The Jesuit, Father Tanner, in his Societas Jesu Militans, records the lives of many of his order who died for the faith in Ireland, and, in another work, not cited by our author, his Mortes Illustres, while treating of distinguished Irish members, enters into the persecutions of the church in their native land.
Then there were special works on the various persecutions: the Relatio Persecutionis Hiberniae, by Father Dominic a Rosario, published at Lisbon in 1655; Bruodin's Propugnaculum Catholiae Veritatis, issued at Prague in 1669; Bishop Rothe's Analecta Sacra Nova et Mira de Rebus Catholicorum in Hibernia pro Fide et Religione Gestis, published at Cologne, in 1617, under the assumed name of Philadelphus; and the Processu Martyrialis of the same author, which appeared two years later; the Persecutio Hiberniae, 1619; Morrison's Threnodia Hiberno-Catholica, sive Planctus Universalis totius Cleri et Populi Regni Hiberniae, published at Innspruck, in 1659; and Carve's Lyra, Sulzbach, 1666, with other works of more general scope.
Besides these printed works, Mr. O'Reilly cites several manuscripts preserved in the Burgundian Library at Brussels—Magna Supplicia, written about 1600; an account of the martyrdom of Bishop Dovany in 1612; Mooney's account of the Franciscan Province in Ireland; and unpublished letters of Irish Jesuits.
The first blows at the Catholic Church in Ireland were struck under Henry VIII. at the monasteries; then came the intrusion of men, as bishops, who acknowledged that monster as head of the church, and the expulsion of those who refused to admit this new power in the crown. In the reign of his daughter Elizabeth came the doctrine that the sovereign, provided always, nevertheless, that he be not a Catholic, is not only head of the church, but empowered to make creeds and a ritual for worship. In a few reigns more came the doctrine that the Calvinists in a nation are the head of the church and state, may behead kings, make and unmake worships and creeds, and put to death all who gainsay them.
The persecution under Henry was comparatively bloodless; the plunder was too plentiful for men to stop to slay. Only one instance is recorded—that of the beheading of the guardian of the Franciscan convent at Monaghan, and of several of his friars; but we can scarcely credit that under so sanguinary a tyrant so little blood was shed in Ireland, where no scruple ever held back the English sword from slaughter, only a few Irish families or bloods being recognized as men whom to kill was murder.
England had her illustrious martyr, Cardinal John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; Ireland in her hierarchy had an illustrious confessor in William Walsh, Bishop of Meath, a Cistercian, born at Dunboyne, and a monk in the Abbey of Bective, till its suppression.
"Whatever doubt there may be about the place of his birth and his early history, there is none whatever as to his eminent virtues, distinguished abilities, and the heroic fortitude with which he bore numerous and prolonged sufferings for the faith. His unbending orthodoxy and opposition to the innovations of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. marked him out for promotion after the accession of Mary, and accordingly we find him associated with the zealous primate, Dr. Dowdall, in the commission to drive from the sanctuary all such as were faithless to their trust.
"Dr. Walsh was consecrated about the close of 1554, and immediately applied himself with zeal and energy to reform abuses, and to heal the wounds which during the last two reigns had been inflicted on faith, morals, and discipline. The period of his usefulness was, however, destined to be brief, and he had time merely to stimulate his priests and to fortify his diocese when the gathering storm burst over the Irish church, and sacrificed the Bishop of Meath among its first and noblest victims. Queen Mary died in 1558, and was succeeded by Elizabeth, who at once publicly embraced the reformed tenets, and proceeded to have them enforced on all. In 1560, an act was passed, under the deputyship of the Earl of Suffolk, which ordered all ecclesiastical persons, judges, officers, justices, mayors, and all the other queen's officers, to take the oath of supremacy under penalty of forfeiture, and also enacted that if any person should, by writing, printing, teaching, preaching, by express words, deed, or act, maintain any foreign spiritual jurisdiction, he should for the first offence forfeit all his goods and suffer one year's imprisonment, for the second offence should incur the penalty of praemunire, and for the third be deemed guilty of high treason."