Sack of Cashel, Sept. 4.
When Ormonde left Ireland, Lord Taaffe, who had been and was to be his adherent, took the oath to the Confederacy. Muskerry, having got rid of Glamorgan, thought he could counteract Rinuccini most effectually by attending the Council regularly; and he handed over the command in Munster to Taaffe. The new general, who was perhaps not very sure of his troops, invaded the county of Cork, but avoided an encounter with Inchiquin, who disregarded him and made a dash into Tipperary, which had hitherto suffered little by the war, and where there were cows to be lifted and towns to be sacked. He reported the capture of twelve castles, of which Cahir was the most important. There were a hundred men in this strong place, which might have defied him if it had been bravely defended. One of his soldiers was wounded and taken in a plundering affray, and Colonel Hippesley, who had some skill in surgery, obtained access to him in the guise of a doctor. He used his opportunity to notice that there was a weak point in the courtyard wall, and that a timorous spirit prevailed among the garrison. The outer wall was carried by storm, and the castle surrendered on condition that the soldiers’ lives should be spared. The moral effect of this success was great, for it was supposed then, and it has often been said since, that Cahir held out for two months against Essex. It is true that that ill-starred favourite wasted several weeks in Munster, but his siege of Cahir lasted only three days. On September 4 Inchiquin came before Cashel, where there was a garrison of four hundred men. A panic was caused by the fate of Cahir, and the soldiers with a large part of the inhabitants took refuge on the famous rock, which was well supplied with water and surrounded by strong walls. Others wisely distrusted the acropolis, and hid themselves in the woods and fields. Inchiquin offered to let the garrison march out with the honours of war, without any conditions for the clergy and citizens; but the officers bravely refused. The assailants had no cannon, but trusted to fire within the walls. One account says Inchiquin piled turf against the defences; another, that firebrands were thrown over the battlements. The fine September weather did the rest. The assailants swarmed in over the north wall, and a terrible carnage ensued. About a thousand of the besieged perished, some women being killed and others stripped. ‘Three of the secular clergy, the prior of the Dominicans, and one of our society (the Jesuits) fell in the performance of their sacred duties.’ A bishop who was present managed to hide himself, as did the mayor and some others; but no respect was paid to the church or even to the altar. According to the account most favourable to Inchiquin, he tried to stop the slaughter as soon as he reached the cathedral, but is said to have donned the archiepiscopal mitre, boasting that he was governor of Munster and archbishop of Cashel too. Ludlow says he ‘put 3000 to the sword, taking the priests even from under the altar: of such force is ambition when it seizes upon the minds of men.’ The soldiers sold the plunder, including the sacred vessels, to the people who flocked in from the neighbouring villages ‘as if to a fair.’ Pictures of saints were used as horse-cloths, and insults were offered to statues of the Virgin.[115]
Rinuccini without money.
Disputatio Apologetica.
The book publicly burnt at Kilkenny,
and condemned at Lisbon.
Money was expected from Rome at the beginning of the year, but did not come for twelve months, during which Rinuccini’s influence waned; and to this delay he attributed the expulsion of Glamorgan, the action of Muskerry, and the defeat of Preston. Six thousand crowns would have prevented it all. With eight thousand more O’Neill could have retaken Sligo, subdued Connaught, and ‘marched into Ulster to reduce the fort of Enniskillen, and to take possession of the Holy Place of St. Patrick’s Purgatory, now about one hundred years in the hands of the heretics.’ Having seen Ormonde safe out of Ireland, the nuncio himself withdrew to Galway, where his presence would still have some of the charm of novelty and where he might expect less resistance than at Kilkenny or Clonmel. But Clanricarde carefully avoided paying him any attention, and he was confronted with a new difficulty immediately after his arrival. A Jesuit named Cornelius Mahony, a native of Cork but living at Lisbon, published in 1645 what he called an ‘apologetic disputation,’ with an exhortation to his countrymen. He proves to his own satisfaction that the English Crown had no claims upon Ireland, having broken the conditions of Adrian’s bull, and urges the Irish to ‘elect a Catholic king, a vernacular or natural Irishman.’ ‘You have already,’ he says, ‘killed 150,000 enemies in these four or five years, as your very adversaries’ howling openly confess in their writings, and you do not deny. I think more heretic enemies have been killed: would that they had all been! It remains for you to slay all the other heretics, or expel them from the bounds of Ireland, lest they infect our Catholic country with their heresies and errors.’ A copy of this incendiary production reached Ireland from France, and others followed from Portugal. At Kilkenny the book was publicly burned, and close search was made at Galway. Rinuccini expressed no disapproval of its doctrines, and refused to punish John Bane, parish priest of Athlone, with whom a copy was found. He attributed the outcry against it to those who were in possession of ecclesiastical lands, and to those who hated O’Neill, the only possible ‘natural and vernacular’ hero who could be chosen king. The Portuguese kingdom had only lately been re-established, and Mahony argued that the Irish had just the same right to upset a heretic dynasty as the Portuguese had to drive out their Castilian oppressors. Nevertheless, King John condemned the book, and the possession of a copy was forbidden under grievous penalties. Peter Walsh preached nine sermons against it on five successive Sundays and holidays in St. Canice’s Cathedral, and had no difficulty in showing that loyalty to a Protestant king was an essential part of the Confederacy’s political creed.[116]
The nuncio dislikes O’Neill.
The Church held responsible for Ulster savagery
Mutiny in O’Neill’s army.