Yours as ever,
J. O’Donovan.
Irish tories are those Irishmen who side with the government of Ireland by England. The O’Donovan of Montpelier was a tory and a Protestant; Timothy O’Donovan of O’Donovan’s Cove, was a tory and a Papist. Those two held landlord possession of lands that belonged equally to their clansmen; England protected them in that landlord possession of the robbery from their own people, and that is why and how those Irish landlords all over Ireland back England in maintaining a foreign government in their native land.
And here, I may as well pause to let my readers see some old historical records that will corroborate what I, in a previous chapter, said about my people being deprived of their lands because they would not turn Protestant; not alone my people, but all the people of the old blood of Ireland from Cork and Kerry to Donegal and Antrim.
The Skibbereen Eagle of February 19, 1898, reprinting a historical paper about my native diocese, from the Lamp, says:
Though the diocese of Ross was small, it was not too small to tempt the rapacity and greed of the Reformation leaders. A certain William Lyons, who was an apostate from the beginning, was appointed Protestant Bishop of Ross in 1582. He met with a characteristic reception from the brave and zealous priests and people of Ross. All the plate, ornaments, vestments and bells connected with the cathedral and monastery, as well as a chime of bells in solid silver, valued at £7,000, were secreted in the strand at Ross Bay. And so well was the secret kept, that though the priest and friars were tortured and hanged—in the hope that love of life would tempt them to disclose the hiding place, the treasure remained undiscovered to this date.
The people were not behind hand in their opposition. Determined that the residence that had been consecrated by so many saints and patriots should not be contaminated by the presence of an apostate, they set fire to the old Episcopal mansion, so that the intruder to the See of Ross had to report to the Commissioners, in 1615, that on his arrival he found no residence, “but only a place to build one on.” Lyons, however, was not to be denied a place whereon to lay his head. He built himself a house at the cost of £300, a large sum for those days, “but in three years it was burned by the rebel, O’Donovan.” The Protestant Bishop, for want of something better to do, turned planter; for we have a record that he was commissioned “to find out ways and means to people Munster with English inhabitants.”
Elizabeth at this time was Queen of England, and in the first year of her reign were passed these laws:
First year of Elizabeth, Chapter 2, Section 8. And all and every person or persons inhabitating within this realm shall diligently and faithfully resort to their Parish church or chapel, or to some usual place where Common Prayer and other Service of God is used or ministered, upon pain that every person so offending shall forfeit for every such offence twelve pence, to be levied by the church wardens of the parish, by way of distress on the goods, lands and tenements of such offender.