The plague.
Famine.
Mountjoy had long since proved that the way to subdue Ireland was to destroy the means of subsistence. As one of the Commissioners of Parliament, Colonel Jones was of opinion that no lasting peace could be made ‘but by removing all heads of septs and priests and men of knowledge in arms, or otherwise in repute, out of this land, and breaking all kinds of interest among them, and by laying waste all fast countries in Ireland, and suffer no mankind to live there but within garrisons,’ adding that declarations were about to issue for laying waste all Kerry and Wicklow, and portions—in some instances the greater part—of seventeen other counties. This was written shortly before the surrender of Cloughoughter, and after that the guerrilla warfare degenerated into mere brigandage. We are not to suppose that the whole ruthless programme was carried out; but no doubt the facts were bad enough. Ludlow was Jones’s colleague, and he speaks of the ‘poor wasted country of Ireland,’ adding that the Irish had always exhausted the land by bad cultivation, and of late worse than ever, ‘being in daily apprehensions of being removed.’ Not long afterwards Petty found the people living on potatoes, and the cultivation of that dangerous root must have been stimulated by the confusion of the past twelve years. It was then and for many years later the practice to dig out the tubers just as they were wanted. Such a crop could not well be carried away or destroyed, and if the sowers escaped the sword they would find something to eat for nine months out of the twelve; while corn could be easily cut or burned, and cattle still more easily driven off. The famine caused by war and by the destruction of food in districts not under protection was accompanied by the plague, which was rife in Galway and many other places. ‘It fearfully broke out in Cashel,’ says Jones, ‘the people being taken suddenly with madness, whereof they die instantly; twenty died in that manner in three days in that little town.’ Dublin did not escape. ‘About the years 1652 and 1653,’ says Colonel Lawrence, who had every opportunity of judging, ‘the plague and famine had swept away whole countries that a man might travel twenty or thirty miles and not see a living creature, either man, beast, or bird, they being either all dead or had quit those desolate places.’ He had himself seen starving wretches pick carrion out of a ditch, and had heard of cases in which human flesh was eaten. Wolves increased enormously, and rewards were given for their heads.[243]
Treatment of priests.
Galway.
Cloughoughter.
A Dominican’s experience.
While the war still raged, Roman Catholic priests were for the most part either not mentioned in capitulations or specially excluded from the benefit of them. At Limerick some were excepted by name, and all were refused protection; but later the terms were not quite so rigorous. At Galway they were allowed six months to leave the country. At Roscommon the chaplain was allowed to go out with the garrison. When the Clare brigade surrendered to Waller, all persons in Roman orders were excepted, but he covenanted ‘industriously to solicit the Commissioners of Parliament that such of the clergy in orders, having no other act or crime laid to their charge than officiating their functions as priests, not being suffered to live in quarters or protection, shall have passes and liberty to go beyond the seas.’ Reynolds did much the same in Ulster. A large number of the clergy fled to Innisbofin, and when it was surrendered they were all given protection for life and goods, with leave to accompany the garrison abroad. At Cloughoughter, which was the last fortified place, they were given a month to go, provided they did not officiate in the meanwhile. Out of a great many extant letters from fugitive priests, that of a Dominican friar named O’Conor may be singled out. The brethren of his Order had, he says, continually roused Catholics by preaching to the soldiers and inciting the nobles to take up arms, living constantly among them in the woods and mountains, and opposing every proposal for surrender or capitulation. He himself had been prior of Kilkenny, where he strenuously supported Rinuccini, and was therefore thrice condemned to banishment by the Supreme Council, ‘having excited the anger of all heretics and bad Catholics.’ After the fall of Kilkenny he became prior of Burrishoole, in Mayo, where his convent was for three years the refuge of religious persons. Two attacks were beaten off, but at last the place was taken by storm. The soldiers were killed and some of the friars; others fled to the mountains. Accompanied by one boy, he took a skiff made out of a single log and went six leagues into the open ocean, almost miraculously making his way to Innisbofin. After a short time, seven Parliamentary ships with twenty-two boats hove in sight, and it became necessary to surrender the island. He was transported with the rest, on pain of death if he revisited Ireland, where an edict had been published exiling all ecclesiastics on the same terms, with severe penalties against all who helped them.[244]
An edict against Jesuits and seminarists.
The edict mentioned by Father O’Conor and by many other clerical writers of the same time was an order, signed by Fleetwood, Ludlow, Corbet, and Jones, setting forth the experience of many years, ‘that Jesuits, seminary priests, and persons in Popish orders in Ireland, estrange the people from due obedience to the English Commonwealth, and, under pretence of religion, excite them to rebellion, which gave rise to the barbarous murders of 1641 and the destructive war which followed.’ They were all to leave Ireland within twenty days, or incur the penalties of the English Act, 27 Elizabeth, which had never been the law of Ireland, and which made the priests traitors and their abettors felons.[245]