a burning pile of wood, which he had prepared for its destruction. But the moment the satellites of heresy laid their unhallowed hands on the image, they fell down dead. Now this signal exhibition of Divine vengeance, might have deterred common heretics; but it seems that these Derrymen, with an obstinacy of heresy which sticks to their posterity up to this very day, were by no means kept back from their iconoclastic impiety; therefore, at the instigation of Bishop Brutus, they carried the image to the market place, and there, cramming its hollow parts with gunpowder, and daubing it with pitch, they cast it on the blazing pile. But, lo, a miracle !The flames, the moment the sacred wood touched them, drew back in bashfulness; the pitch would not burn, the powder would not explode, and the entire fire went out, just as if the river Bann was floated over it. Whereupon the heretic Bishop was struck with such terror, that after ordering the blessed image to be restored to the altar from whence it was ravished, he took to his bed, and amidst agony and dismay, breathed out his impious soul!

Doctor Barnard tells us, in his History of the Siege of Drogheda, that many of

But it may be said, Why, in speaking of the causes and instigators of this rebellion, leave out of view Roger O'Moor,* Sir Phelim

the rebels were found dead, who had charms about their necks, which they considered made them "thrust-free-who, though they might be knocked down, yet no naked sword could be made to enter their breasts, or draw the least blood," And the story went, that a Papist being taken at Newry, was appointed to be shot on the bridge, where, being stripped quite naked, and the musqueteer standing within two yards of him, he was shot in the middle of the back; yet the bullet entered not, nor did him any more hurt, than to leave a small black mark. The Priests had provided their followers with abundance of these charms. Barnard gives a copy of such a paper charm, which was taken from a rebel at Dundalk. It seemed much trusted to, for it was much worn.

JESUS MARIA.

平

"This is the measure of the wound in the side of our Lord, which was brought from Constantinople unto the Emperor Charles, within a chest of gold, as a relic most precious, to that effect, that no envy might him take; and it hath such virtue, that he or she that shall read it, or hear it read, neither water, tempest, knife, lance, sword, neither yet the devil, shall hurt them. And also any women with child, the day that she seeth the said measure of the wound of our Lord, she shall not die any sudden death in the time of her burden, but shall be delivered with less pain. Whosoever they be that desire this about them, in the way of devotion, they shall not die any sudden death, and by the sight of the meditation on this wound, they shall gain victory over their enemies; and further, care shall not damage them; and moreover, the day he or she shall read it or hear it read, they shall not die any evil death." "Such fond scrawls," says Barnard, "the people prized as pearls; but if they found a Bible, how basely would they use it-burning was the best end that came to all they laid their hands on." Barnard shows, by the following anecdote, that the wearing of scapulais and holy girdles was not confined to poor ignorant people: "M'Mahon, of great repute amongst the rebels, lately created by them Baron of Monaghan, being sore wounded, and likely, if taken prisoner, to be hanged, stripped himself naked, and politically lay counterfeiting a dead man amongst the slain. But Colonel Byron, finding him lying with nothing on but St. Francis's girdle, which, for good luck, he still kept about him, and deeming him, by that, to be a man of some quality, ordered one of the soldiers to cut off his head upon the affright of which, the rebel roused himself, and soon recovered the use of his speech." The same author tells the following " Merry Passage:"-" The besiegers brought with them, from the North, an old wooden image, called M'Kil Wurriah, i. e. The Son of Mary, by which it was common among the Irish to swear. In this venerable block did they repose much confidence, for the taking of this town; and when it came first among them, it was received with acclamations of joy, like the Ark in the camp of the Philistines. For good luck, it was at this time at Tallyhallon; but when this post was attacked by a sortie under the Lord Moore, M'Kil Wurriah's guardian took care, on the first attack, to post away with him on horseback, but, in leaping a ditch, the horse threw the fellow and M'Kil Wurriah into it, so that two others were fain to take him up on their shoulders, and, with the loss of some of the idol's limbs, to trot off with him to Dundalk.” The very same belief in the miraculous efficacy of gospels, charms, and scapulars, was carefully instilled into the minds of the rebel population, in the year 1798: and Fathers John and Michael Murphy persuaded their followers, that they were invulnerable, and exhibited to the admiring crowd the leaden bullets that were shot against them, and struck them without inflicting any wound.

Though Roger O'Moor was eminently successful in organizing the insurrection, and arousing the Irish to arms, he soon became a secondary and almost forgotten character, After the detection of the conspiracy in Dublin, he escaped to Sir Phelim

O'Neil, the intrigues of Popish lawyers, the discontents of the lords of the pale, the bitter recollections and vengeful animosities of the old Irish? And I desire to do so, because, conceiving that, while all these leaders and parties were instigated by their separate views and passions, the Jesuitism of Rome directed and impelled all, as very puppets in her hands; and the vengeance of O'Moor, the avarice of O'Neil, the necessities of Maguire, as well as the pride of the old English, and the passion of the old Irish-all the while that these men instigated by such various feelings, considered themselves but at work to gain their own distinct ends were wrought as links into one common chain, to drag on the great cause of the Church of Rome. Why was it, that the people from one end of Ireland to the other, anticipating mighty results from his ceaseless activity, cried out, "God and our Lady be our helpers, and Roger O'Moor"-Why? Because, considering O'Moor as a great instrument in restoring the Church, he was deemed worthy to be invoked in the same breath with God and the blessed Virgin.

Aroused then, and impelled by Churchmen, the Irish people started into rebellion. It is not within the scope of this brief sketch to go into a detail of the deplorable cruelties and sufferings that men believing in Christ inflicted on their Christian countrymen.* There is but too ample evidence to prove that sundry Ecclesiastics (God forbid it should be said all) urged and hallooed on the barbarian

O'Neil in Ulster; and there the continual scenes of barbarity and bloodshed that came under his notice, gave him such a disgust, that he retired from the evil day, and passed over to the Continent. Like young Emmet, the organizer of the insurrection of 1803, he was not aware of the barbarous and bloody men he had to do with. On the establishment of the Supreme Council at Kilkenny, he returned to Ireland; but he never took a leading part in the transactions of the confederates, and he died soon.

* A few specimens of the spirit which animated the Priests and their deluded followers may be given

-:

Jan. 4, 1642. The Rev. Edward Slack of Gurteen, in the county of Fermanagh, deposed, that the rebels there took his Bible, opened it, and laying the open side in a puddle of water, leaped on it, and trampled it, saying, "a plague upon the Bible, it has bred all this quarrel;" and one of them said he hoped within a few weeks all the Bibles in Ireland should be used as that was, and not one left in the kingdom. Adam Cloves, county of Cavan, deposed, that the rebels in that county, took Bibles, and wetting them in dirty water, used to dash them in the faces of the Protestants. Henry Fisher of Powerscourt, county of Wicklow, deposed, that the rebels entered the Parish Church, and burned the pews, pulpit, desks, and Bible of said Church, with extreme violence and triumph, and exhibiting their hatred to the Protestant religion. The Rev. John Kerdiff, county of Tyrone, deposed, that Friar Malone of Skerries, took the Bibles of some poor men out of their boats, cut them in pieces, and cast them into the fire, declaring, that he would deal in like manner, with all Protestant Bibles. Alexander Creighton of Glasslough, county of Monaghan, deposed, that the rebels of that town informed him that Hugh M'O'Degan, a Popish Priest, had done a most meritorious act, in drawing forty English and Scotch settlers, in the parish of Ganallen, county of Fermanagh, to a reconciliation with the Church of Rome, and after giving them the Sacrament, demanded of them, whether Christ's body was really in the Sacrament, or no? They said yes. He then demanded of them farther, whether they held the Pope to be the supreme bead of the Church? They answered, he was. Upon this the Priest told them they were in a good faith; and for fear they should fall from it, he, and the rebels that were with him, cut all their throats!

people in their exterminating work, as one of the witnesses deposing to the ruthless scenes that passed before his eyes, not more bitterly than truly said, that in every detestable deed perpetrated during this awful period, a friar as well as a devil was concerned. Having succeeded then, in the first instance, in raising the northern Irish, and steeping them so deep in blood and crime, as to place them beyond the expectation of pardon, or the safety of drawing back, and subsequently having induced the Popish people of English race, inhabiting the Pale, to join the revolt; then it was that the church in her hierarchical and synodal character stepped forth to maintain, in the open day, what heretofore, darkly and through the means of unaccredited friars and priests, she had encouraged. A synod summoned by O'Neil the Popish Primate met at Kells, in the month of April, 1642, when after making some constitutions against murderers and usurpers of other men's estates, the rebellion was announced to be a PIOUS and lawful war. The bishops and clergy of the northern provinces were all in attendance here, except Thomas Dease, bishop of Meath. This prelate neither attended himself, nor did he advise any of his clergy to obey the summons, not that he thought the war unnecessary or unjust, but because he thought their proceedings precipitate, and therefore unwise. For this he was excommunicated, by his brethren, threatened with suspension, and declared under suspicion of heresy. On the tenth of May following a general synod of Popish bishops, &c. was assembled at Kilkenny. Almost all the prelates, dignitaries, and provincials -attended, and here a solemn act was promulgated, in which the war is announced to be Catholic, lawful, and just; those who stood neuter are excommunicated; great encouragement is given to importers of arms and munitions of war. It is directed that ambassadors shall be sent to the Pope and the Popish princes of the continent, and a part of the church livings now in possession, or in future to be acquired, or allotted to the support of the clergy, and the rest to the maintenance of the war.

This was preparing the way for the general assembly at Kilkenny, of lords spiritual and temporal, and other representatives of the confederates, in October following; when, after appointing a supreme council to carry on the affairs of the kingdom, they decided that the Romish church in Ireland shall enjoy all privileges according to Magna Charta,-they decreed that the possessions of the Protestant clergy shall be deemed the property of the Catholic clergy,—they command that an oath of Association shall be taken by all Catholics, solemnly, after confession and the sacrament, in their respective Parish churches, and that the names of persons of every rank and quality, taking the same shall be enrolled.

Thus was organized a complete Popish government, consisting of church and state, and governed by an executive directory, who took upon themselves all imperial prerogatives, as raising taxes, coining money, sending ambassadors to foreign courts, and disposing of the property of the people of the realm. It is here necessary in order to give this brief historical notice some consistency, to show succinctly, what were the proceedings of the Protestants.

It is very evident that the Lords Justices, Parsons and Borlase, who held the sword in the absence of the Lord Lieutenant, Leicester, were incompetent to meet the exigency of the time. Injudicious and party-men, they were violent without vigour, and suspicious without being circumspect. Having abundance of intimation that some great convulsion was at hand, they yet were taken by surprise; and while by their timidity they compromised the safety of the state, and the lives of the Protestants; by harshness, cruelty, and inconsistency, they irritated the Popish lords and furnished them with an excuse for their treason. Therefore though the nominal authority was continued for some time in the hands of these Lords Justices, the efficient power of the Protestants came under the direction of the Marquess of Ormonde, as Lieutenant-general--a zealous loyalista determined Protestant, and one of the most prudent men that Ireland, or perhaps any other country, has produced. Under his guidance, even though the Protestants of Ireland were deplorably divided--some being decidedly republican, and others faithfully loyal-yet, under Ormonde's direction, they were able, without much aid from England, either in men or money, to make head against the Papists. The northern rebels though they could murder defenceless Protestants, and surprise unprepared castles, could not take the strong holds of Derry or Enniskillen. Drogheda maintained itself against a long and resolute seige, and Ormonde had succeeded in giving the Popish armies signal defeats at Kilrush in the County of Kildare, and at Ross in Wexford. In the province of Munster, though the rising of the Papists had been almost as simultaneous and universal as that in Ulster, yet through the exertions of Lord Inchiquin and the lords of the Boyle family, a check had been put to their successes, and they were completely defeated at the battle of Liscarrol.

In Connaught the Lord President, Ranelagh, acting in unison with that truly loyal and un-priest-ridden lord, Clanricarde,* maintained his ground against the O'Connors and the Popish Bishop of Tuam, though reduced to great difficulties with regard to provisions, as indeed were all the Protestants in Ireland.

Thus circumstanced, after a civil war that had raged with a fury

*Nothing can set the spirit, the loyalty, and the independence of this Roman Catholic nobleman in a clearer view, than his correspondence with the Popish Bishops of Connaught, five months after the rebellion broke out. "The Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, the Bishop of Elphin, Clonfert, to Lord Clanricarde, on St. Patrick's day, 1642. Oliver Burke.

and the Bishop of Sent by the Rev.

"Many complaints and miserable grievances represented to us, inviting the interposition of our spiritual authority for the satisfaction of the grieved, which we thought expedient and necessary, in the discharge of our functions, &c. most humbly be. seech you to be pleased to vouchsafe out of your wisdom and maturity, present surcease of farther pillaging or preying on the goods or chattles of the Catholic inhabitants of this your government, &c. and not to give way to the weakening of the Catholic cause, and absolute destruction and desolation of this your native country, by the entertainment of any Protestant forces, &c. We hope that our ecclesiastical jurisdiction may be made useful by humble requests, fatherly admonitions, and friendly intercessions, rather than by the extremity of ecclesiastical censure, which we would