Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 1 (of 3)

Browne had a conscientious hatred to images, which he called idols, and destroyed them wherever he could. In this case coming events had cast their shadow before, and he at one time thought it prudent to disclaim iconoclasm. ‘There goeth,’ he wrote in June 1538, ‘a common bruit among the Irishmen, that I intend to pluck down our Lady of Trim, with other places of pilgrimages, as the Holy Cross, and such like, which indeed I never attempted, although my conscience would right well serve me to oppress such idols.’ Even more celebrated than the miraculous Virgin was the crozier with which St. Patrick had banished the snakes, and which had been brought from Armagh to Dublin. This wonder-working staff was said to have been delivered by Christ Himself to a hermit in a Mediterranean island, with directions to take it to Ireland, and hand it over to the saint. It was compared to the rod of Moses, and was the chief of a large tribe of croziers upon which people swore in preference to the gospels. The staff was burned publicly, and so was the Virgin of Trim, and a crucifix of peculiar sanctity kept at Ballibogan in Westmeath. The holy cross of Tipperary was probably spared for a time. Browne and his successors nearly put an end to relics, which are now so scarce that a learned member of Parliament in our own times is said to have imported the bones of a more or less authentic foreign saint. But it was beyond the power of Government to put down pilgrimages, which were numerous down to the present century. Of the holy places still remaining, Croagh Patrick in Mayo is probably the most remarkable.[304 - Ware places the destruction of relics in 1538: it was perhaps a little later. For Our Lady of Trim and the Baculum Jesu, see the Four Masters, under 1537, and O’Donovan’s notes; also Giraldus Cambrensis, Top. Dist. iii. cap. 33 and 34, and Expug. lib. ii. c. 19, Record Edition. The notice in Campion is perhaps only an echo of Giraldus.]

Conformity of Munster Bishops

When the four Protestant members of Council – Browne, Brabazon, Alen, and Aylmer – visited Clonmel early in 1539, two archbishops and eight bishops took the oath of supremacy before them. The archbishops were Butler of Cashel and Bodkin of Tuam – the first regularly appointed, the second not acknowledged at Rome, but both in undisputed possession. Of the eight bishops, Milo Baron or Fitzgerald of Ossory, Nicholas Comyn of Waterford and Lismore, John Coyne or Quin of Limerick, Thomas Hurley of Emly, Matthew Sanders of Leighlin, and James O’Corrin of Killaloe, appear to have been regularly appointed. The submission of O’Corrin seems to have been resented at Rome; for a Papal administrator was appointed to oust him eighteen months afterwards. He found it necessary to make his peace, and his resignation in 1542 was accepted by the Pope. No attempt was made to displace Baron, Comyn, Quin, Hurley, or Sanders. The remaining prelates present at Clonmel were probably Dominick Tirrey of Cork and Cloyne, and Richard Nangle of Clonfert. Tirrey was the King’s nominee, and continued to hold the temporalities till his decease in 1556. Lewis Macnamara, a Franciscan, was set up against him at Rome, but he soon died, and the Pope did not again interfere for a long time. Nangle, being kept out of Clonfert by his rival, whom Grey was accused of favouring, at this time acted as Browne’s suffragan or coadjutor. It is expressly stated that all the Bishops of Munster were present at Clonmel, and all have been mentioned but three. Ross was vacant, and probably Kilfenora. Young James Fitzmaurice, who had been lately provided to Ardfert, may have kept away in Kerry, or very probably he was not in Ireland at all. We must guard against hastily supposing that all, or even any, of these prelates were Protestants. Like Gardiner, Bonner, and Tunstal, they accepted the formulation of the old English principle of national independence, but they had not therefore necessarily any sympathy with the doctrines of Luther.[305 - The above paragraph is founded on a careful comparison of the data in Ware, Cotton, and Brady. R. Cowley to Cromwell, Aug. 5, 1538; and see S.P., vol. iii. pp. 110, 117, and 123. A letter from Staples to St. Leger, June 17, 1538, throws some light on Henry’s relations with Rome before the divorce question arose: ‘Appoint some means how that such bishops as had their bulls of the Bishop of Rome by our sovereign lord’s commandment may bring in their bulls, cancelling the same, and to have some remembrance from his Highness, which shall stand them in like effect with the same.’]

The Pope makes Wauchop Primate

Primate Cromer opposed the royal supremacy, but he was none the less accused of heresy at Rome, and Robert Wauchop, a priest of St. Andrews, was appointed to administer the see until the Archbishop should purge himself. Wauchop was a noted theologian, and, in spite of his imperfect sight, had the singular reputation of riding post better than any man in Europe. He had lived chiefly at Rome, and was employed by the Holy See on many missions, including attendance at the diets of Worms, Ratisbon, and Spires. The choice of a purblind man to persuade the sharp-eyed Germans gave rise to a proverb, and the reputation for riding post may have been gained by the rapidity with which he went from place to place. After Cromer’s death Wauchop received the pall, and bore the title of Primate at the Council of Trent, where he attended for eleven sessions, and where he shared with the Archbishop of Upsala the distinction of having never seen his church. In the meantime George Dowdall was appointed by the King on St. Leger’s recommendation, and it must be supposed that he took the oath of supremacy. In spite of Dowdall’s zeal against the reformed doctrines, he was never acknowledged by the Pope until after Wauchop’s death. The latter does not appear to have landed in Ireland, and his bolts were shot from Scotland or France. When preparing at last in 1551 to visit his diocese, he met a most edifying death in the Jesuit Church at Paris.[306 - There are notices of Wauchop in Ware, Brady, Sarpi, ii. 34 (French translation and Courayer’s notes), and Moran’s Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. i. p. 13. Twelve letters of Wauchop printed in the last-named work have nothing particular to do with Ireland. He must be regarded as founder of the titular hierarchy in Ireland.]

The Jesuits sent to Ireland, 1542

It was by Wauchop’s advice that the disciples of Loyola began their work in Ireland. Paul III. addressed a brief to Con O’Neill, as prince of the Irish of Ulster, acknowledging the receipt of letters which he had sent to Rome by the hands of Raymond O’Gallagher, ‘by which letters,’ wrote the Pope, ‘and by his fuller verbal communications, our mind has been variously affected; for we have learned with the pain it calls for how that island is cruelly ravaged by the present King, and to what a pitch of impiety he has brought it, and with what savage ferocity he has spurned the honour of God Almighty. But when, on the other hand, we learned from thy letters and Raymond’s words that there existed in thy person a champion of God, and of the Roman Church and of the Catholic religion, we rejoiced greatly in the heavenly Father’s love. We praise thee then, beloved son, as thou hast deserved, and commend thee in the Lord; and we give Him thanks for granting thee to us and endowing thee with such virtue and piety for the preservation of that island at the present time, and we pray Him long to prosper thee, and to preserve thee to us unchanged. We have taken such care as we were bound, and as thou hast asked us to take for thee and for the other champions of the Catholic Faith. We therefore exhort your lordship, and all the peoples of Ireland who follow your authority and piety, to preserve you all as becomes faithful servants of the True Christ, in the Catholic Faith which you have received from your fathers, and preserved with the greatest constancy to this day. For we who embrace that island with singular affection and desire to preserve it in its ancient attachment to the Holy Faith, will never be wanting to your lordship or to your followers in piety.’

The first Jesuit missionaries

John Codure and Alphonso Salmeron were selected by the Pope as nuncios to Ireland, and another brief was sent to the clergy of Ireland exhorting them to receive the Jesuits with honour and goodwill. Codure died before he could visit Ireland, and Paschal Broet accompanied Salmeron in his stead. Francesco Zapata, not yet admitted to the society, was their secretary. Broet, whom Loyola called the angel of his society, was a native of Picardy. Salmeron was a Spaniard, and one of the original seven companions who took the momentous vow upon the hill of Montmartre. Ignatius himself gave directions to the mission: —

Loyola’s instructions to them

1. They were to use caution in talking, especially with inferiors and equals, to ‘take each man’s censure but reserve their judgment.’ When they could not avoid expressing an opinion, it was to be delivered briefly and with a careless air, so as to avoid further argument.

2. They were to be all things to all men, like St. Paul. An angry man was to be treated with great circumspection.

3. The precept of Basilius was to be observed, that the devil must be fought with his own weapons. To gain favour at first they were to praise virtues rather than denounce vices. Medicine might then by degrees be administered. Morose men might be won by cheerfulness.

4. In public and private, and especially when performing the duty of peacemakers, they were to remember that ‘all their words and deeds might become known, and that the things done in darkness would be brought to light.’

5. Appointments were to be anticipated rather than deferred, so that there might be plenty of time for the business in hand.

6. In money matters they were to meddle as little as possible. Even the fines which they took for dispensations should be given in alms by the hands of others, so that they might be able to swear that they had not touched one penny.

7. Paschal was to be chief speaker in dealing with great men. In doubtful cases there was to be a consultation, and the opinion of two was to bind the other.

8. They were to correspond with Rome frequently on their journey, immediately on their arrival either in Ireland or Scotland, and at least once a month afterwards.[307 - Abstracted from Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, p. 4, where Paul’s letter may be also read in the original Latin.]

Their adventures in Scotland and Ireland

After narrowly escaping imprisonment in France, the three emissaries reached Scotland and saw James V., who gave them a commendatory letter to the Irish nobility and a special one to O’Neill, whom he exhorted so to receive the strangers that they might feel the advantage of his introduction. A brother of Bishop Farquharson of the Isles accompanied them to Ireland, where they found nothing to their liking, either civil or ecclesiastical. The people were savage and the clergy negligent, and neither bishoprics nor parishes were properly served. All the chiefs but one were not only sworn to the royal supremacy, but had declared their readiness to burn the Pope’s letters and to deliver his messengers bound to the King or his Deputy. The single exception was about to follow the general example. The Irish chiefs were all afraid to confer with the nuncios, or even to secure them a safe passage out of the island. The Jesuits also complained that the Scottish King had not performed his promises. But if Paschal and his companions could do nothing with the chiefs, they were successful with the people. They changed their place of abode constantly, exhorting men everywhere in private, hearing confessions, and celebrating the Mass as often as possible. Indulgences were sparingly granted, but they gained goodwill by varying burdensome vows, and by remitting fines and dues. Their personal virtue was evident; they never spared themselves, and they asked for nothing. Any money that came within their reach they diverted through the debtor himself, or through the bishop, to such good work as the repair of churches, the relief of widows, and the care of unprotected girls. After thirty-four days thus spent the pursuit waxed too hot. Rewards were offered for their apprehension, and they escaped to Scotland, where they vainly hoped to find a quieter people. The Scotch chiefs seemed as bad as the Irish, and the foreigners were fain to sail to Dieppe, whence they reached Paris on foot. Zapata remained there for study, and the two Jesuits pursued their journey to Rome in rags, and almost penniless. They were arrested as spies at Lyons, but rescued by Cardinals Tournon and Gaddi, who were passing through and who recognised them. Thus, in apparent, but only apparent, failure ended the first descent of the Jesuits upon Ireland.[308 - Hogan’s Hibernia Ignatiana, pp. 3-9. Paul III.’s letter to Con O’Neill is dated April 24, 1541. The Jesuits were in Ireland in February and March, 1542. O’Sullivan Beare, lib. iii. cap. 8. James V. to the Irish chiefs, in S.P., vol. v. p. 202; Paget to Henry VIII. from Lyons, July 13, 1542, in S.P., vol. ix. p. 106.]

The royal supremacy opposed by the friars

In the days of Henry VIII. the majority of Irish chiefs seem to have cared greatly for land, much less, but still a great deal, for titles and gold chains, and very little for religion. They were, therefore, ready enough to accept the King’s ecclesiastical polity; the rather that they hoped to go on exactly as they had done before. But with the people it was different. It was not for their interest that tribal lands should be turned into private estates, nor could they hope for special marks of royal favour. They were barbarous, but they could appreciate virtue, and in the austere self-denial of some friars they could discern glimmerings of a higher light. Against the friars Henry had no available weapon; they could not even be prevented from preaching. Under the very shadow of Dublin Castle the King could give no peace to his reformed Church, of which the only sincere supporters were a few new comers from England. Except Browne and Staples, who, as we have seen, did not agree, there was no one to preach what Henry wished the people to learn. And neither of them could speak a word of Irish. The lawyers in Dublin heard and disliked the expounders of the new ideas, but the great mass of the population did not even hear them. The friars had it all their own way, and every feeling, national and sentimental, predisposed the Irish to believe their statement of the case. The people were told that Ireland was a fief of the Holy See, and that the vassal had forfeited all by treason to his sovereign lord. The Defender of the Faith had become its assailant, and he was manifestly no longer a Catholic. These were the arguments used daily and never answered. ‘In the Irishry,’ Staples reported, ‘the common voice runneth that the supremacy of our sovereign lord is maintained only by power, and not reasoned by learning.’ He recommended that all Irish clerks should have safe-conduct to come and go, and to dispute with himself. ‘I trust then,’ he added, perhaps with a side cut at the Archbishop, ‘to do my master good service, without railing or “frasing,” which doth well nowhere, but least in a good cause.’ And he strongly urged the assumption of the royal title, as at least one means to disabuse the popular mind. In the meantime the counter reformation had begun. The official Church was to be defended mainly by power, by a few English-speaking ecclesiastics, and by the self-seekers who sought preferment where the sceptre was strong enough to protect them. On the side of Rome was ranged every popular feeling and prejudice, and it was to have the support of crowds of devoted men who could exhort the people in their own tongue, and whose example was sometimes more eloquent than their words.

Irish view of Henry’s innovations

The ‘Four Masters’ describe Henry’s reformation as ‘a heresy and new error in England, through pride, vain-glory, avarice, and lust, and through many strange sciences, so that the men of England went into opposition to the Pope and to Rome. They at the same time adopted various opinions and the old law of Moses, and they styled the King the chief head of the Church of God in his own kingdom. New laws were enacted by the King and Council according to their own will. They destroyed the orders to whom worldly possessions were allowed … and the four poor orders …; and the lordships and livings of all these were taken up for the King. They broke down the monasteries, and sold their roofs and bells, so that from Arran of the Saints to the Straits of Dover there was not one monastery that was not broken and shattered, with the exception of a few in Ireland, of which the English took no heed. They afterwards burned the images, shrines, and relics of the saints of Ireland and England… They also appointed archbishops and sub-bishops for themselves; and though great was the persecution of the Roman emperors against the Church, scarcely had there ever come so great a persecution from Rome as this; so that it is impossible to narrate or tell its description, unless it should be narrated by one who saw it.’ There can be no doubt that these were the ideas prevalent in Ireland in the sixteenth century, and they remain essentially unchanged in the nineteenth. That the annalists tell but a small part of the whole truth must be plain to candid students; but it is the only part which the native Irish have ever accepted. In England Anglicanism was the outcome of national independence; in Ireland it was the badge of conquest.

The King resolves to dissolve the religious houses

Barnewall’s mission failed; but he did not lose the King’s favour, and was soon promoted: had he been an English lawyer he would have lost his head. While denying the King’s right to dissolve monasteries, he made no objection to receiving a grant of their lands, and accepted that very nunnery of Gracedieu where all the young ladies of the Pale had been educated. When the houses met again the clergy opposed all legislation, being perhaps excited by rumours of a Geraldine restoration. The proctors insisted on their right to vote as an estate, and the bishops and abbots, who formed a majority in the Lords, declined to entertain any business until the point was decided. The Council gave a decided opinion that the claim of the proctors was unfounded, and the spiritual peers at last agreed to proceed to business with or without their consent. The Lords threw out the Bill for confirming the King’s title to certain abbeys, most of which had already been suppressed; making an exception only in the case of St. Wolstan’s. The Bill for giving the King a twentieth part of all spiritualities was also rejected. After a further prorogation for four months this resistance was at length overcome. An Act was passed declaring the proctors to be no members of Parliament, the first-fruits of abbeys were given to the King, the suppressions were confirmed, the much desired twentieth was granted, and the questions of faculties and testamentary dispositions were arranged in a sense hostile to Rome. As far as an Act of Parliament could do it, the Church in Ireland was now placed on the same footing as the Church in England.[309 - Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 73; Grey to Cromwell, Feb. 4, 1537. The last session began Oct. 13, 1537; a detailed account is given by Brabazon in a letter to Cromwell in S.P., vol. ii. p. 524, and in the note there.]

First convent dissolved, 1535. Relative strength of different orders

The first Irish religious house dissolved by Henry VIII. seems to have been the nunnery of Grane, which gave a title to Lord Leonard Grey; but the nuns were quartered on other houses: this was in 1535. In the latter half of 1536 a commission under the Great Seal not now extant was issued for the suppression of eight Irish abbeys named therein. The earliest victim of the batch was probably St. Wolstan’s near Leixlip, a house of canons of the congregation of St. Victor, which was granted to John Alen, the Master of the Rolls. The necessary inquiries into the condition and property of the doomed institutions were too slow for Henry, who chided the Irish Council for remissness. They promised to proceed as speedily as was consistent with his Highness’s profit. Before the end of 1537 fifteen more houses had fallen, all within the Pale or in the immediate neighbourhood of walled towns. After this the process of surveying and suppressing went on rapidly, so that by 1541 all, or very nearly all, the houses in Dublin, Kildare, Meath, Louth, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Tipperary, Waterford, and Limerick city had been surrendered. A careful calculation makes the whole number about seventy-eight, of which thirty-eight were Canons Regular, eleven Crutched Friars, fifteen Hospitallers, two Benedictines, and twelve Cistercians. Only ten of the number were nunneries, all belonging to Regular Canonesses. To these may be added a few in other districts, such as Aghmacarte in MacGillapatrick’s country, and Midleton in the county of Cork.[310 - Grey and Brabazon to Cromwell, May 18, 1537. The King to the Lord Deputy and Council, S.P., vol. ii. p. 425. Harris’s Ware under Staples, Bishop of Meath. For the names of the dissolved houses, see the Statute, 28 Henry VIII. cap. 16, and Calendar of Patent Rolls, p. 38. There were twenty-five mitred abbots and priors in Ireland, ten of Canons Regular, one of Benedictines, one of Hospitallers, and thirteen of Cistercians. Ware, in his Annals, says the heads of St. Mary’s and St. Thomas’s, Dublin, of Kilmainham, and of Mellifont were regularly summoned to Parliament – the more distant ones very seldom. The Augustinians were the most numerous and probably the richest of the sedentary orders. Their rule was adopted by most of the ancient Irish monasteries, the small residue becoming Benedictine. Alemand, who was originally a Huguenot and who was Voltaire’s countryman, remarks that in order to become quickly a bishop in Ireland, it was necessary first to be a Regular Canon.]

The Cistercians. Mellifont

Some monasteries deserve particular mention, and of these Mellifont, the oldest of the Cistercian houses, is perhaps the most famous. It is said to have contained 140 monks, and was called Monastermore, or the Great Monastery. The Cistercians were introduced about 1142 by Donough O’Carroll, Prince of Oriel, at the instance of Malachy, the friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, who wrote his life and in whose arms he died. St. Bernard supplied the new foundation with monks from his own monastery, under the leadership of Christian O’Conarchy, afterwards Bishop of Lismore and papal legate, who presided in that synod of Cashel where the Irish Church was first formally subjected both to Rome and to England. King John afterwards confirmed all grants made before the conquest, and several later sovereigns were benefactors of Mellifont. The abbot was always summoned to Parliament, where he took precedence of all his mitred brethren, and ranked immediately below the bishops. The buildings, of which there are still some remains, are said to have greatly resembled those of Clairvaux. The rich estates were granted by Elizabeth to Lord Drogheda’s ancestor as a reward for defending the northern border of the Pale against the Ulster Irish.[311 - Chiefly from Alemand; the words of John’s grant are ‘ante adventum Francorum in Hiberniam.’ For the final grant, see Archdall’s Lodge. Art. Earl of Drogheda.]

Holy Cross

Another famous Cistercian abbey was that of Holy Cross on the Suir, whose beautiful ruins recall, though they do not rival, Fountains, Furness, and Rivaulx. This monastery was founded by Donald O’Brien, King of Limerick, shortly before the Anglo-Norman invasion. A fragment of the true cross preserved here attracted many pilgrims, and is thought by some to have been contained in a richly sculptured shrine which still stands. Long after the dissolution pilgrimages continued, and Sir Henry Sidney noted the ‘detestable idolatry used to an idol called the Holy Cross, whereunto there is no small confluence of people daily resorting.’ The abbots had seats in Parliament, and from the extent of their territorial power were sometimes called Earls.[312 - Alemand. Sidney to Queen Elizabeth, April 20, 1567, in the Sidney Papers.]

Dunbrody and Tintern

Two Cistercian abbeys near one another in Wexford are remarkable from the circumstances of their foundations. Dunbrody was built by the ruthless conqueror, Hervey de Montmorenci, who sought to expiate his cruelties by becoming its abbot and endowing it with all his property. Tintern was founded in fulfilment of a vow made during a storm at sea by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who brought monks and a name from Wales. Tintern was the only Irish abbey which retained the original black dress of Citeaux, thus acknowledging the foundation of Stephen Harding rather than that of Bernard.

Hospitallers. Kilmainham

Strongbow founded a preceptory for Templars at Kilmainham in 1174, and it became rich and powerful. Under Edward II. the order was suppressed in Ireland with as little pretence of justice as elsewhere, and its possessions granted to the Hospitallers, who showed less charity to the really poor, though their doors were always open to strangers and travellers of importance. The priors of Kilmainham were often chosen from the greatest families – Talbots, Butlers, and Fitzgeralds – were always summoned to Parliament, and became very important personages. Being exempt from episcopal jurisdiction they sometimes acted almost like independent princes. In 1444 the Prior, Thomas Fitzgerald, espoused the cause of Archbishop Talbot in his quarrel with the White Earl of Ormonde, and he challenged the latter to trial by combat. The fight was appointed to take place at Smithfield, and both champions were kept in close custody; the Earl being confined in the Tower, of which the Duke of Exeter, inventor of the rack and other gentle instruments, was then constable. The Duke was authorised to allow his distinguished prisoner exercise enough to keep him in good fighting condition, his swordsmanship being evidently thought adequate. The representative of the Church militant was considered wanting in skill, and was detained in the city to receive instructions at the royal expense from Philip Treherne, fishmonger and fencing master. Ormonde’s friends cleared his character, and the combat never took place. Many acts of turbulence were charged against Fitzgerald; but he was far outstripped by James Keating, who became prior in 1461, and who defied the King, the Deputy, and his own Grand Master for thirty years. Marmaduke Lumley was sent to supersede him, but died of the ill-treatment which he received. In 1511 Sir John Rawson, the last prior, was appointed. He was an able man and a chief supporter of the Government, but did not think it necessary to observe his vow of chastity. At the dissolution Rawson was created Viscount of Clontarf, where there was a cell of his house, and enjoyed a pension of 500 marks till his death in Edward VI.’s time. Sir William Weston, the English Provincial, was less fortunate, for he was forced to leave his priory and died the same day. The great possessions of Kilmainham were granted to different persons, and the site of the commandery is now fitly occupied by a military hospital, which owes its foundation to the great Duke of Ormonde.[313 - Alemand and Archdall. As to the intended combat, see Carew, miscellaneous vol., pp. 446, 447.]

Pensions to monks

Pensions were generally granted to the heads of the dissolved houses and sometimes to the other monks. Thus the Abbot of Mellifont received 40l., and several of the monks from 3l. 6s. 8d. to 20s. The Prior of Fower in Westmeath and the Abbot of St. Mary’s, Dublin, received each 50l.; the Prior of St. Thomas’s, Dublin, 42l.; and others were paid in proportion to the importance of their convents. In a few cases priors received as little as 3l., and monks as little as 13s. 4d. The ejected brethren often got other preferment. Edmond O’Lonergan, Prior of Cahir, who received a pension of 3l. 6s. 8d., was made vicar of the parish, and William Walsh, Prior of Ballydrohid, had a pension of 6l. 8s. 4d. till he should receive a benefice of greater value. Hugh Doyne, one of the monks of Conal, who had received a pension of 40s., surrendered it on being presented by the Crown to a vicarage. Pensions were charged on the lands of the dissolved houses, and power of distress was sometimes given. The absence of complaints may justify a supposition that payments were pretty regularly made. Great numbers of monks doubtless withdrew to the Continent. Mary herself grumbled at the numerous pensions payable to clerks, and directed her Deputy to make them the first objects of his patronage, so that the pensions might be gradually absorbed.[314 - Most of the pensions mentioned in the text are traceable in Morrin’s Calendar of Patent Rolls. For Cahir, see Archdall’s Monasticon. Queen Mary’s instructions to Lord Fitzwalter, April 28, 1556, in Carew.]

Titular abbots still appointed. Cistercians

In the case of the Cistercians at least titular abbots were sometimes appointed for many generations. Alemand, the French historian of Irish monasteries, says that the learned Nicholas Fagan, Bishop of Waterford, was Abbot of Innislonagh, and was buried in the abbey in 1617. According to the same author, who wrote towards the end of the seventeenth century, there were in his time Abbots of Mellifont, Tintern, and Boyle, living in the neighbourhood of their abbeys, but dressing like laymen. They were probably chiefly occupied in receiving novices for education in foreign convents. An important paper drawn up at Waterford in 1646 bears the signature of one prior of Augustinian canons, and of four Cistercian abbots, to say nothing of Jesuits and mendicants, but some of these may have been appointed after the breaking out of the rebellion. In the reign of James I. some Cistercians certainly lurked in Ireland. The nuncio Rinuccini, who had the charge of Irish patronage from 1645, apologised for preferring so many regulars on the ground that men of family seldom became secular priests.[315 - Alemand, passim; Documents in the supplementary volume of King’s Primer, No. 66; the Waterford document is in Brennan’s Ecclesiastical History, p. 459.]

The dissolution not carried out in remote districts

In 1541 a commission was issued to the Earl of Desmond and others to survey and dissolve all religious houses in Cork, Limerick, Kerry, and Desmond. In these districts and in the purely Irish regions of Connaught and Ulster, the process of dissolution was slow and uncertain. The title of the Crown was theoretically acknowledged, but in some cases nothing was done for many years. As the native nobility were subdued or reconciled, Henry VIII.’s policy was gradually carried out. In the wildest parts of Ulster the consummation was delayed until after the flight of the Earls in the reign of James I.[316 - Sir John Davies’s Discovery.]

Number and wealth of religious foundations

Many are losers by the dissolution

Without counting the mendicant orders, about 350 religious houses can be traced in Ireland. Many of these had disappeared before the reign of Henry VIII., having become parish churches, or been absorbed in episcopal establishments. Others were dependent on English foundations, and were destroyed by the Act of Absentees; others, again, were cells to more important houses, and followed their fortunes. A yearly income of 32,000l., with personalty to the amount of 100,000l., has been attributed to the Irish monasteries, and their possessions must certainly have been considerable. The monks, and especially the Cistercians, generally chose fertile situations near a river or on the coast, for the sake of fish and water carriage. The most beautiful and convenient sites were in their hands, and their system of cultivation was much superior to that of lay proprietors. The ceaseless wars of Ireland did not entirely spare the religious houses, but they escaped better than other kinds of property. The spoiling of the Church could never have been considered a great or glorious work. The wealth of the monks is not to be measured by the extent of their lands. It is in the vast number of their houses, orchards, gardens, fishing-weirs, and mills, that we must seek the evidence of accumulated capital. The immense circuit of the walls at Kells or Athassel seems to show that great numbers of artificers and labourers were sheltered within the enclosures, and that the monks knew how to defend their own. The system of corrodies or resident pensions probably reconciled the great nobles, and opposition to the dissolution came partly from those who were impoverished by their abolition. It is to these pensions, which were perhaps often abused, that Cowley probably alludes when he accuses the monks generally of immorality and of showing no hospitality save to themselves and ‘certain bell-wedders, which ringleaders have good fees, fat, profitable farms, the finding of their children, with other daily pleasures of the abbeys, and fearing to lose the profit thereof, repugn and resist the suppressing of abbeys, surmising it should be prejudicial to the common weal, which is otherwise.’[317 - In Mant’s Church History is an estimate of the monastic property founded on the Loftus MS.; but such calculations must be very rough. R. Cowley to Cromwell, Oct. 4, 1536.]

The Friaries suppressed. Not before 1541

In 1541 a commission was issued to Sir Anthony St. Leger and others to survey and suppress all the friaries in Ireland. The total number was rather under two hundred, of which the Franciscans had more than half, the Dominicans forty-three, the Augustinian hermits twenty-four, and the Carmelites twenty-one. As in the case of the older monasteries, the houses within reach were at once dissolved, and the rest were perforce respited. Their possessions were not large, and the friars managed to exist without them. The Dominican historian says there were about six hundred members of his order in Ireland just before Cromwell’s conquest, and the Franciscans were probably much more numerous. The houses of Grey Friars had been very generally reformed by the Observants, and it is with these stricter votaries that we generally meet. They swarmed everywhere, and to them is due the preservation of the Roman tradition until the Jesuits made head in Ireland. Archbishop Browne is never tired of testifying against them, and Thomas Agard, his enthusiastic supporter, calls them crafty bloodsuckers. Almost the only open opposition to the dissolution came from a Franciscan, Dr. Sall, who boldly preached against it at Waterford. During the Cromwellian war and subsequent persecution the Franciscans claim thirty-one martyrs, which shows that they must have been very numerous. In 1645 the Carmelites reckoned twenty-seven houses in Ireland, but most of these were doubtless desecrated and deserted. No candid Protestant can altogether sympathise with Browne and Agard, for we have the most overwhelming proof that but for the friars a large part of the population would have been altogether debarred from the exercise of religion.[318 - Agard to Cromwell, April 4, 1538. James White to Cromwell, March 28. Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. i. p. 437. Hibernia Dominicana.]

All kinds of men share the plunder

Most of the men who had been useful in carrying out the suppression received a share of the spoils. Brabazon, St. Leger, Sir John Alen, Chief Justice Luttrell, Edmund Sexton, Sir Thomas Cusack, and Robert Dillon, were all enriched in this way. Prime-serjeant Barnewall denied the King’s right to dissolve the monasteries, but profited largely by the measure. Celts, Normans, and Saxons, Papists and Protestants alike, showed a fine appetite for the confiscated lands. Desmond had a lease of part of St. Mary Abbey, perhaps to induce him to spend some of his time in Dublin. Three at least of the new peerages – Upper Ossory, Carbery, and Cahir, were partially endowed from similar sources. Edward Power, bastard brother of the first baron of Curraghmore, was granted the possession of Mothel, of which he had been prior. In some cases, as in Clanricarde and Thomond, the Government made a virtue of necessity, and gave monastic lands to lords or chiefs who would have had the power to seize them in any case. It is scarcely necessary to say that the House of Ormonde profited enormously by the dissolution. Sometimes the plunder was too small to excite much cupidity, and then the monks might be spared. Thus the Austinfriars of Dunmore in Galway, who had ‘neither land nor profit, but only the small devotion of the people,’ were respited during the King’s pleasure, on condition of assuming a secular habit. A like indulgence was given to the canons of Toem in Tipperary, which the O’Meaghers had been able to prevent the Royal Commissioners from visiting. Many houses were reasonably granted to the founders’ kin, for the dissolution must have been a heavy loss to some families. Most of the corporate towns had founded or fostered monasteries, and Waterford, Drogheda, Kilkenny, Galway, Limerick, Clonmel, and Athenry received a portion of the spoils. All Saints was specially granted to the citizens of Dublin in compensation of their loss during the Geraldine siege. As a general rule, monastic lands were at first let only on lease, and in succeeding reigns large fines were obtained by the Crown. At the first threat of dissolution some houses hastened to let their lands for long terms, and to cut down their woods and sell their jewels, and thus the plunder actually realised often fell below expectation. I have met with but one case of a charitable foundation being laid immediately upon the ruins of a monastery, and that was owing to private liberality. Henry Walshe, son of a Waterford merchant, bought the Grey Friars from the King, and founded a hospital for sixty or more sick persons. This institution received a royal charter, and still exists on a reduced scale.[319 - In recommending a grant of Dusk to Ormonde the Council say they ‘cannot perceive, as it is situated, that any man can keep it for the King, but only the said Earl or his son.’ For Toem and Dunmore, see Calendar of Patent Rolls, pp. 73 and 84. Browne to Cromwell, May 21, 1538.]

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