Catholic Education in Restoration Ireland, 1660-1685
Inaugural-Dissertation
zur
Erlangung der Doktorwürde der
Philosophischen Fakultät der
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität
Freiburg im Breisgau
vorgelegt von
Martin Foerster
aus Gütersloh
WS 2013/14
Erstgutachter: Prof. Dr. Ronald G. Asch
Zweitgutachter: Prof. Dr. Markus Friedrich
Vorsitzender des Promotionsausschusses der
Gemeinsamen Kommission der Philologischen,
Philosophischen und Wirtschaftsund Verhaltenswissenschaftlichen Fakultät: Prof. Dr. Bernd Kortmann
Datum der Disputation: 16.6.2014
Contents
I. Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 1
1. Source material.............................................................................................................................. 10
2. State of research ............................................................................................................................ 13
3. Literacy and Education in Early Modern History – Defining Terms ............................................ 17
II. Educational Praxis in Ireland up to the Restoration .................................................................. 28
1. Protestant Educational Initiatives .................................................................................................. 28
2. Catholic Education ........................................................................................................................ 36
III. Available Catholic Education during the Restoration Period .................................................. 51
1. Franciscans, Dominicans, Other Orders ........................................................................................ 52
2. Jesuits ............................................................................................................................................ 66
3. Secular Clerics............................................................................................................................... 77
4. Lay Teachers and Education for Women ...................................................................................... 86
5. Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 89
IV. Organizing Catholic Education ................................................................................................... 90
1. Curriculum and Teaching Methods ............................................................................................... 90
2. Teaching Facilities ...................................................................................................................... 101
3. Financing Education.................................................................................................................... 104
4. Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 110
V. The Schools and Confessionalization in Ireland ........................................................................ 112
1. Formation of Confessions – Social Disciplination – Confessionalization .................................. 112
2. Education and Confessionalization ............................................................................................. 122
3. Ireland and the Paradigm............................................................................................................. 125
VI. The Crown and Education ......................................................................................................... 136
1. State, King and Government, 1660-1685 .................................................................................... 136
2. The King, the Viceroys, and their relation to Ireland .................................................................. 146
3. Official Protestant Education ...................................................................................................... 165
VII. The Catholic Church and Education ....................................................................................... 181
1. The Fear of Catholic Heresy and Disorder.................................................................................. 182
2. Bishops, Regulars and Seculars................................................................................................... 195
VIII. Confessionalization and Education from a Daily Life Perspective ..................................... 226
1. Catholic Education in Rural Ireland ............................................................................................ 228
2. Catholic Education in Urban Ireland ........................................................................................... 257
IX. “Erasmian Accordance”?........................................................................................................... 304
1. Plunkett........................................................................................................................................ 306
2. Talbot .......................................................................................................................................... 310
3. Plunkett vs. Talbot: Different Visions of Cooperation................................................................ 313
4. Carolan ........................................................................................................................................ 314
X. Family Traditions ......................................................................................................................... 317
1. The Burkes of Clanricarde and the Dominicans in Connaught ................................................... 319
2. The O’Briens of Thomond. Interconfessional Mobility in different Family Branches ............... 323
3. The Butler Family between Crown Loyalty and Local Responsibilities..................................... 331
XI. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 341
XII. Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 353
I. Introduction
On 19th October 1666 the Earl of Orrery, a man of staunch Protestant belief, wrote a letter to
the Duke of Ormond, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In this letter Orrery complained about the
growing insolence of the Catholic clergy in the Irish province of Munster which he
represented as Lord President. The cleric’s temerity was portrayed in their establishment of
several Jesuit schools in the Munster area, specifically near to the property of Orrery himself.
His complaint culminated in the remarkable words: “Though I know they are the best
schoolmasters in the world, yet it is to be doubted they teach their scholars more than their
books, and imbue them with ill principles.”1
Orrery’s complaint was not new nor would it be the last one during the 25-year-reign of
Charles II. His writing to Ormond referred to many interconnected complex political,
confessional, and social aspects of post-Restoration Ireland. What is most important about
Orrery’s complaint lays in what he did not write nor ask: How could it be that so shortly after
the burning of London – for what many made the Jesuits personally responsible – Jesuit
schools re-opened in Ireland? Where by the Act of Uniformity “every person instructing or
teaching youth in any house or private family as a tutor or schoolmaster” had to subscribe a
declaration that he conformed to the liturgy of the Church of Ireland besides taking the Oath
of Allegiance and Supremacy.2 The confessional and political situation in Ireland is best
portrayed by the prominence of Catholic education at the time of Orrery’s letter. It was
incompatible to the laws mentioned above and the perception of the Protestant élite
represented by the Earl. Another interesting aspect not mentioned by Orrery was the funding
of these Catholic institutions. Who paid for the schools and the teachers in a country where
the economy, the urban trade, and the land possession was largely controlled by Protestants?
The plantation policy since the late sixteenth century, the final defeat of the Confederation of
Kilkenny at the end of the religious wars of the 1640s, and the transplantation designs
implemented by Cromwell should have left the Irish Catholics subdued, or at least politically,
confessionally, and economically marginalized.
But least of all the Lord President asked why nothing was done by the state authority in
Dublin or by himself as its representative neither to prevent the Catholic clergy from teaching
nor the students from assembling. Was the local autonomy too strong or the state’s power too
weak? Was the state’s interest in Protestant education sincere or simply utopistic?
1
2
Thomas Morrice (ed.): State Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, Dublin 1743, pp. 73-76.
Timothy Corcoran (ed.): State Policy in Irish Education, A.D. 1536 to 1816, Dublin 1916, pp. 84-5.
1
An exemplary answer to these unasked questions was written in a letter dated November 22,
1672 by Oliver Plunkett, the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, given to John Paul Oliva,
General of the Societas Jesu in Rome. Plunkett referred to the Jesuit school that he had
erected with the financial help of local Protestant landowners in Drogheda and proudly
announced: “In the school there are about 150 boys, sons of Catholic noblemen and
gentlemen, and there are about fourty boys who are sons of Protestant noblemen and
gentlemen: you can imagine what a thorn in the side it is to the Protestant schoolmasters and
ministers to see Protestant boys attending a Jesuit school.”3 One can indeed imagine how men
such as the Earl of Orrery felt about this visible failure of the Protestant state authority. But
the existence of Jesuit and other Catholic schools throughout post-Restoration Ireland was by
then a fait accompli. Despite all legal attempts to dissolve such institutions, as half-heartedly
as they might have been, nothing changed about that fact until the death of Charles II and the
assumption of the throne by his Catholic brother. Between the repressive politics of Cromwell
and the enactment of the Penal Laws since 1695, the reign of Charles II formed a vacant space
of interconfessionality and limited Catholic clerical expansion. Although the confessional
concessions promised in the Declaration of Breda were not fulfilled in the eyes of Irish
Catholics and the personal belief of Charles II is still up for discussion, the Restoration period
clearly offered the chance for confessional renegotiations. This short time frame between two
major defeats of Irish Catholicism has long been left out in the analyses of Catholic
education. It can be understood, however, as a synopsis of the confessionalization processes
in the sixteenth and seventeenth century.
More than a hundred years after the English Reformation Catholic teaching was a serious
alternative for Irish Protestants to their own confessional teachers. They either had no access
to Protestant schools or preferred the quality of local Catholic schools as formulated in
Orrery’s description of the Jesuits in Munster. The existence of interconfessional education is
even more relevant when considering the broader British and European context. While the
formation of the early modern state and the differentiation process of the confessional groups
3
The original letters are in Italian, they have been compiled and translated by John Hanly (ed.): The letters of
Saint Oliver Plunkett, 1625-1681, archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland, Dublin 1979, pp. 350-1.
Infrequent though it was Protestants attending Jesuit schools were not totally uncommon in the seventeenth
century. The Jesuit college at Emmerich in the territory of Cleve-Mark witnessed a similar development during
exactly the same time period. As Stefan Ehrenpreis has shown the large institution was highly esteemed by local
Protestants and the magistrate who impeded the closure of the school in times of religious repression. Protestant
students attended the school until in 1684 this was prohibited in all Brandenburgian territories. Ibid.: Catholic
Minorities and School Education: The cases of Brandenburg and the Dutch Republic, 1600-1750, in: Eszter
Andor/István Tóth (eds.): Frontiers of Faith. Religious Exchange and the Constitution of Religious Identities,
1400-1750, Budapest 2001, pp. 177-193, pp. 183-6.
2
was underway in most European countries, the interconfessional education in Ireland
represented a form of local self-conception and self-confidence at the end of the seventeenth
century that was still highly independent in the application of national laws and the
compliance of confessional borders.4 The case of Catholic education in Restoration Ireland
demonstrates that even at such a late stage of the seventeenth century local circumstances
could differ immensely from larger confessional or social designs of any of the superior
religious, ethnical, or political factions. The dissolution and controlling of these traditional
local bonds was often not within the reach of the authorities. These local power bases chiefly
relied on regional authorities such as land proprietors or simply parish priests as well as clan
traditions and dependencies that were of particular importance in the Irish context.5
Irish society was in dramatic change throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The
Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 did not re-establish the old political order in Ireland.
Furthermore neither land possessions nor confessional liberties were restored. Nevertheless,
on a local level family bonds and traditions survived as well as the Catholic faith. In County
Clare, for example, the leading clan of the O’Briens split into a Catholic and a Protestant
branch but both connived at Catholic tenants, teachers, and religious orders on their premises.
Since the Protestant family branch had to flee into English exile during the confessional
turmoils of the 1640s, the clan was well aware that their tolerance for Catholic traditionalism
would guarantee their inner-political survival and local authority claim.6 The survival of
Catholic schools had a fundamental importance in the process of social transformation that
left many Irish Catholics impoverished but preserved both traditional beliefs and shared
4
While traditional analyses of the ‘Irish case’ came to the conclusion, that “the outcome in Ireland is seen to be
ominously exceptional” and that “the Irish response is found once more to resist the thrust of a major dynamic of
early modern European state formation” as Brendan Bradshaw put it in 1996 recent research has clearly
demonstrated that the proceedings in Ireland were specific but in no way unique nor were they especially
Catholic. With the example of Slovenian Protestantism Regina Pörtner has shown a similar process generated by
a shortage of Catholic clergy and the official subjection under an absentee authority that created a spiritual as
well as jurisdictional vacuum. Cf. Regina Pörtner: Confessionalisation and Ethnicity: The Slovenian
Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the 16th and 17th Centuries, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No.
93 (2002), pp. 239-277, p. 255. Brendan Bradshaw: The Tudor Reformation and Revolution in Wales and
Ireland. The Origins of the British Problem, in: Ibid./John Morrill (eds.): The British Problem, c. 1534-1707.
State Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago, Basingstoke 1996, pp. 39-65, quoted from pp. 40,42.
5
According to Stefan Ehrenpreis the influence of state or church policy in the local communities regarding
education were marginal. Instead, the local interests, traditions and requirements were much more influential
concerning the curriculum: Stefan Ehrenpreis: Das frühneuzeitliche Elementarschulwesen, in: Juliane Jacobi
(ed.): Zwischen christlicher Tradition und Aufbruch in die Moderne. Das Hallesche Waisenhaus im
bildungsgeschichtlichen Kontext, Tübingen 2007, pp. 147-167, p. 167. Similar developments have been noted by
other historians throughout Europe. In her analysis of religious toleration and confessional identity in
seventeenth-century Orange Amanda Eurich describes a “general bonhomie and civilité that bound elites of both
confessions together”. Cf. Amanda Eurich: Religious Toleration and Confessional Identity: Catholic and
Protestants in Seventeenth-Century Orange, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 97 (2006), pp. 249-275,
p. 249.
6
For a detailed analysis of the case of the O’Briens see chapter X.II.
3
identities through education.7 The importance of schools in this process was termed by Stefan
Ehrenpreis as the History of Socialization. Paradoxically, Catholic schools in the Irish
countryside were in large parts financed and attended by Irish Protestants, a fact that further
underscores the complexity of the Earl of Orrery’s complaint about these institutions. The fact
that local Catholic teachers were supported by local Protestant landowners because of a
shared esteem for common values and knowledge beyond the limits of confession and law is
one explanation for the unasked question: why did not anybody proceed against them
according to existing law?8
The profound educational changes in the mid-seventeenth-century Irish society were best
expressed by the old Irish poet Duald MacFirbis who was quoted by Aubrey Gwynn in his
modern edition of John Lynch’s De Praesulibus Hiberniae. Mac Firbis was a representative of
the old Irish traditions, schools, and beliefs; he tried to uphold the old ways while at the same
time adapting to the newly established realities. He claimed, “Although the above [the
English short title of the edition] is the customary way of giving titles to books at the present
time, we will not depart from the following of our ancestors, the ancient summary custom,
because it is the plainest; thus: The place, time, author and cause of writing this book are: the place, the College of St. Nicholas, in Galway; the time, the time of the religious war
between the Catholics of Ireland and the Heretics of Ireland, Scotland and England,
particularly the year 1650; the person or author, Dubhaltach, the son of Gilla Isa Mór Mac
Firbhisigh, historian etc., of Lecáin Mac Firbis, in Tireragh, on the Moy; and the cause of
7
The Irish Catholic schools thus fit into a concept termed History of Socialization developed by Stefan
Ehrenpreis. According to Ehrenpreis the socializing dimension of education in the given local circumstances
must not be underestimated in the early modern period. While confession and government control did play
important roles in daily life experiences social backgrounds could differ immensely from general patterns. The
History of Socialization consequently offers an alternative approach to the analysis of education and
confessional community avoiding the often etatistic perspectives of social disciplination and confessionalization.
Cf. Stefan Ehrenpreis: Kulturwirkungen konfessioneller Erziehungsmodelle im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, in:
Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 95 (2004), pp. 240-251.
8
Exemplary for the German territories Matthias Asche has outlined that when outstanding quality was asked for
in a cultural and educational context the confessional aspects of the persons concerned were usually of secondary
importance. Late Humanistic appreciation for art and knowledge outweighed religious concerns as they did with
some of the Irish Catholic schools. Cf. Matthias Asche: Humanistische Distanz gegenüber dem
“Konfessionalisierungsparadigma”. Kritische Bemerkungen aus der Sicht der deutschen Bildungs- und
Universitätsgeschichte, in: Jahrbuch für Historische Bildungsforschung, No. 7 (2001), pp. 261-282, p. 264. It
must be added that interconfessional teaching was not uncommon in many European territories of the sixteenth
and seventeenth century although it diminished during the seventeenth century. With the example of the Jesuit
school in the city of Erfurt Andreas Lindner has shown that Protestants attending a Jesuit school was well
possible. At the same time Lindner added that the number of conversions in consequence of school attendance
was remarkably low as was the case in Ireland, a fact that indicates that the main focus of the school was the
transmission of knowledge and not the confessional formation of the students. Cf. Andreas Lindner: Das
bikonfessionelle Schulwesen Erfurts im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, in: Musolff, Hans-Ulrich/ Göring, Anja-Silvia
(eds.): Anfänge und Grundlegungen moderner Pädagogik im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, Köln 2003, pp. 31-51, pp.
43-4, 49.
4
writing this book is, to increase the glory of God, and for the information of the people in
general.”9
For a later edition MacFirbis added a complementary note to the manuscript that bemoaned
the changed conditions of Irish society, the disappointment about the Restoration, and the
continued hope for a better future: “It is no doubt a worldly lesson to consider how the
Gaedheil were at this time conquering the countries far and near, and that not one in a
hundred of the Irish nobles at this day possesses as much of his land as he could be buried in,
though they expect it in the year, 1664.”10 MacFirbis witnessed the transition process of
Ireland from its economical domination through the old Irish élites, during the wars of the
1640s, the persecutions and repressions of the 1650s, to the hope and disappointment of the
Restoration period. His comment on the different ways of writing and publishing is an
example of the complex interconnective cultural and confessional changes that Irish
intellectuals experienced in this time period. But it also emphasizes that old Irish as well as
Catholic education was far from exterminated in the 1660s. The landowners were
dispossessed and their hope for recompense was vanishing. However, the educational
tradition represented by the old Irish MacFirbis and the old English Lynch continued beyond
the economical disaster of the seventeenth century. The ancient custom applied by MacFirbis
could not be prohibited neither by the Church of Ireland nor by the Irish government. While
the latter was not able to provide sufficient opportunities for Protestant education, the
Protestant population in Ireland availed themselves without hesitation of the traditional
Catholic teachers. Similar to MacFirbis, Irish Protestants adapted to the local availabilities but
this did not necessarily make them convert to Catholicism. However, their support for the
Catholic teachers made the prohibition of the schools and the dissolution of the religious
houses for the state all the more complicated.
The changes pertaining to wealth and political power during the seventeenth century were
fundamental before they culminated in the defeat of James II and the Glorious Revolution.
Irish Protestants such as the Earl of Orrery realized that even after the defeat of the
Confederation of Kilkenny and the conquest by Cromwell, Catholic educational traditions
remained strong in Ireland. They had quickly adapted to the new circumstances with an
increasing educational offering that taught Protestants and Catholics alike. The educational
style prepared young students for the Irish colleges and seminaries on the continent. Speaking
9
Aubrey Gwynn: John Lynch’s “De Praesulibus Hiberniae”, in: Studies: An Irish quarterly review, No. 34
(1945), pp. 37-52, pp. 46-7.
10
Ibid.
5
of an eighteenth-century Catholic Irish Bishop, Anthony Cogan wrote in his 1862 history of
the Diocese of Meath: “Ignorance has at all times been the scourge of religion, and, on the
other hand, intelligence, under proper direction, has been a valuable auxiliary to the progress
of the church and the reformation of the people.”11 Modern historians agree with Cogan
insofar as that teaching is considered one of the most important elements of state and church
for the control of the subjects, the indoctrination of the adherents, and the exclusion of the
others. If this is so it must be asked again why the Protestant representatives of the Irish state
were not able or willing to prevent Catholic schools from expanding by creating a network of
Protestant schools that not only satisfied the requirements of the Irish Protestants but attracted
Irish Catholics as well?
Early modern education on the local level was not an isolated nor homogeneously organized
and executed process. While state and church authorities took an interest in promoting
schools and education, their actual establishment was a local development based primarily on
individual interests rather than state policy. If the local families and the local authorities such
as the landowner and the parish priest did not see a personal benefit in maintaining a school,
then state policy for the promotion of education would be unsuccessful. Hence, the existence
of a school and its confessional orientation reflects in how far local interests and state and
church interests coincided on the village level.12 For example, in the town of New Ross,
County Wexford, the local Protestant Justice of the Peace offered the resident Jesuits rooms in
his own premises for living and teaching as long as his own children were allowed to attend
classes as well.13 Consequently the existence of the New Ross school mirrored very much the
local power bases and the importance or non-importance of confessional orientations while
the educational and confessional policy of the state that the JP represented played only a
minor part. Thus the involvement of schools in local political and confessional affairs is
central for an analysis of the politics and implementation of confessionalization and
disciplination ‘from above’, as Stefan Ehrenpreis convincingly argued.14 Basic education in
local parish schools always mirrored the influence of the authority over the subject. Where
these schools existed, even contrary to the authority’s policy and confession, the influence of
state and church on Irish villages was consequently low.
11
Anthony Cogan: The diocese of Meath, vol. 1, Dublin 1862, p. 239.
For the important role of the parish and the local priest and teacher see for example Werner Freitag:
Tridentinische Pfarrer und die Kirche im Dorf. Ein Plädoyer für die Beibehaltung der etatistischen Perspektive,
in: Norbert Haag (ed.): Ländliche Frömmigkeit, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 83-114.
13
Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu: Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno
1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 263-263v. Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall,
1663/1664, fo. 260.
14
Ehrenpreis, Elementarschulwesen, p. 157.
12
6
Notwithstanding what plans state and local authorities followed when supporting a respective
kind of education, the existence of schools depended largely on the support of parents and
students. If students did not attend classes, then schools would not survive on the local level
for long, despite its disciplining or confessionalizing assignment. In times where children
were needed as helping workers they were only sent to school if their attendance offered them
and consequently their families a material benefit in later years. But was it helpful for the
careers of Protestant children in Ireland to have attended a Catholic school as so many did?
Apparently the JP at New Ross thought a Jesuit education for his children especially
beneficial. Consequently the existence of Catholic schools also suggests that Protestant
education was no necessary requirement for a career in post-Restoration Ireland and that
confessional exclusivism was not actually happening in a kingdom that so much emphasized
the personal alliance of state and church.15
The present work will show that Irish Catholic schools were broadly available throughout the
country, but they were also representative of highly interconfessional activities. The work will
therefore analyze the confessional structure and disposition of post-Restoration Irish society.
The primary concern will be the confessional indifference displayed by the majority of the
attendants and supporters of these institutions whose personal interest and benefit outweighed
their religious and political orientation.16 As Lionel Glassey characterized the Restoration
period, the confessional aspect of politics and daily life was important. But economic
prosperity and the protection of private property had gained relevance for many, resulting in a
15
Possible further career options will be analyzed following the data from the immatriculation records of Trinity
College, Dublin. Names, origin and previous teachers of all students have been compiled by George Dames
Burtchaeli/Thomas Ulick Sadleir (eds.): Alumni Dublineses (1593-1860), 3 vols., reprinted Bristol 2001.
16
An innovative concept of national, ethnical or confessional indifference has been outlined by Tara Zahra:
Kidnapped Souls. National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900-1948,
Ithaca/London 2008. According to Zahra, groups of different interests are traditionally occupying the field of
education in order to gain control over the identity of the parents. But different to common approaches she
emphasizes that a majority of local communities constantly upholds its indifference towards any such
undertakings thus refusing access to fundamentalism and social, lingual, confessional and ethnical exclusivism.
On the other hand, indifferently acting individuals reserved for themselves the opportunity to choose in each
case between different options tending towards the one that offers more benefit in the respective situation. A
concise summary of the controversial term ‘confessional indifference’ in the early modern period can be found
in Kaspar von Greyerz: Konfessionelle Indifferenz in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Pietsch, Andreas/StollbergRillinger, Barbara (eds.): Konfessionelle Ambiguität. Uneindeutigkeit und Verstellung als religiöse Praxis in der
Frühen Neuzeit, Heidelberg 2013, pp. 39-61. Because of the different relevant aspects of this phenomenon von
Greyerz decides to position the model somewhere between a tolerant attitude and confessional ignorance
presuming a certain knowledge about the confessional peculiarities without an own determined opinion.
Especially among the gentry and nobility he detects little disposition to bend under the upcoming intentions of
confessional and social disciplination thus refusing to internalize the new behavioral norms, a definition that
does perfectly fit in the seventeenth century Irish context.
7
certain indifference towards confessional arguments which cannot be denied.17 Thus the work
will contribute to the debate on how the Irish case was a unique one in the context of early
modern European confessionalization in terms of exclusion and separation as argued by Ute
Lotz-Heumann.18 By analyzing urban and rural forms of confessional fluidity19 in Catholic
schools in Ireland, the work will intervene in the discussion about confessionalization in early
modern Europe that has been largely influenced by the scholarships of the two German
historians Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling. Their theory of confessionalization
describes an exclusivist process that focuses on the delimited formation of the adherents of
the respective confessions by means of education and disciplination. The present analysis will
juxtapose their approach with the confessionally fluent situation of the Irish Catholic schools
and the confessional indifference of its lay supporters and attendants. The high esteem of
Protestant parents towards Catholic teachers and the respective acceptance of differing
confessions on the local level underlines that the confessional exclusion aimed at by state and
church did not work in Ireland while Irish Protestants and Catholics alike transgressed the
confessional borders in their hometowns with such ease.20
This work will shed light on the confessional processes that took place around different forms
of education in early modern Ireland. It will show an early modern society with fluent
confessional affiliations. Transgressions of confessional borders were a common phenomenon
in rural Ireland. Teaching institutions in the Irish countryside, regardless of their confessional
profile, were often used by the local population to serve personal interests as outlined above.
Local common sense had to arrange itself with the Irish setting of a Protestant state and a
17
Lionel Glassey: Introduction, in: Ibid. (ed.): The Reigns of Charles II and James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 112, p. 10-11.
18
According to the analysis of Ute Lotz-Heumann the Irish case is a special one because of the double
confessionalisation she describes. Her innovative approach is helpful but not sufficiently comprehensive. Cf.
Ibid.: Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung in Irland, Tübingen 2000.
19
The idea of a state of confessional fluidity that allowed members of different confessions to switch easily
between them or to exist in a confessionally more or less undefined space is widely accepted. See for example
Kaspar Greyerz/Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen/Thomas Kaufmann/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): Interkonfessionalität
– Transkonfessionalität – binnenkonfessionelle Pluralität, Heidelberg 2003. Anton Schindling:
Konfessionalisierung und Grenzen von Konfessionalisierbarkeit, in: Ibid./Walter Ziegler (eds.): Die Territorien
des Reichs im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung, vol. 7, Münster 1997, pp. 9-44.
20
For a detailed account of the theoretical approaches on the aspect of confessionalization see chapter V. In any
case the development of an Irish identity that differed from the formation of the state it formed part of was
nothing unique in Europe. Especially in the Habsburg territories of Bohemia, Hungaria and Slovenia similar
processes can be identified. Additionally religious, cultural or ethnical minorities could well survive in
fundamental opposition to the nation state they officially adhered to such as the English Catholic gentry.
Nevertheless, most historians have usually tended to identify such differentiation processes with homogeneous
confessional groups while the present analysis of local Irish educational developments suggests a
transconfessional community diverging at least in many aspects from the dominant identity of the developing
central state. Cf. Heinz Schilling: Confessionalisation and the rise of Religious and Cultural Frontiers in early
modern Europe, in: Eszter Andor/István Tóth (eds.): Frontiers of Faith. Religious Exchange and the Constitution
of Religious Identities, 1400-1750, Budapest 2001, pp. 21-35, pp. 25-6.
8
Catholic population that would not convert to the Church of Ireland. This complex
interconfessional social order persisted throughout the Restoration period despite the
regulatory efforts of the Protestant state authority and the Tridentine reform movement
initiated by the Catholic Church in Rome. Thus these efforts and the perspectives on the Irish
situation from those who acted as their representatives will be juxtaposed with the
confessional realities of rural and urban forms of education in Ireland with a particular focus
on family patronage and trans-confessional clan traditions.21 This contrast will reveal the
distance between aspiration for confessional regulation through education and the reality of
confessional indifference on the local level. Hence this work emphasizes the balancing act by
the characters involved between the local society they were rooted in and the requirements
‘from above’ that they tried to meet in order to secure their personal advancement.22
The representatives of the Irish state, the Church of Ireland, and the Church of Rome that
were the driving forces behind the confessionalization of rural and urban Ireland ranged from
Archbishops and Lords Lieutenant to parish priests and city mayors. In many cases these
agents were trapped between the positions of the institutions that they officially represented
and the dealing of interconfessional local traditions of patronage and clientelism. Many of
them acted as authority representatives while at the same time being deeply rooted in a family
network and tradition they intended to protect. James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, and a
convert himself, tried as Lord Lieutenant to implement the state’s laws against Catholics and
especially the Catholic clergy. His own relatives, however, remained Catholic and several
branches of the Butler Clan that were only restored to their property after the Restoration
because of the intervention of the Duke, used their means to protect and support Catholic
teachers and clerics.
The scrutiny will show that the complaint by the Earl of Orrery was an expression of helpless
perplexity repeated by those Irish Protestants who were hoping for a stronger influence of the
Protestant state as they came to realize that the Restoration of Charles II had not changed the
21
Luise Schorn-Schütte underlined the necessity to point more clearly at the differences between
governmental/ecclesiastical norms and their actual implementation when analysing the contemporary models of
social doctrine. Cf. Ibid.: Bikonfessionalität als Chance? Zur Entstehung konfessionsspezifischer Soziallehren
am Ende des 16. und zu Beginn des 17. Jahrhunderts, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, Sonderband
(1993), pp. 305-324, here p. 309.
22
Already some years ago Berndt Hamm argued in his discussion of the terms ‘Reformation from above’ and
‘from below’, that no such general distinction could be made. In fact, Confessional activities on a local level
were always most present where local authorities harmonised these endeavours ‘from below’ with those ‘from
above’ they represented officially. Consequently Hamm proposed to consider the process of confessionalization
as an intermediate phenomenon that represented the local adaptation of both currents. Cf. Ibid.: Reformation
“von unten” und Reformation “von oben”. Zur Problematik reformationshistorischer Klassifizierungen, in:
Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, Sonderband (1993), pp. 256-293.
9
course of Irish clientelism nor government. Oliver Plunkett on the other hand had to admit
that the strong Protestant support which he received for the Jesuit school in Drogheda did not
lead to the full restoration of the Catholic Church and episcopal hierarchy in Ireland. Only
few Protestant students at his school actually converted to Catholicism and the success of the
Tridentine reforms that Plunkett implemented was quite limited. The success of Plunkett’s
school was not based on a widespread interest in the reformed Catholic Church but in high
quality teaching that met the standards of the population of what became a prosperous urban
region in early modern Europe. When the Catholic Primate of all Ireland was executed during
the Popish Plot in 1681, this did not primarily happen at the instigation of leading Irish
Protestants but because of the consent among Irish regular clerics to collaborate with
Plunkett’s political enemies in England who felt cornered by his reforms and feared to lose
the influence of their houses in the local Irish communities. The grand political and
confessional scheme represented by Orrery and Plunkett failed during the Restoration period
but the local Catholic hedge schools survived in parts until the nineteenth century – a fact
which might have appeased even the pessimistic poet Duald MacFirbis.
1. Source material
The availability of source material for early modern Ireland is limited since so many valuable
documents were lost to the fires of the 1920s.While many historians have declared the
assessment of post-Restoration education in Ireland as impossible or unrepresentative, a
variety of sources concerning the topic have survived outside of Ireland. The available
material in England along with what survived in Ireland provides enough information to allow
for sufficient analysis. First of all the work is based on the material compiled by the two main
institutions concerned; the Catholic Church and the Protestant state. The State Papers
Domestic and the State Papers Ireland offer some detailed material on the proceedings of the
government and its representatives.23 While they are solely concerned with the Protestant
perspective ‘from above’ on the proceedings in Ireland, they are complemented by the rich
material of the Catholic perspective compiled mostly by Propaganda Fide in Rome which was
calendared in decades of work by Benignus Millett.
The Propaganda documents are divided in three subgroups. The Scritture riferite nelle
Congregazioni Generali embrace all of the regular documents dealt with on the monthly
meetings of Propaganda since 1622. These documents were lost for a long time since they
23
F. H. Blackburn Daniell (ed.): Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, January 1671 – February 1675,
London 1895-1904. March 1676 – February 1685 were reprinted in Nendeln in 1968. / Robert Pentland Mahaffy
(ed.): Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland, 1660-70, London 1905-10.
10
were transported to Paris by Napoleonic soldiers. By accident they were brought to Vienna
after Napoleon’s downfall where they were found in 1925 and returned to Rome as the socalled Fondo di Vienna. They comprise of four relevant volumes on Irish history between
1653 and 1668. Many of the cases discussed by Propaganda were not decided in the general
assembly but forwarded to special task forces, the Congregazione particolare. Their
documents were collected in 161 volumes, 19 of which refer to Irish history between 1668
and 1860. The third category of documents produced by Propagada Fide is the Scritture
riferite nei Congressi. They contain all the correspondences and decisions taken by the
assembly in the day to day affairs and were not presented to the general assembly. Altogether
there are 45 volumes of Irish material between 1625 and 1892.24
Complementary to these official documents of the two main institutions involved, the
preeminent characters of the time left behind personal collections of letters or documents;
some of which have been preserved. On the Protestant side the voluminous documents of the
Duke of Ormond were largely collected in the Carte Papers.25 Along with these papers the
collection of personal letters of the Earl of Essex published in the nineteenth century is of
particular importance.26 However, their relevance as source material is very diverse: The
Duke of Ormond was very interested in his self-representation as a statesman through the
collected documents. Accordingly his letters and commentaries were often part of the
construct of the Life of the Duke of Ormond that he wanted the posterity to see. On the other
hand Essex’ letters are of a more private nature. For example, the correspondence with his
brother, Henry Capel, suggests a vivid expression of Essex’ personal opinions versus his
political beliefs. Of similar importance for the analysis of the Protestant view on Catholic
education in Ireland is the collection of letters written by the Earl of Orrery edited and
published in the eighteenth century. Orrery was one of the leading Protestant landowners in
Ireland and a fierce political adversary of the Duke of Ormond. His letters are usually
concerned with the southern province of Munster of which he acted as Lord President during
much of the 1660s. A vehement opponent of the Catholic Church and Catholic teaching in
Ireland, his letters reveal his personal convictions and are not representative documents for
the general political landscape. However, they provide valuable information on the danger
24
Patrick J. Corish/David C. Sheehy: Records of the Irish Catholic Church, Dublin/Portland 2001, pp. 15-6.
Thomas Carte: History of the Life of James, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, London 1736. Historical Manuscripts
Commission (ed.): Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, preserved at Kilkenny Castle,
London 1895-1912.
26
Osmond Airy (ed.): Essex Papers, vol. 1: 1672-1679, Westminster 1890. J. Dodsley (ed.): Letters written by
His Excellency Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the Year 1675. To which is prefixed
an Historical Account of his Life, London 1770. Clement Edwards Pike: Selections from the Correspondence of
Arthur Capel, earl of Essex, 1675-1677, London 1913.
25
11
perceived by the Protestant settlers in Ireland and the political importance such perceptions
could have.27 On the Catholic side most of the inner-Irish information derive from the
collections of letters of the two Archbishops Oliver Plunkett of Armagh and John Brenan of
Cashel.28 Plunkett’s letters, which were sent in high frequency to Brussels and Rome, are a
detailed source for the confessional activities of the 1670s. As a canonized Saint his letters are
among those documents that have attracted special research and study since the nineteenth
century.29 Nevertheless it has to be considered that Plunkett’s image as Saint is not
unquestioned and the euphoric works on his deeds and life of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries were often solely based on his private letters and far from being unbiased. Some
letters that did not comply with the image of the Saint were left out or given in wrong
chronological order. From other sources it becomes clear that Plunkett’s position within the
Irish Catholic Church was critically judged. Since he was primarily the only person of
reference, we are unaware if his self-depiction as ever-active and helpful Catholic agitator
was correct. Consequently his letters are a unique source for Restoration Ireland however they
have to be analyzed with extreme caution. Brenan’s letters were more reliable. He rarely
followed a personal agenda in his correspondence since he acted as contact person for
Propaganda Fide in Ireland and composed more official evaluations of situations and
individuals. Many of his letters give interesting information on the main political and
confessional characters of the time (e.g. his personal friend Plunkett). More than once the
Archbishop of Armagh stood accused of misbehaviors and heresy. Since Propaganda Fide
was located far away, Brenan was asked to assess the situation and compile characterizations
of Plunkett. The two of them being close friends makes the descriptions of Plunkett less
neutral than they were supposed to be but they help to contrast Plunkett’s own relations with
the contemporary perceptions of other individuals involved.
Concerning the particular question of education the most useful sources are without a doubt
the Jesuit Litterae Annuae preserved largely in the Jesuit Archive in Rome.30 These
documents are the most continuous and detailed source material for Catholic confessional
27
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett. Patrick Power (ed.): Archbishop John Brennen of Cashel: His
reports to Propaganda, in: The Irish Ecclesiastical Record No. 39 (1932), pp. 243-261/351-367/463-475. Ibid.
(ed.): A Bishop of the Penal Times, being letters and reports of John Brenan, Cork 1932.
29
Patrick Francis Moran: Life of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, Dublin 1870. Ibid. (ed.): Memoirs of the
most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, Dublin 1895.
30
The documents are located in the volumes Anglia 6a and 41 of the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu,
comprising personal letters of the members and the annual reports of the years 1661-1665 and 1669-1674. The
first reports were compiled by the Superior of the Mission Andrew Sall, the later years by the Superior Stephen
Rice.
28
12
activities in Ireland in the Restoration period. Nevertheless, the Litterae Annuae were also
part of the political agenda and self-representation of the order and its Irish members.
Accordingly the accentuation of the reports does not always correspond to real events or their
importance in the national context. Some individual activities and incidents were especially
highlighted while others were merely mentioned. Regardless the Jesuit reports and letters
depict a uniquely complete image of the distribution of its members, their names, numbers,
locations and schools if they maintained any. The comparative Protestant material on Irish
education is less organized. After Cromwell’s intention to register all Irish Protestant
schoolmasters, the locations of their schools, as well as their salary which was not fully
completed, no exact list of the official Protestant teaching facilities exists.31 The approximate
number of schools can only be given in accordance with the matriculation records of Trinity
College after an emanation of the indicated former schoolteachers.32 Finally the source
material of the other religious orders in Ireland apart from the Jesuits is not as comprehensive
nor as reliable. One chronicle was compiled respectively by contemporary members of the
orders on the activities of the Franciscans as well as the Dominicans. However, in both cases
these works were written in the early decades of the eighteenth century from a perspective of
exile. Consequently the dates and names are often not exact therefore their accuracy must be
questioned. Additionally, many of the members mentioned had died by then, some even under
persecution and were thus glorified by the authors in a very subjective way.33
2. State of research
Despite the variety of sources outlined above the education in the Restoration period has
attracted only a few researchers and the most prominent among them have died some fifty
years ago. The nineteenth century saw a multitude of regional studies and chronicles referring
to counties, parishes, or dioceses. In many cases, these monumental works gave some pieces
of evidence on regional educational history throughout the times although the scientific value
of some of them is limited. In a mixture of academic study and folklore, quotations are scarce
and of limited use since they refer to unverifiable documents that burned in the 1920s. Thus
31
Mihail Dafydd Evans (ed.): Some Extracts from a Cromwellian Civil List (A List of the Schoolmasters within
this Nation), T.C.D. MS 1040, in: The Irish Genealogist, No. 1 (1993/94), pp. 618-619.
32
Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublineses.
33
The Franciscan archivist at Louvain College compiled material on the Irish Franciscans in the early 18th
century. His documents were published in Cathaldus Giblin (ed.): Liber Lovaniensis. A Collection of Irish
Franciscan Documents, 1629-1717, Dublin 1956. Much more information has survived on the Irish Dominicans
thanks to the chronice of John O’Heyne written in 1706. His work was republished in 1902: Ambrose Coleman
(ed.): The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century by Father John O’Heyne, Louvain 1706, repr. Dundalk
1902. Ibid. (ed.): The Ancient Dominican Foundations in Ireland. An Appendix to O’Heyne’s “Epilogus
Chronologicus”, Dundalk 1902.
13
the general historical value of these studies in the ensuing analysis is marginal but equally
inevitable because of the sheer vastness of comparative works. Concerning the identification
of places and schools throughout Ireland, they are valuable even if they rely on unverifiable
sources. Consequently the most questionable of them will only be used for quantitative
reasons but it would be a mistake to completely ignore such a bundle of secondary material.
To categorize them they can be subdivided into the different groups of diocesan history34,
county history35, regional history36 and parish history37.
As the early twentieth century progressed, the interest in Irish Catholic education in the early
modern period increased. The Jesuit professor Timothy Corcoran published a variety of
essays on the topic and was the first to add some of the Jesuit material. Corcoran himself
being a Jesuit made his analyses of the Jesuit activities in Ireland and their cooperation with
Archbishop Oliver Plunkett in Drogheda vulnerable to subjectivity. Nevertheless he outlined
34
John Begley: The Diocese of Limerick in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, Dublin 1927. Evelyn
Bolster: A History of the Diocese of Cork. From the Reformation to the Penal Era, Cork 1982. W. Carrigan:
History and antiquities of the diocese of Ossory, vol. 1, Dublin 1905. Cogan, The diocese of Meath. Michael
Comerford: Collections relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, Dublin 1883. William Flood/H. Grattan
(eds.): History of the Diocese of Ferns, Waterford 1916. Patrick Gallagher: Sources for the History of the Clergy
of a Diocese: Seventeenth-Century Clogher, in: Irish Catholic Historical Committee Proceedings, No. 3 (1957),
pp. 25-30. John Healy: History of the Diocese of Meath, 2 vols., Dublin 1908. Francis MacKiernan: The Diocese
of Kilmore, 1670-1728, in: Breifne, No. 38 (2002), pp. 517-536. James MacNamee: History of the Diocese of
Ardagh, Dublin 1954. John Monaghan: Records relating to the Diocese of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, Dublin
1886. Phillip O’Connell: The Diocese of Kilmore, its history and antiquities, Dublin 1937. Patrick Power:
Waterford and Lismore: a compendious history of the united dioceses, Cork 1937.
35
Patrick J. Corish: Two centuries of Catholicism in County Wexford, in: Kevin Whelan/William Nolan (eds.):
Wexford: history and society: interdisciplinary essays on the history of an Irish county, Dublin 1987, pp. 222247. George Griffith (ed.): Chronicles of the County Wexford being a record of memorable incidents, disasters,
social occurrences, and crimes, also, biographies of eminent persons, &c., &c., brought down to the year 1877,
vol. 1, Enniscorthy 1890. Philip Herbert Hore: History of the Town and County of Wexford, 6 vols., London
1900-1911. Henry Piers (ed.): A Chorographical Description of the County of West-Meath, written A.D. 1682,
in: Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, No. 1 (1786), pp. 1-126. Francis H. Tuckey: The County and City of Cork
Remembrancer, Cork 1837.
36
William Burke: History of Clonmel, Waterford 1907. Francis Burke: Loch Ce and ist annals, North
Roscommon and the diocese of Elphin in times of old, Dublin 1895. Oliver Burke: The south isles of Aran,
London 1887. John D’Alton: The History of Drogheda, vol. 2, Dublin 1844. Jerome Fahey: The History and
Antiquities of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh, Dublin 1893. Nicholas Furlong: Life in Wexford port 1600-1800, in:
Kevin Whelan (ed.): Wexford. History and Society, Dublin 1987, pp. 150-173. James Hardiman: History of
Galway, Dublin 1820. Philip Herbert Hore (ed.): An account of the barony of Forth in the county of Wexford
written at the close of the seventeenth century, in: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, No. 7
(1862-3), pp. 53-83. Ibid. (ed.): A Chorographic account of the southern part of county Wexford, written anno
1684 by Robert Leigh, esq., of Rosegarland in that county, in: Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of
Ireland, No. 5 (1858-9), pp. 17-21/451-467. L.C. Johnston: History of Drogheda, Drogheda 1826. Edward
MacLysaght: Report on Documents relating to the Wardenship of Galway, in: Analecta Hibernica, No. 14
(1944), whole volume. Phillip O’Connell: The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, Dublin 1942. Roderic
O’Flaherty: A Chorographical Description of West or H-Iar Connaught, 1684, edited by James Hardiman,
Dublin 1846. Patrick, C. Power: Carrick on Suir and ist People, Dun Laoghaire 1976.
37
T.P. Donnelly: History of the parish of Ardstraw West and Castlederg, Strabane 1978. Patrick Egan: The
parish of Ballinasloe, Dublin 1960. P.J. McGill: History of the Parish of Ardara, 1970. Patrick Ò Mórain: Annala
beaga pharaiste Bhuiréis Umhaill, reprinted Westport 2004. Phillip O’Connell: Moybolge and its Ancient
Church, in: Breifny Antiquarian Society, vol. 2, No. 2 (1924), pp. 190-227. T. O’Rorke: History, Antiquities and
Present State of the Parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet in the County of Sligo, Dublin 1878.
14
the existence of Catholic education for the Restoration period and underlined the
interconfessional aspect that was contradictory to the official legislation. To characterize the
development of the respective Acts for Irish education and the mostly Jesuit underground
schools was his primary target. But he neglected the further analysis of interconfessional
aspects in the field of education in Ireland and the composition of a general picture of Irish
post-Restoration education which will be the target of the present research.38 If the issue of
Catholic education in Ireland was broached it was mostly in a local context referring to one
special place, person, or institution without questioning the general context of education in
Ireland and the confessional or interconfessional background of the seventeenth century.
Detailed analyses such as presented by Brian Ó Dálaigh on the Catholic activities at Ennis in
the Restoration period and Rolf Loeber on the Jesuit university in Dublin during the 1620s
have been extremely helpful for this present work.39 The study will further profit a lot from
the extensive editions of source material of the Archives of Propaganda Fide mentioned
above, realized by Benignus Millett between 1963 and 2001 thus adding a new perspective to
the topic that the previously mentioned historians of the nineteenth century had not available.
Apart from Millett the Restoration period is still largely ignored when it comes to early
modern Irish history. Concerning education only the colleges and seminaries on the continent
have attracted several scholars during the past decades but the following question was not
raised: where did the students actually come from?
40
Bettina Braun underlined in her essay
38
Timothy Corcoran: Studies in the History of Classical Teaching, Irish and Continental 1500-1700, London
1911. Ibid., State Policy, Dublin 1916. Ibid. (ed.): Some Lists of Catholic Lay Teachers and their Illegal Schools
in Ireland in the Later Penal Times, Dublin 1932. Ibid. (ed.): The Clongowes Record, 1814 to 1932. With
Introductory Chapters on Irish Jesuit Educators, 1564 to 1813, Dublin 1932. Ibid.: Early Irish Jesuit Educators I,
in: Studies. An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 29, No. 116 (1940), pp. 545-560. Ibid.: Early Irish Jesuit Educators
II, in: Studies. An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 30 (1941), pp. 59-47. Ibid.: Blessed Oliver Plunkett and His Irish
Jesuit Schools, in: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 30, No. 119 (Sept. 1941), pp. 415-424.
39
Special thanks are due to Brian Ó Dálaigh whose profound knowledge of the educational activities in
Restoration Thomond have much helped to fill the gap between local and european history. See for example
Brían Ó Dálaigh: Catholic clergy and religious practice in Ennis, 1651–1842, in: The Other Clare, No. 26
(2002), pp. 16-24. Ibid.: Religious persecution in the seventeenth century: the friars of Kilkeedy, in: The Other
Clare, No. 31 (2007), pp. 61-62. Similarly helpful have been among other the essays by Francis Finegan: Jesuits
in Kilkenny, in: Jesuit Year Book (1971), pp. 9-23. John Leonard: A University for Kilkenny. Plans for a Royal
College in the seventeenth century, Dublin 1996. Rolf Loeber: Kildare Hall, the countess of Kildare's patronage
of the Jesuits, and the liturgical setting of Catholic worship in early seventeenth-century Dublin, in: Elizabeth
FitzPatrick /Raymond Gillespie (eds.): The Parish in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland, Dublin 2006, pp. 242265. Tony Lyons: The hedge schools of County Limerick, in: North Munster Antiquarian Journal, No. 46
(2006), pp. 83-95.
40
Only some titles shall be examplarily named for the great quantity of research that has been done on the topic.
Generally the interest for the education on the continent originated with John Brady’s essay: The Irish colleges
in Europe and the Counter-Reformation, in: Irish Catholic Historical Committee Proceedings, No. 3 (1957), pp.
1-8. Brady’s approaches were continued by Helga Hammerstein: Aspects of the Continental Education of Irish
students in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, in: T.D.Williams (ed.): Historical Studies 8, Dublin 1971, pp. 137153. Until today essays on the larger colleges appear regularly some of the most recent being for Salamanca:
Hugh Fenning: Students of the Irish College at Salamanca 1592-1638, in: Archivium Hibernicum, No. 62
15
on Catholic confessional migration that the scholar-transfer of Irish Catholics to the continent
is, however, still better documented than most comparable Catholic movements but that the
work done on the subject is in no way sufficient nor satisfactory. The present work will add a
new piece to the exploration of the migration process outlined by Braun.41
In conclusion it must be said that the secondary material on education in Restoration Ireland
is very scarce and usually focused on the continental aspects of the Irish abroad. Literature on
the state of Catholic education in Ireland is available only for the time before the Cromwellian
conquest42 and a little bit on the Irish hedge schools under the Penal Laws of after 169043. The
period between 1660 and 1685 is almost completely left out of the general examination and is
only discussed in regional works with a limited approach. Therefore it will be the task of the
present work on Catholic education in Restoration Ireland to make use of all the available
source material combining the Roman Catholic and the Protestant governmental view in order
to create a general picture of Catholic education in Ireland. With the help of the local studies
it will be possible to contrast the general designs ‘from above’ wheter they were Catholic or
Protestant with the daily life circumstances of the local communities in Ireland.
This work will not only offer a general map of educational facilities throughout Ireland in the
given time frame but also an embedding of the Irish educational landscape in the British and
European context of the time. Catholic schools can be found in nearly every part of Ireland
despite their legal prohibition and they were attended not only by Catholics but also by many
Protestants who either appreciated the higher quality of the teachers or had no Protestant
teacher available. Many of the schools received financial and political support from Protestant
landowners and even leading Irish Protestant politicians of the Restoration era. Consequently
the analysis of Catholic education in Restoration Ireland is not an interpretation of teaching
facilities alone but of their role as expressions of a vivid inter- and transconfessional daily life
that existed contrary to the anti-Catholic legislation. Following the discussion of the
(2009), pp. 7-36. For Louvain: Jeroen Nilis: Irish Students at Leuven University, 1548-1797, Leuven 2010. And
for Rome: Vera Orschel /John Hanly (eds.): Calendar of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century documents at the
archives of the Irish College,Rome (with index), in: Archivium Hibernicum, No. 63 (2010), pp. 7-263.
41
Bettina Braun: Katholische Konfessionsmigration im Europa der Frühen Neuzeit – Stand und Perspektiven der
Forschung, in: Henning Jürgens/Thomas Weller (eds.): Religion und Mobilität, Göttingen 2010, pp. 75-112.
42
A very detailed study was published some time ago already by Fergus O’Donoghue: The Jesuit Mission in
Ireland 1598-1651, Ann Arbor 1985.
43
The yet very old work by William Burke: The Irish Priests in the Penal Times, 1660-1760, Waterford 1914,
reprinted 1968 underlines the rarity with which the Irish dimension of catholic education has been discussed.
The Penal Laws have attracted more research recently but they usually touch but lightly the Restoration Period.
John Bergin, Eoin Magennis, Lesa Ní Mhunghaile and Patrick Walsh have just started to broaden the preception
of the Penal Laws in their Edition: New Perspectives on the Penal Laws, Dublin 2011.
16
confessionalization paradigm first created by Reinhard and Schilling44 the present work will
contextualize Irish confessional politics, ambitions, and contradictions with the European
developments of the second half of the seventeenth century thus relativizing the concepts of
permanent confessional borders as well as the faculties of an emerging modern state for social
disciplination of its subjects and controlling their beliefs through formation and punishment.
3. Literacy and Education in Early Modern History – Defining Terms
Researching education in the early modern period is difficult because of the incomparability
of quantity and quality throughout Europe and the definition of terms related to any kind of
education has therefore been controversially discussed in the previous decades. It is of crucial
importance to define the lexicon that will be used in this work in order to outline what is
meant and what is not when speaking of the terms ‘education’ and ‘school’. The complex
difficulties concerning these definitions were precisely identified by Lawrence Stone and
picked up by Robert Houston in his essential work on Literacy in Early Modern Europe: “The
structure of education in a society is determined by (...) social stratification, job opportunities,
religion, theories of social control, demographic and family patterns, economic organisation
and resources, and finally political theory and institutions.” Additionally to all these points
Houston associated the aspect of language. Without sufficient domination of the teaching
language no instruction could be successful, but sufficient domination of the teaching
language was only given in a broad social context if the teaching language was identical to the
language of daily life of the students.45 The teaching language became increasingly important
in areas such as Ireland where Latin as a teaching language was not the daily life language but
an expression of an illegal confession followed by the majority of the local population. Irish
could also function as a teaching language because it was the daily language of the local
inhabitants and at the same time an expression of political disobedience towards the Englishspeaking Protestant state authority. Already this one aspect of Houston’s criteria makes clear
that education in early modern Ireland was a complex expression of society and could be seen
as a representative of the general social development of a region or country.
In order to adapt the research to the early modern background Houston defines different kinds
of literacy as representatives of education that could include all forms and levels of learning.
44
The theoretical approaches of the confessionalization paradigm embrace a variety of authors that have
questioned the fundamental ideas of Reinhard and Schilling ever since. The different positions and authors will
be examined in the separated chapter V and are therefore not named here.
45
Robert Houston: Literacy in Early Modern Europe. Culture and Education 1500-1800, London 2002, p. 3.
Quoted from Lawrence Stone: Literacy and education in England, 1640-1900, in: Past and Present, No. 62
(1969), pp. 69-139, p. 70.
17
Consequently education according to Houston started as early as the depiction of pictures and
could end with the independent composition of texts.46 These levels varied extremely from
region to region and depended largely on the economical situation of the local society. When
speaking of education and schooling the average case in early modern Europe was an
institution that offered classes for only a few months a year when the potential students were
seldom involved in the daily work.47 Thus, the access of most parts of the population to
education was limited to the catechism classes offered by the local parish priest or in a nearby
monastery.48 The level of education offered in such institutions was low in terms of more
advanced skills of reading and writing but it will be taken into account as well following
Houston’s definition of different literacies.
The sixteenth century witnessed in many areas of Europe a significant increase of learning
and educational offers. While this development has often been understood as an expression of
political change and increasing participation of larger parts of the population, the majority of
the educational improvements were designed as warrants of the existing order as well as
political and confessional conformity. The student’s formation of the mind was to be
controlled in order to make him a loyal subject and a faithful Christian instead of questioning
the existing social and confessional authorities.49 Willem Frijhoff explained that education
and upbringing are necessarily processes positively violent that pursue the strategy of the
student’s acculturation integrating him into the existing social order along with its traditions.50
Fundamental to the development of pedagogical approaches and the school as a place of
crucial importance in the context of the confessionalization process were the Humanistic
ideals of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Humanistic tradition of the individual
improvement of man aimed at spiritual perfection through the study of moral, ethics. and
classical rhetorics, This was adopted by many of the church reformers of the sixteenth century
that began to instrumentalize education for confessionalizing means, thus confronting the
46
Houston, Literacy, pp. 3-4.
Ibid., p. 109.
48
See as well Rudolf Keck: Konfessionalisierung und Bildung aus erziehungswissenschaftlicher Sicht, in: HansUlrich Musolff/Anja-Silvia Göing (eds.): Anfänge und Grundlegungen moderner Pädagogik im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert, Köln 2003, pp. 11-30, pp. 17-8. According to Keck weekly catechetical instruction was of some
value although he would not call it a regular lesson. The term lesson implied a daily school which was not
limited to the teaching of the catechism but also taught to read and to sing.
49
Houston, Literacy, p. 233.
50
Willem Frijhoff: Seitenwege der Autonomie. Wege und Formen der Erziehung in der Frühen Neuzeit, in:
Juliane Jacobi/Jean-Luc Le Cam/Hans-Ulrich Musolff (eds.): Vormoderne Bildungsgänge: Selbst- und
Fremdbeschreibungen in der frühen Neuzeit, Köln/Weimar/Wien 2010, pp. 25-42, pp. 27-8.
47
18
mass of the people with the vanguard profile of the Humanists.51 Rudolf Keck emphasized
that the confessionalization propagated by Reinhard and Schilling was highly connected with
Humanism and the educational ideals it included.52 In fact, apart from the special formation of
priests, the developing Protestant educational institutes and the Catholic Jesuit schools were
comparable in regards to the Christian-Humanistic curriculum as Anton Schindling pointed
out. He noted that around 1600 there existed a supra-confessional late Humanistic occidental
educational community beyond any national borders that formed the fundaments of the
baroque culture of the seventeenth century.53 The most innovative aspect of Humanist
education was the combination of spirituality and individual lay work. Schools were no
longer solely seen as preparation institutes for future priests but they prepared faithful lay
Christians for a productive life especially in the urban context. John O’Malley speaks of a
shift from an education of a vita contemplativa towards a vita activa.54 The same approach has
been taken by Hilde de Ridder-Symoens who characterized the period between the thirteenth
and the sixteenth century as a process of professionalization. The secularization of the
professional world broke the clergy’s reading and writing monopoly in a slow development
that formed an important element of the creation of the modern state.55
Such a combinatory approach of education in theology, classical rhetorics, and economy was
prominently included by the Jesuit schools of the sixteenth and seventeenth century and
became the most important representatives of an early modern school network.56
Nevertheless, as Frijhoff pointed out, it would be a mistake to over-estimate the individual
peculiarity of early modern education given its dependence on highly discriminative
51
For Stefan Ehrenpreis it was especially this broadening of mass education throughout Western Europe
between 1580 and 1620 that meant the final success of pedagogy in the confessionalizing context. While quality
and funding may have varied the general broadening occurred in Catholic territories as well as Protestant as
Ehrenpreis outlines. Cf. Ehrenpreis, Kulturwirkungen, p. 245. See as well: Asche, Humanistische Distanz, p.
266.
52
Rudolf Keck: Schulgeschichtliche Entwicklungen in der Frühen Neuzeit, in: Juliane Jacobi (ed.): Zwischen
christlicher Tradition und Aufbruch in die Moderne. Das Hallesche Waisenhaus im bildungsgeschichtlichen
Kontext, Tübingen 2007, pp. 13-29, pp. 14-18.
53
Anton Schindling: Schulen und Universitäten im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Zehn Thesen zu Bildungsexpansion,
Laienbildung und Konfessionalisierung nach der Reformation, in: W. Brandmüller (ed.): Ecclesia Militans.
Studien zur Konzilien- und Reformationsgeschichte, Festschrift für R. Bäumer, vol. 2, Paderborn 1988, pp. 561570, pp. 564-566. Rudolf Keck comes to a similar conclusion concerning the starting poit of confessional
education. But different to Schindling he argues that the accordances diminshed until the late sixteenth century
giving way to a stronger pedagogical differentiation of the confessions in the seventeenth century. Ibid.,
Konfessionalisierung und Bildung, pp. 11-30.
54
John W. O’Malley: Saint Ignatius and the Cultural Mission of the Society of Jesus, in: Ibid. /Gauvin
Alexander Bailey (eds.): The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773, Philadelphia 2005, pp. 3-26, p. 8.
55
Hilde de Ridder-Symoens: Training and Professionalization, in: Wolfgang Reinhard (ed.): Power Elites and
State Building, Oxford 1996, pp. 149-172, pp. 149-151.
56
Keck, Schulgeschichtliche Entwicklungen, pp. 14-18.
19
parameters such as gender, social class, and protection.57 But still, Protestant teaching and the
Jesuit schools represented pedagogical innovations that changed the perception of education
for children. Their way of teaching, their equipment, and their schools were deemed
‘modern’. Endowed with large amounts of money in many European territories Jesuit
schoolhouses turned into temples of learning that were designed for the benefit of the students
taking into account things such as the incidence of light into the classroom or a recreation
space for the breaks between the classes.58 Peter Hersche is of the opinion that it was these
circumstances that made Jesuit teaching attractive even for Protestants since the teaching
methods were not too different from any reformed school.59 Nonetheless Jesuit teaching and
teaching innovations in general have to be seen critically as well. Looking at the Jesuits,
Marie-Madeleine Compére outlines three points of central criticism: the Roman centralism,
the conservative Humanistic curriculum, and the unconditional devotion to the Ratio
Studiorum.60 After fifty years of analysis, the first version of this elementary handbook for
Jesuit teaching was published in 1599 and again in a second edition in 1616. The Ratio atque
institutio Studiorum may have limited the flexibility of the Jesuit institutions but it certainly
provides us with the necessary basic information on how teaching was actually performed.61
However it must be assumed that the political and confessional circumstances in Ireland
limited the application of the Ratio Studiorum to a certain degree. Thus it may have been
taken as an ideal not applicable in detail in Restoration Ireland leaving us with the example of
one possible model of what early modern Jesuit education could have been like. The same can
be said about the usual dramatic and artistic presentations of Jesuit schools that soon formed a
major pedagogical characteristic of Jesuit teaching. The plays provided studets from Ireland
57
Frijhoff, Seitenwege der Autonomie, p. 26. A similar approach is presented by Dominique Julia who
underlines the difference between the pedagogical claim and the implementation, especially in non-urban areas.
Where parish priests carried out the task of catechism classes teaching was still fundamentally based on
memorising without internalizing. It was not until the late seventeenth century that educational theorists such as
Claude Fleury started to question this procedure: Dominique Julia: Die Gegenreformation und das Lesen, in:
Roger Chartier/Guglielmo Cavallo (eds.): Die Welt des Lesens, Frankfurt a.M./New York/Paris 1999, pp. 353396, pp. 385-391.
58
Jesuit funding was of course not always as easy. In the Irish case the procuring of sufficient money for the
maintenance of schools remained an unsolved difficulty.
59
Peter Hersche: Muße und Verschwendung. Europäische Gesellschaft und Kultur im Barockzeitalter, vol. 1,
Freiburg 2006, p. 207.
60
Marie-Madeleine Compère: Der Unterricht der Jesuiten in Europa um 1700, in: Juliane Jacobi (ed.): Zwischen
christlicher Tradition und Aufbruch in die Moderne. Das Hallesche Waisenhaus im bildungsgeschichtlichen
Kontext, Tübingen 2007, pp. 29-45, p. 34. Compére’s critical perspective on the Jesuit schools is not
unquestioned. John O’Malley describes the Jesuit institutions as characterized by a high degree of flexibility. It
was Loyola’s special desire that the schools would adapt to the local circumstances: O’Malley, Cultural Mission,
p. 6.
61
Claude Pavur (ed.): The Ratio Studiorum. The Official Plan for Jesuit Education, St. Louis 2005, p. vii.
20
and other parts of Catholic Europe the opportunity to participate in a primary activity of
community life, enabling them to actively use their skills in rhetorics, Latin and literature.62
The Catholic educational activities of the Jesuits were mostly a reaction or adaptation to the
Protestant pedagogical reforms of the Reformation. The common theory that widespread
education was on a higher level in Protestant territories because of the orientation on the book
and written word as elementary part of the Protestant confessions has been much discussed
and will not be unfolded too broadly here.63 Houston argues that as long as any accurate
numbers exist it can be stated that illiteracy was more common to Catholic territories than
Protestant ones, but that was mainly based on the different economical backgrounds of the
areas and had little to do with the confessional orientation. The reformed churches mainly
addressed wealthier areas and the independent nobility (e.g. groups of population that were
generally more interested in higher education and more in need of literate children).64
Education was expensive and consequently the provision of teaching for the poor could mean
a radical re-distribution of wealth with unpredictable social consequences.65 While the
differences in basic pedagogical approaches were not as high between Lutheran and Catholic
territories, Stefan Ehrenpreis argues that the educational ventures of the reformed confessions
such as in England and Ireland were more alternative. He agrees with the older studies of
Lawrence Stone whose concept of an educational revolution in England between 1560 and
1640 has initiated much of the current discussion.66 Stone was of the opinion that nothing was
benefitting the promotion of elementary education than the rivalry between the different
reformed groups in England who competed among each other over the conversion of the
62
O’Malley, Cultural Mission, p. 11. A more detailed account on Jesuit drama in early moder Ireland can be
found in: Alan Fletcher: Drama, Performance, and Polity in Pre-Cromwellian Ireland, Cork 2000.
63
For the older representative Stone it was still a characteristic of Protestant education that it was more
widespread and with a higher quality level for the poor and illiterate because of the fixation on the written word
while Catholic teaching for the lower classes was highly based on images: Stone, Literacy, pp. 76-79. A similar
opinion was still represented by David Cressy in his re-interpretation of education in Tudor and Stuart Britain:
David Cressy: Literacy and Social Order. Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England, Cambridge 1980, p.
3. For a summary of the mostly German historiography and the traditional concept of Protestantism as originator
of modern education see Ehrenpreis, Kulturwirkungen.
64
Houston, Literacy, p. 147-149.
65
Houston names the examples of Baden and Scotland where landowners were taxed in order to pay for an
educational network for the poor. In Ireland James I intended the same when reserving land portions of his
Ulster plantation for the provision of County schools. The failure of James’ project underlines, however, that
such ventures were usually unwelcomed by many who either claimed the land that had been taken from them or
demanded a bigger share of the distributed land for themselves and not for education: Ibid., p. 231.
66
According to Ehrenpreis the reformed schools were less humanist-based than the Lutheran and Catholic
institutions. While the Lutheran schools only added new elements as for example History as the Jesuits did,
reformed schools intended to make use of the young students especially to indoctrinate the families where new
confessional doctrines would be repreated, learned and thus spread: Stefan Ehrenpreis: Reformed Education in
Early Modern Europe, in: Dutch Review of Church History, No. 85 (2005), pp. 39-51, pp. 44-47. Lawrence
Stone: The Educational Revolution in England, 1560-1640, in: Past and Present, No. 28 (1964), pp. 41-80.
21
Catholics.67 Generally the Anglican schooling design followed the idea that elementary
schools were the most helpful instruments to implement the reformed doctrines and to create a
loyal and obedient society. This argument was emphasised by the most influential
contemporary English educational theorist Christopher Wase. Well educated children would
reflect on their families and communities and thus add to the peace and wealth of country and
church.68 If the adherents of the reformed confession would only believe and obey their
preachers as they were used from Catholic rites this would guarantee the failure of the faith
given the chronic lack of reformed preachers in Ireland.On the contrary, people had to learn to
teach themselves to understand and not just believe that their authorities were acting for the
benefit of all. Such understanding would finally create a bond between ruler, church and
people that was inseperable.69 In accordance with Wase, Lawrence Stone quotes the founder
of a reformed school in Norfolk, Sir William Paston, who declared in 1604 that his aim was
“the training, instructing, and bringing up of youth in good manners, learning, and the true
fear, service, and worship of Almighty God, whereby they might become good and profitable
members of the church and commonwealth.”70 Elementary education was a helpful instrument
of the Anglican state and church for the formation and disciplination of the next generation
and through them their parents and further relatives. But Stone also emphasized that reformed
education in England was not an instrument to promote social equality, participation, or
advancement. Already the seventeenth-century theorist Wase criticised that education in
England was mostly limited to the wealthy and powerful since the government conceived
education for the poor threatening, despite the general increase of educational facilities in
England.71 Up to the nineteenth century, and some would argue even beyond, English
education was divided into five segments. The first and largest segment available to everyone
in the society comprised basic knowledge in reading and writing one’s name and nothing
more. A second segment offered further literacy knowledge and economy basics in
calculation. Such a level of education was usually required in urban background by the sons
67
Stone, Literacy, p. 80-1.
This intended combination of civic and confessional formation of the students and through them their parents
was nothing unique to the Anglican Church, however. The same can be said of the well-documented case of
Lutheran education in sixteenth-century Württemberg since the Great Church Ordinance of 1559. The general
hope was that the disciplination of children in schools would automatically reach the parents who evaded the
authority’s confessionalizing intentions. Cf. Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe: Education, Economics, and Orthodoxy:
Lutheran Schools in Württemberg, 1556-1617, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 91 (2000), pp. 285315, pp. 293-4.
69
Christopher Wase: Considerations Concerning Free Schools, Oxford 1678, pp. 3/10-1.
70
Stone, The Educational Revolution, p. 73. Quoted from C.R. Forder: A History of the Paston Grammar
School, North Walsham 1934, p. 15.
71
Wase, Free Schools, p. 1.
68
22
of poorer artisans, merchants, and other tradesmen. Above that schools provided advanced
book keeping skills as a preparatory means for a practical career, additional to classical basics
preparing for University. Consequently the highest educational level was offered at the Inns
of Court and Universities that was usually reserved for the landowning élite and the sons of
extremely wealthy merchants.72 These segments were elements of division and separation
providing every subject with the education he needed for his daily life in the social sphere he
was designed for without offering him the skills of questioning the authorities he was
supposed to obey.73 However critical this has to be seen Stone emphasized that the request for
education in early modern Europe was much more focused on later career options.
Consequently, higher educational supply for a larger amount of people would have been
completely counterproductive.74 In the opinion of Stone, similar consequences led to the end
of English educational prosperity after 1680 when a vast number of people were overly
qualified, therefore the expensive education was no longer effective for the majority of the
population. Additionally, the increasing level of education of the lowest classes was seen
more and more critical by the English authorities.75
In conclusion the educational development in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth
century witnessed a great increase despite the limiting factors of career options and fear of the
élite. Reformed teaching offered new pedagogical approaches although the differentiation
from the Humanist ideals described by Stone must be relativized. According to Foster Watson
Latin, the classical rhetorics were as popular among the reformed English as among the
Catholics and Lutherans. It was not until the Restoration period and later that French became
more popular replacing step by step the Latin classes.76
Apart from the different segments that can be identified in the reformed educational design in
the areas of Anglican influence the schools themselves were still highly variable depending
on their teachers’ quality and confessional preference. Speaking of the Irish case a
standardization of teachers, their confession, and their abilities, was more difficult to achieve
72
Stone, Literacy, p. 70.
Ibid., pp. 70-1/89-90. Wase mentioned in his work the problem that many of his contemporaries thought
education a waste of working potential. Those who worked the felds did not need any further education that only
distracted them form the work that had been divinely assigned to them. Referring to such accusations Wase
asked if one could ever learn too much responsibility towards the state or God since this exactly was taught in
the schools: Wase, Free Schools, pp. 4-5.
74
Stone, Literacy, p. 75.
75
Ibid., p. 136.
76
In his local studies Watson outlined that classical teaching was offered and demanded especially in the cities
for the members of the developing urban middle class and not alone for the nobility and gentry. Nevertheless,
Watson agrees with Stone to the point that by the end of the sixteenth century the clerical indoctrination of the
children became the most desired and characteristic element of English teaching: Foster Watson: The English
Grammar Schools to 1660, reprinted London 1968, p. 530-535.
73
23
given the overwhelming majority of Irish Catholics and the little actual influence of the
Church of Ireland in most areas. Special legal Acts were passed for the securing of Protestant
teachers in Protestant schools but even so the confessional identity of many teachers must be
questioned. In the Act of Uniformity from 1665 it was defined that:
“every publick professor and reader in any universities, colledge or colledges which are or
shall be within this realm, (...) and every schoolmaster keeping any publique or private
school, and every person instructing or teaching any youth in any house or private family as a
tutor or schoolmaster, (...) subscribe the declaration or acknowledgement following: that it is
not lawful to take arms against the king and to promise to conform to the liturgy of the church
of Ireland, as it is now by law established (...) and every schoolmaster, or other person
instructing or teaching youth in any private house or family as a tutor or schoolmaster, be
required to take the oath of allegiance and suppremacie, which oath is to be administered by
the ordinarie (...).”77
While these orders seem quite strict Leonard Howard has demonstrated in his study on Irish
education that the regulations were explicitly meant for tutors and schoolmasters that were
considered identical to clerics. The similar orders in England were not applicable to lay
teachers who needed no license and consequently no approval by the local bishop. Hence, if
the law was applied in identical form in Ireland, lay Catholics were not officially denied the
right to teach.78 Furthermore, the term ‘education’ in this context was mostly understood as
referring to higher education. Learning to read was considered minor knowledge that could be
done with a lay teacher in any private school or at home through a mother’s instruction,
depending on the level of reading the student wanted to achieve.79 In addition to these
restrictions Howard pointed out that an oath-bound license for teaching was only necessary
for teachers who received any payment for their service. As an example of the interpretational
free zone that this restriction left, he mentioned the case of the Jesuit teacher Stephen Rice.
Rice taught a Catholic school at New Ross, County Wexford in 1668 when he was accused of
breaking the law. However, when he proved that he had never received the least kind of
financial compensation he was actually discharged.80
In conclusion, no general educational pattern in early modern Europe or in the respective
confessions can be established. For the special case of Britain, David Cressy argued that an
educational expansion certainly did take place up to the outbreak of the English Civil War but
77
Leonard Howard: Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, in: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 58, No.
230 (1969), pp. 191-205, pp. 193-4.
78
Ibid., p. 194. Cf. Peter Birch: Some queries relating to the penal laws against Catholic education in Ireland, in:
Proceedings of the Irish Catholic Historical Committee, Dublin 1959, pp. 24-26, p. 25.
79
Howard, Irish Catholic Education, pp. 194-5.
80
Ibid., p. 195.
24
the growing numbers should not evoke illusions. He calculated that in 1640 two thirds of the
English population were still not able to write their names.81 Based on the subscriptions of the
different oaths of the 1640s82 he was able to portray quite a representative image of the
literacy in England at the middle of the seventeenth century. Out of 25 Counties and including
over 400 parishes he disposed of the material of 40,000 subscriptions of the male population.
According to the data that he summarized 70% of the male subscribers were not literate
enough to subscribe with their name. It must be noted that the documents were regulated and
were mostly from rural areas, therefore giving little information on London and other larger
towns. The few sources from urban regions indicate that literacy was much more widespread
there than in the countryside. Chester had an illiteracy rate of 52%, Ipswich of just 36%,
while in the rich London parish of St. Mary Magdalen only 9% of the subscribers were not
able to write their name.83 These numbers did further improve during the later Stuart reign
leading Cressy to the assumption that in 1714 Britain had one of the highest literacy rates in
Europe with a male minimal literacy rate of about 45%.84 Of course, the subjective term of
literacy that these numbers are based on refers simply to the capability of writing in an
unsatisfactory way. Helen Jewell outlined that reading and writing were different teaching
procedures in early modern England with writing being reserved for higher classes and ages
while reading was normally part of the elementary teaching for younger children.
Consequently the subscription lists analyzed by Cressy are little representative in terms of a
more moderate understanding of ‘education’.85 Similarly critical is Jewell’s view on the
fundamental theory presented by Stone in the 1960s because Stone focussed mainly on higher
education. His number of 2.5 percent attendance of the male 17-year-old students at higher
teaching institutions may be correct but is in no way representative for the understanding of
early modern education or general literacy.86 Thus the educational stagnation phase of the late
Stuart reign described by Stone is presented in different light by Jewell who describes it as an
outbalancing period where dispensable higher institutions were closed in favour of more
81
Cressy, Literacy and Social Order, p. 2.
The Protestation Oath from 1641, the Vow and Covenant from 1643 and the Solemn League and Covenant
from 1644.
83
Cressy, Literacy and Social Order, pp. 65-75.
84
Ibid., p. 176. Despite the fact that Cressy’s estimates have been widely accepted as an average modern
research regard the actual level of literacy in England more extensive than he proposed, assuming that much
more people had a rudimentary understanding of reading without being able to sign their names. Adam Fox
underlines additionally the importance of female literacy that is generally under-estimated, as well as lowstandard educational forms offered to the lower classes of early modern English society. Cf. Adam Fox: Religion
and Popular Literate Culture in England, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 95 (2004), pp. 266-282, pp.
267-8.
85
Helen Jewell: Education in Early Modern England, London 1998, p. 30.
86
Stone, The Educational Revolution, p. 68. Jewell, Education in Early Modern England, pp. 26-29.
82
25
widespread approaches such as education for the poor or for women.87 Hence, it is not
possible to speak of a general education system for early modern England because of the
different approaches, ambitions, and segments applied. Elementary schools for children
between the age of four and ten were broadly accessible to most of the people while their
quality differed immensely and remains untraceable. Grammar and boarding schools that
addressed older children were much more expensive and more difficult to access. Jewell
estimates the number of such institutions at about 200-300 at the end of the seventeenth
century.88
All these analyses refer to England since the assessment of educational developments in
Ireland is much more difficult. While institutions for higher education are usually better
documented in England as in the rest of Europe, such establishments are not to be found in
Ireland apart from Trinity College, Dublin. The parish schools and other institutions for
whose foundation a variety of laws were passed since the Reformation have left little detailed
source material. The only reliable numbers result from later years. At the end of the
eighteenth century 200 Protestant parish schools existed on the island and only 18 of the 34
Irish dioceses disposed of a diocesan free school in 1788. A report of the Royal Commission
from the same year made note of 348 additional private schools while in 1731, 549 private
Catholic schools had been counted.89
All these numbers and theoretical approaches for the measurement of literacy and the
definition of the term ‘education’ underline the necessity for the analysis of post-Restoration
Irish teaching as well as the difficulty of such a task. Because of the illegality of Catholic
teaching and the limited career options for Catholic students, it would be wrong to focus the
analysis on higher educational institutions which would underline the importance of the
Catholic colleges on the Continent. Since this work is dedicated to the educational
development in Ireland the term ‘education’ must therefore be understood in a much broader
sense according to Houston’s different levels of literacy, comprising all of them.90 If Catholic
teaching focused less on the written word as Protestant schools did or if they concentrated
more on the mediation of pictures and images cannot be said with certainty. For the
realization of this work it will make no further difference. However successful or
unsuccessful a teacher may have been, his sheer presence will be counted in the first part of
87
The female illiteary rate among women decreased from 78% in the 1670 to 52% in the 1690s: Jewell,
Education in Early Modern England, pp. 39-40.
88
Ibid., pp. 92-106.
89
Ibid., pp. 169-172.
90
Houston, Literacy, pp. 3-4.
26
this analysis in order to draw up a general map of Catholic teaching facilities in Restoration
Ireland. To answer the question if such a teacher attracted even Protestant students will form
the second part of the analysis. With no final definition available a ‘teacher’ in this work will
be any person referred to as one teaching others, usually in an elementary way which
comprises the Catholic catechesis, the convents’ novitiates, as well as Jesuit or other private
schools. It will become clear that even among the contemporary persons involved the
definitions of ‘schools’ were highly variable and very much disputed over. Consequently it
would be wrong to judge the ones or the others as inappropriate and exclude them. Since the
schools mentioned in the sources were attended by people they may have been considered of
low standard but they were apparently good enough or simpy the only education available.
Teaching was expensive and manpower was in high demand, therefore it can be assumed that
parents would not have sent their children to useless and ineffective teachers.
27
II. Educational Praxis in Ireland up to the Restoration
The Catholic education existing in the Irish Restoration period cannot be analyzed without
outlining the development of education in the prior decades since a division in Catholic and
Protestant churches had occurred. Any form of Restoration education was grounded on long
local traditions of learning and teaching, a tradition that was affected but never completely
interrupted by the dissolution of the monasteries in the aftermath of the Henrician
Reformation. In some cases the local teaching offerings received an additional impetus with
the arrival of Protestant teachers but usually the disestablishment of Catholic teaching that
was demanded by law was rarely implemented. Catholic teaching continued to exist mostly
undisturbed well into the seventeenth century and it took decades of frustrated Protestant
initiatives to establish and consolidate reformed teaching at least in the most Anglicized parts
of the island. The following chapter will therefore examine the development of Protestant
teaching initiatives since the Reformation in Ireland followed by a description of the Catholic
teaching institutions that outlasted this breaking point in early modern Irish history.
1. Protestant Educational Initiatives
Theoretically, education was an important factor for the English plantation, colonization, and
confessionalization of Ireland between 1500 and 1700. Theoretically, the British government
in Dublin and London intended at this same time to create a society that moved away from the
decentralized structures of old-Irish91 communities towards a centrally governed construct,
tied together by loyalty to Crown and Church. Educated people who were able to read were of
crucial importance in a state that was governed by written orders and a Church that attached
more importance to the lecture of the bible.92
This general precondition was nothing peculiarly British nor was it the problems that rose
from these theoretical approaches. In the German-speaking territories of Protestant confession
Stefan Ehrenpreis pointed out three problematic areas when investigating reformed education.
91
The Irish society since the sixteenth century subdivided itself into three main groups – the old Irish, old
English or Anglo-Irish and the new English. The old Irish consisted of the the Gaelic inhabitants of the island
who would consider themselves etnically distinct to the English. After the English conquest of Ireland the first
English settlers arrived during the twelth century creating the old English community. They settled mostly in the
area known as the Pale, a limited territory around Dublin and along the Irish Eastcoast. Eventually, the
plantations of the sixteenth and seventeenth century introduced a second wave of English settlers. These new
English were usually Protestant and consequently soon began to form the administrative élite of the island.
These categorizations help as a general guideline to understand inner-Irish frontiers, in many individual cases
they are inaccurate since especially the borders between old Irish and old English had mostly faded away by the
end of the sixteenth century.
92
Raymond Gillespie: Church, State, and Education in Early Modern Ireland, in: M.R. O’Connell (ed.):
Education, Church and State, Dublin 1992, pp. 40-59, pp. 40-1.
28
First of all the intention of the monarch to educate his people did not necessarily mean its
realisation. In most cases the capability of the state was limited to forming an educated élite
that was able to pass on the idea of the intended disciplination. Secondly, in these areas where
two or more confessions offered education and competed for students, the government’s
desire for a monopoly was hardly achievable. Thirdly Ehrenpreis is of the opinion that small
pedagogical changes such as the introduction of theatre and music in schools or other local
phenomenas were often of higher importance for the success or failure of educational reforms
rather than a general state strategy.93 All these aspects can easily be transferred into Irish
circumstances. Limited finances and differences within the Church of England/Ireland
confined much of the educational impetus to higher and élitist education such as Trinity
College, Dublin. Additionally the still resident Catholic teachers made it often impossible to
enforce Protestant education on the people and, as will be expressed later, the often higher
quality of Catholic, especially Jesuit, teaching in Ireland using the newest pedagogical
achievements was attractive to the resident Protestants in the Restoration period.
Consequently the (non)-development or -implementation of Protestant educational policy in
Ireland was nothing unique in the European context even though it had its peculiarities.
Timothy Corcoran proposed to divide Irish school politics in five phases that still seem
reasonable. After the Reformation a first plan for parish schools was designed in 1537.
Starting in 1570 this original measure was extended in a second phase by the plan for a
Grammar Free School in each diocese as well as the Royal Free Schools between 1608 and
1629. With the foundation of the first institution for higher education at Trinity College,
Dublin, a third phase was initiated and not advanced until 1733 when during the fourth phase
education shifted more into the private sector. In 1791 this was again amplified by public
assistance thus forming the educational fundament on which Irish education was still
grounded at the beginning of the twentieth century.94
Throughout these different phases all kind of funding models had been tested with more or
less success.95 The parish schools of 1537 were supposed to be financed mainly by the clergy
93
Stefan Ehrenpreis: Erziehungs- und Schulwesen zwischen Konfessionalisierung und Säkularisierung.
Forschungsprobleme und methodische Innovationen, in: Heinz Schilling/Stefan Ehrenpreis (eds.): Erziehung
und Schulwesen zwischen Konfessionalisierung und Säkularisierung, Münster 2003, pp. 19-33, pp. 28-33.
94
Corcoran, State policy, p. 13
95
Money and funding will remain an important aspect throughout this work although the actual value can hardly
be assessed or compared. Not all payments mentioned were given in pounds. Most of the Italian finances were
given in Italian scudi and apparently the respective value when changed was quite volatile during Charles’ II
reign. According to the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, one pound was equal to four scudi but
in some letters it was discussed to postpone a transfer of money because the exchange rate was too bad. Compare
chapter IV.III. Cf. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 381.
29
and partly by student fees. In 1570 this was changed into a system where not only the clergy
but the whole district was supposed to contribute to the funding. As the problems could still
not be resolved, James I allocated special portions of land of his Ulster plantation specifically
for the funding of schools and teachers but in most cases never went beyond the theoretical
idea. All these approaches were finally summarised in the endowments of Trinity College that
continuously received land property between 1590 and 1660. Corcoran put it to the point
when he commented: “Its property list is almost a synopsis of the dispossession of the Irish
and Old English proprietors.”96
After all monasteries in Ireland had been dissolved officially and in consequence the pillars of
Irish education had been destroyed a decree of 1535 ordered all parishes to develop
elementary schools whose main task was to teach the English language. This basic structure
of Irish public education remained in existence until 1871 when there were still 800 such
parish schools. Nevertheless it took until 1607 before serious attempts were made to actually
implement this decree that was underlined in the bill 28 Henry VIII, c. 15.97 James Auchmuty
pointed out in 1937 that the bill was not worth the sheet of paper it was written on as the land
formerly belonging to the dissolved monasteries was needed to fund these schools. The land,
however, had already been granted to other individuals who had no interest in the foundation
of schools out of their income.98 In the process of his Reformation, Henry VIII needed
political allies in Ireland more than he needed Protestant schools and literate children,
therefore the parish schools as educational substitutes for the dissolved monasteries remained
a theory.
Central to the 1537 “Act for English order, habite and language” was the idea to create the
basis for conversion by bringing the ‘civilised’ English language to the old-Irish inhabitants
of Ireland. Consequently this ordered everyone to “bring up and keep his said childe and
children in such places, where they shall or may have occasion to learn the English tongue,
language, order, and condition.” Speaking English was considered as the principle “that
popish children might, by resorting to English schools and learning the English tongue, be
brought to see the errors and blindness of their predecessors.”99 The law, however, was
probably never intended to reach the majority of the Irish population but it was a defensive
measure to stop the advancing Gaelicisation of the old-English of the Pale that had become
more acquainted with old-Irish habits, customs, and language thus defying the control of the
96
Corcoran, State policy, pp. 13-4.
Ibid., The Clongowes Record, pp. 1-2.
98
James Auchmuty: Irish Education. A Historical Survey, Dublin 1937, p. 42.
99
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 42-3. Irish Statutes, 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15.
97
30
Dublin government.100 It was also a remarkable shift in the policy concerning Ireland. It was a
new intention to win over the population for the idea of a Commonwealth, held together by
one Crown, one Church, and one religion or as James I put it in 1612: “The education of the
youth thereof in literature and knowledge of the true religion that they may learn their duty
towards God and true obedience towards us.”101
But the crucial problem, the lack of adequate funding, remained. Elizabeth I augmented her
father’s law in 1570 by ordering the foundation of free schools in each diocese but never
supplied the necessary means for them.102 The costs for the buildings were to be paid by the
dioceses and the yearly pension of the teacher was supposed to be split up. One third was to
be paid by the ordinaries of each diocese and the remaining two thirds by the local clergy.103
The Act originated in the combined efforts of several Irish Protestant clergymen and
politicians including Adam Loftus and Sir Henry Sidney in the late 1560s to reform the Irish
education because the parish schools were not sufficient or not even in existence. Leaving
them behind the diocesan schools should supplant or complement them.104 Again the
civilizing aspect of education was of highest importance to those reformers who manifested
that:
“The greatest number of the people of this your Majesties realm hath of long time lived in
rude and barbarous states, not understanding that Almighty God hath, by his divine laws,
forbidden the manifold and haynous offences, which they spare not daily and hourely to
commit and perpetrate, nor that he hath by his holy Scriptures commanded a due and humble
obedience from the people to their princes and rulers; whose ignorance in those so high
pointes touching their damnation proceedeth only of lack of good bringing up of the youth of
this realm, either in publique or private schooles, where through good discipline they might
be taught to avoid these lothsome and horrible errours.”105
Additionally a reform became necessary because more and more Irish Catholics left the
country to pursue their studies on the continent since adequate schooling was not available in
their home-country, thus eluding the disciplinary function education was supposed to have
according to the government.106 The reform may have been necessary, however it was
100
Gillespie, Church, State, and Education, pp. 41-2. In 2005 Gillespie returned to this point emphasizing the
importance teaching English could have had in the context of creating a culture of government since language
and government were so inseparably linked in the eyes of most old Irish. Cf. Ibid., Reading Ireland. Print,
reading and social change in early modern Ireland, Manchester 2005, pp. 37/103.
101
Ibid., pp. 42-3.
102
Auchmuty, Irish Education, pp. 44-5.
103
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 47-8. Irish Statutes, 12 Elizabeth, c. I.
104
Michael Quane: The Diocesan Schools, 1570-1870, in: Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological
Society, No. 66 (January-June 1961), pp. 26-50, pp. 27-8.
105
Ibid., p. 30. Act Eliz. I. c. i.
106
Hammerstein, Aspects of the Continental Education, pp. 137-8.
31
extremely difficult to find the required compromises. A first version of the Act was declined
in 1569 and a year later the second version only found a scarce majority. Even with the Act
approved, the state still lacked the means to force local landlords and clergy to pay the share
demanded of them, what further limited the success of the parish schools.107 By 1684 the nonimplementation of the Act of 1570 was openly visible to everyone. On the 4th March Lord
Deputy Sir John Perrot had to assess: “Also we find that free-schools, which are to be
maintained and kept for the education and bringing up of youth in good literature, are now,
for the most part, not kept or maintained.”108 And Henry Usher, later Archbishop of Armagh
agreed in the same year: “There is not in all Ireland this day above two grammar schools, yet
there was order taken for grammar schools by a statute passed by parliament the XIth year of
her majesty’s reign.”109
In 1592, the Elizabethan foundation of Trinity College, Dublin was consequently a belated
reaction to the ongoing emigration of Irish Catholics to the continent. As with the other
measures taken to promote Protestant education in Ireland it was the result of many
controversial discussions. Nicholas Canny pointed out that most of the ecclesiastical as well
as political factions in Dublin had agreed on the necessity of an Irish university for several
decades but again the funding, the location, and other problems delayed its actual
foundation.110 Eventually the exodus of talented young men to the colleges on the continent
made its foundation inevitable.111 Additionally, the Church of Ireland had to deal with a
continual shortage of qualified clergy since many young men that received higher education
in England found more lucrative positions there. Trinity College alleviated this problem but
never solved it even though nearly half of the alumni chose an ecclesiastic career. An
examination in 1622 revealed that there were only 380 licensed priests in Ireland for the 2492
parishes, and most of these priests were located in the wealthy areas of the Pale while huge
areas in the west were left vacant.112 One source for this problem was that the college as well
as the parish and diocesan schools were considered institutions to promote the English
language in compliance with the 1537 Act. Consequently they procured clerics that were not
107
Quane, The Diocesan Schools, p. 31.
Ibid., p. 31. Cf. James Seaton Reid: The History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, vol. 1, Belfast 1834,
pp. 52-3.
109
Quane, The Diocesan Schools, p. 31f. Cf. Walter Alison Phillips (ed.): History of the Curch of Ireland, vol. 2,
Oxford 1934, p. 423.
110
Nicholas Canny: Why the Reformation failed in Ireland: une question mal posée, in: Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, No. 30 (1979), pp. 423-450, pp. 435-6.
111
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators II, p. 63.
112
Aidan Clarke: Varieties of Uniformity. The First Century of the Church of Ireland, in: W.J. Sheils /D. Wood
(eds.): The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Oxford 1989, pp. 105-122, p. 118.
108
32
able to communicate with a majority of the Irish population. Not until 1620 under James I
was it thought necessary to instruct the future priests in Irish but it was too late and in most
parts of the island the old Catholic teachers had already resumed their posts.113 Thus Trinity
College attracted mostly students who were already rooted in the New English society of
Ireland, Protestant, and English speaking. Even if Irish had been taught earlier at the College
most of these alumni were certainly not those predestined for a mission among the Catholic
old Irish.
Under James I the funding situation improved significantly. In his Ulster plantations, land
portions were reserved for the payment of a newly established free school in each County.
Although the order was slowly taken into effect at least six such schools were erected. But the
problem remained: who was collecting the money, who was to pay for it, and who organized
all this? In the end, none of the schools had an official schoolmaster until 1618 when new
rules for the application of the money were established.114 But still, the incomes of the
teachers differed immensely and were comparatively low. By 1650 the average income was
30 pounds a year and in 1673 it had only increased to 45 pounds.115
By then, the English language policy had a certain impact. Although they lacked funds and
resources, schools had been constructed in some areas. However, the contemporary
judgement of John Davies may have been euphemistic when he announced that the old-Irish
“for the most parts send their Children to Schools, especially to learn the English language: so
as we may conceive and hope, that the next generation, will in tongue and heart, and every
way else, become English.”116 Nonetheless, unqualified teachers who were not able to speak
Irish remained an essential problem for the Church of Ireland. In 1604 Justice Saxey
considered most of the teachers “more fit to sacrifice to a calf than to meddle with the religion
of God”117 and it was not until the 1630s when the Protestant Bishop Bedell attempted to
translate the Old Testament into Irish. It was not until the eighteenth century that his
translation was widely published, hence it had no further impact in his own lifetime since
most teachers were not able to read his translation.118
113
Corcoran, State Policy, p. 16.
Auchmuty, Irish Education, pp. 46-7.
115
Gillespie, Church, State, and Education, pp. 46-48.
116
John Davies: A discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued nor brought under
obedience of the crown of England, until the beginning of the reign of King James of happy memory, 1664, pp.
241-2.
117
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, p. 68.
118
Ibid., pp. 75-77.
114
33
In the larger towns Protestant schools were established under James I119 but the prospect of
the Anglicization of the Irish would have required more initiative. The English school
reformer John Dury clearly saw this when he stated in 1651: “But because the training up of
Schollars in one School or two, though very great and most exactly Reformed, will be but an
inconsiderable matter, in respect of a whole Nation, and have no great influence upon the
youth thereof, where so many Schools remain unreformed, and propagate corruptions.”120
After the wars of the 1640s new plans for Irish Protestant education were designed under
Cromwell and they proved more radical than their predecessors. Never before had the
suppression of Catholic education been so fierce what required new measures to promote
Protestant education as well. In two decrees of 1655 and 1656 Catholic teachers were
prohibited to teach the youth under the penalty of transplantation to Barbados.121 Cromwell
even ordered the preparation of a list of all Catholic teachers in Ireland comprising their
names, biographies, and places of residence in 1657. Unfortunately for the present study,
Cromwell died before such a list was compiled which would have been a unique source for
Catholic education in seventeenth century Ireland.122 In any case these orders make clear that
Cromwell not only used and extended the existing Tudor and Stuart laws on education but
went further in his plans.123 He identified the abundance of children of poor Irish peasants as
the origin of all the government’s problems and thus it was projected that these children
should be taken away from their parents at the age of ten to be brought up in England in
Protestant schools. This way they might have conformed to the Protestant church as well as to
the state authority when finally returning to Ireland.124 Of course, such measures were never
taken but they do reveal that the importance of education in the process of disciplination was
clearly seen by the Commonwealth authorities, maybe more than this was case under the
Tudors and early Stuarts.
By the end of the 1650s the number of Protestant teachers in Ireland had increased
considerably as was documented by a list compiled in approximately 1659.125 A total of 34
names appear on that list, distributed over as much towns and cities throughout Ireland.
Interesting about them is the difference in annual income. While William Hill at Dublin
119
See for example Michael Quane: The Limerick Diocesan School, in: Journal of the Cork Historical and
Archaeological Society, No. 67 (July-Dec. 1962), pp. 104-137, p. 110. Cf. “Schoolmasters within this nation”:
T.C.D. MS 1040. T.C.D. MS 2941, fo. XI. T.C.D. MS 2941, fo. XIII.
120
John Dury: The Reformed School, 1651, p. 4.
121
Corcoran, Lists of Catholic Lay Teachers, p. 13.
122
Ibid., Some Lists of Catholic Lay Teachers, pp. 12-3.
123
Ibid., pp. 13-4.
124
Ibid., State Policy, p. 78.
125
Evans, Cromwellian Civil List, pp. 618-619.
34
received 100 pounds a year, most of the teachers collected only 20 or 30 pounds per annum.
Only very few had 40 pounds or more.126 Even worse was the payment for women. The only
reference to a girl’s school is from around Trim where Elizabeth Pressick taught a school. In
1657 she only earned 10 pounds a year while 30 were not even considered enough to subsist.
Although much was done under Cromwell to improve Protestant education in Ireland, the
payment was so miserable that it is understandable why a post as schoolmaster in Ireland was
usually not attractive to scholars from English universities.127 According to J.M. Ellis’
analysis of consumption and wealth in Restoration England, a middle-class household in
London would have disposed of a median annual income of about 300 pounds while poorer
shopkeepers and traders would lived off 50 to 100 pounds a year. Ellis agrees with the
interpretation of Lorna Weatherrill that about half the households in the country were situated
in this ‘lower middle-class’ while at least 40 pounds yearly were needed to support a
‘middling’ lifestyle.128 These numbers underline the educational differences and priorities in
Ireland at that time since an annual income of 20 pounds for a learned schoolmaster was
barely enough to live off while 100 pounds for the Dublin teacher William Hill was an
astonishingly high payment.
Protestant education in Ireland between the Reformation and the Restoration was mainly seen
as a task of civilizing the ‘barbarous’ native Irish. But the dissolution of the monasteries and
the banishment of Catholic teachers created a vacuum that was not effectively filled by any of
the following dynasties but alienated the formerly loyal old-English of the Pale that relied on
the monastical teaching facilities.129 The creation of a reformed-educated youth in Ireland
126
The complete list and names: “Dublin: William Hill, Dublin 100 pounds, Robert Taylor his usher and one
usher more, 50 pounds. Trim: John Turnbridge, Trim, 30 pounds, Thomas Bertbeck, Dundalk, 20 pounds, [???]
Jones, Drogheda, 20 pounds. Athy: Joshua Marsden, Carloe, 30 pounds, Morgan Hayne, Carloe, 20 pounds, Jo
Birkett, Naas, 26 pounds, Edward Harvy, Athy, 20 pounds. Kilkenny: Robert Sands, Kilkenny, 40 pounds,
Laughlin Neale, Marriborough, 13 pounds. Wexford: Jon Brereton, Wexford, 40 pounds, Dr. Richard Curtis,
Ross, [???]. Clonmell: Edward Ba[???], Clonmell, [???], Morris [???], Cashel, [???]. Cork: Phelim FitzSimons,
Cork, 40 Pfund, Richard Boyle, Kinsaile, 40 pounds, William Scroggs, Bandonbridge, 30 pounds, Hen[?] Noble,
Moyallon, 30 pounds. Limerick: Robert Whitall, Limerick, 40 pounds, John Watts usher there, 20 pounds,
Cornelius Sherrin, [???], 20 pounds, Thomas James, Kilmallock, 40 pounds. Galway: James Butler, Galway, 20
pounds, Cadd Jenkins, Loghneah, 30 pounds. Belfast: Thomas Hasleam, Lisnegarvy, 40 pounds, John Cornwall,
Belfast, 30 pounds. Londonderry: Robert Peirce, Colraine, 40 pounds, William Finch, Londonderry, [???].
Waterford: John Brook, [???], William Crofton, Boyle, 20 pounds, Geraral Birn, Mullingare, 20 pounds,
Ambross Barcroft, Bir, 30 pounds. Kerry: William Steere, Ardfert, 30 pounds.”
127
Healy, Diocese of Meath, vol. 1, p. 302.
128
J. M. Ellis: Consumption and Wealth, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The Reigns of Charles II and James VII & II,
London 1997, pp. 191-210, p. 205. Cf. Lorna Weatherill: Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain,
1660-1760, Cambridge 1988, pp. 95-102.
129
Gillespie, Church, State, and Education, pp. 44-5. The complete breakdown of education in Ireland after the
dissolution of the monasteries and their insufficient replacement with Protestant teachig facilities that clearly
aimed at civilizing and Anglicizing their students is an interesting contrast to the educational developments in
the northern Netherlands outlined by Willem Frijhoff. According to him the rise of Dutch literacy between 1400
35
would have been possible, but too few qualified teachers were willing to accept that task. At
no time in the sixteenth century after the Reformation the Church of Ireland could operate a
nationwide elementary school system no matter how often it was ordered by law. However in
the 1630s, shortly before the chaos of the civil wars broke out, Lord Lieutenant Wentworth
stated that schools had been thought to promote morality and faith but that those existing in
Ireland were neither paid nor supervised sufficiently to comply with this assignment.130 It
took the government until late in the eighteenth century to finally implement those orders
given under the Tudor and Stuart kings establishing an Ireland-wide system of basic
Protestant education.
Other groups were quicker and filled the vacuum without hesitation. While lots of Catholic
teachers built up there own schools the existing official Protestant posts were soon occupied
by Presbyterians and other Dissenters because the Bishops did not or could not comply with
their task to examine the few candidates there were.131 Thus the basic fundament for the
Catholic education network here examined was set in place.
2. Catholic Education
As has been shown before, the lack of Protestant education left space for the reconstruction or
upholding of Catholic schools soon after the Reformation. In many places, the Catholic
schoolmasters remained or re-settled sooner than their Protestant counterparts, despite the
laws, and were protected in their function by the mayors and citizens.132 The accounts of
Protestant schoolmasters from the end of the sixteenth century who realized that the students
left them as soon as a Catholic school opened in town are numerous and can be found from
nearly every larger city in the country.133 Many of the teachers soon noticed that the old
and 1600 was largely based on the characteristic feature of the so-called Rhetorician’s chambers. 284 of these
cultural lay societies can be traced during the given time period and they functioned as an independent third
educational pillar apart from government and church initiatives. Similar institutions did not at all exist in Ireland,
neither Catholic nor Protestant with the marginal exception of the old Irish bard school to which will be referred
later on. Thus, the educational vacuum created by the Irish Reformation hit the society unchecked. Cf. Willem
Frijhoff: Calvinism, Literacy, and Reading Culture in the Early Modern Northern Netherlands: Towards a
Reassessment, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 95 (2004), pp. 252-265, p. 254.
130
Gillespie, Church, State, and Education, p. 45. Wentworth to the Archbishop of Canterbury, January 1633:
“The Schools, which might be a Means, to season the Youth in Virtue and Religion, either ill provided, ill
governed in the most Part, or which is worst applied sometimes underhand to the maintenance of Popish SchoolMasters.” Printed in: William Knowler (ed.): The Earl of Strafford’s Letters and Dispatches, vol. 1, London
1799, p. 188.
131
Gillespie, Church, State, and Education, pp. 45-6.
132
Cf. Quane, The Limerick Diocesan School, p. 104.
133
P.J. Dowling: The Hedge Schools of Ireland, Cork/Dublin 1968, p. 17.
36
English élites of the towns had no interest in the reformed confession and did everything to
scare them off, denying their wages and calumniating them personally.134
The schools of the old English were not the only Catholic teaching institutions that survived
the Reformation in Ireland. Many of the old Irish clans still stuck to their traditional bardic
and Brehon schools that taught poetry, history, and Gaelic law but also Latin, Greek, and
classical literature. Different to the monastic schools of the old English these schools were
financed by clans they served and formed part of family traditions that survived partly well
into the eighteenth century.135 The main pedagogical difference between old English and old
Irish schools was the oral tradition that was kept alive by the bardic schools. It was not until
the Gaelic Revival of the nineteenth century that Irish grammar, history, and law finally
received a written form.136 Especially during the sixteenth century, these bardic schools were
conceived as a major political threat and therefore prosecuted by the state authorities.137 Still
in 1903 the militantly Protestant Rector of Trinity College John Pentland Mahaffy
characterised them as “hotbeds of opposition to English interests”. At the same time he
remarked that they had by far not received sufficient scholarly attention, a fact that has not
changed very much until today.138
134
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 51-2. A letter from John Shearman, M.A., to the Primate of Armagh (John Long),
under date July 16, 1585.
135
Quane, The Diocesan Schools, p. 26. Only a few Gaelic families of educated men continued their tradition in
secrecy up to 1750. Especially the MacEgans kept education facilities for fifteen generations in Duniry Park and
Tullach-na-Daly in County Galway, Ballymacegan (Redwood) in Lower Ormond and Annaghmeadle and
Castletown in Ely O’Carroll. But their successful survival depended chiefly on the financial survival of their
supporters. With their continued loss of land during the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the final collapse
of the Catholic power in Ireland after 1690 the Gaelic schools had no means to subsist. Cf. Corcoran, The
Clongowes Record, pp. 3-6.
136
Auchmuty, Irish Education. A Historical Survey, p. 12. Bernadette Cunningham outlined in her Essay on
Geoffrey Keating how difficult the linguistic adaptation of the bards and the old Irish intellectual élites to the
changed realities of the post-Reformation period was. With many of their former patrons impoverished they
slowly turned towards a mass audience whose vulgar language they were not acquainted with. It took some time
until high culture Irish bards were accepted and understood by the the common old Irish of the seventeenth
century: Bernadette Cunningham: Geoffrey Keating’s Eochair Sgiath An Aifrinn and the Catholic Reformation
in Ireland, in: W.J. Sheils /D. Wood (eds.): The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, Oxford 1989, pp. 133-143, pp.
138-9. Additionaly it has been outlined by Raymond Gillespie that the traditions of Gaelic writing, reading and
teaching were mostly oral-based during the early modern period and only slowly adapted themselves to an
anglicised polity that relied on books and written words. Ibid., Reading Ireland, chapter 2.1.
137
In 1563 the Earl of Desmond was forced by Elizbeth I to have all the bardic schools in Counties Cork,
Limerick and Kerry closed and until 1610 most of the schools had gone underground but were kept alive in
many regions until the upheavals of the 1640s. Only in a few areas such as West Cavan and North Leitrim where
Gaelic families still hold land of considerable size a few of the old schools were openly maintained. With the
beginning of the Ulster plantation and the arrival of more and more Protestant settlers to the North the traditional
Gaelic Catholic education retreated step by step. In the Breiffne area the once powerful landlords had their
property forfeited while a growing number of Protestant settlers displayed open hostility toward the schools.
Short descriptions of the bardic schools can be found in Auchmuty, Irish Education, p. 12 and especially
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne.
138
John Pentland Mahaffy: An Epoch in Irish History: Trinity College, Dublin; It's Foundation and early
Fortunes, 1591-1660, London 1903, p. 11.
37
By the Seven Years’ War the popular demand for Catholic education had become a political
reality. In 1600 Hugh O’Neill, Earl of Tyrone, called for educational liberty for Ireland and
“that there be erected a University upon the Crown rents of Ireland, wherein all sciences shall
be taught according to the manner of the Catholic Church. (...) Also, that her Majesty may,
upon her own charges, erect or build a College for the Catholics to teach their art in.”139 Such
exactions were, of course, not met and ended with O’Neill’s defeat and the Flight of the Earls,
but they did manifest that Catholics in Ireland had not come to terms with the rarely
introduced Protestant schools.
Despite the lacking success of Protestant teaching and the visible increase of Catholic
education, it took another fifteen years until 1615 when James I started an initiative to assess
the dimension of Catholic education in Ireland and in consequence the failure of Protestant
teaching. The Visitatio Regalis unfolded that the few Protestant schools that had been erected
were interfused with Catholic teachers who even had received their approval from the local
Protestant Bishops.140 Catholic schools were identified in every major town that was visited
and their schools were reported to have quality reputations that scholars came to them from
all over the country. Indeed they functioned publicly and the visitators had little means to
proceed against them in opposition to the mayor. A detailed account from Galway informed
about a schoolmaster named Lynch whose abilities even the visitators admired. Since he was
a Catholic they “seriously advised him to conform to the Religion established, and not
prevailing with our advices, we enjoyned him to forbear teaching.”141 Afterwards they left
and Mr. Lynch re-opened his school.
Of course, not all schools were so well-provided. By the middle of the seventeenth century a
series of Hedge Schools were established in the countryside, based on teachers wandering
from village to village, rudimentarily teaching here and there for a small student’s fee. These
schools existed until 1782 and ultimately finally replaced many of the bardic schools in the
countryside where former landowners no longer had the means to support the teachers
financially.142
In many areas, Catholic education survived nearly unmolested until the arrival of Cromwell
and even after. A report from 1655 complained heavily about Catholic schools in the Counties
Meath and Louth supporting the presumption that others existed as well in the lesser
139
Corcoran, State Policy, p. 58.
Quane, The Limerick Diocesan School, p. 109. T.C.D. MS. V4. 12.
141
Dowling, Hedge Schools, p. 18. Quoted from O’Flaherty, West or H-Iar Connaught, 1684, Dublin 1846, p.
215.
142
Dowling, Hedge Schools, p. 7.
140
38
controlled areas of the West.143 But the years of the Commonwealth were indeed a difficult
time for the underground schools and many institutions were closed down, priests and
teachers being hunted and deported. By the year 1655 the Catholic Church counted officially
70 martyrs, some of whom were teachers. After that date the persecuted victims were usually
transported to America.144 Those who still sought for education went to the continent as they
did before. Nevertheless, this kind of educational migration was mostly a phenomenon of the
élite and although it troubled the Protestant authorities the greater numbers of Catholic
teachers and Catholic students were always to be found in Ireland.145
If it ever was successful at all the destruction of the Catholic Church hierarchy and the
Catholic educational structures did not last very long. By 1657 a first easing of tension
allowed the nomination of an Archbishop to Armagh, as well as a Bishop for Meath, and
thirteen new Vicars Apostolic for the administration of the other dioceses.146 In general,
Catholic education had always existed in Ireland after the Reformation and although its
fundament was weakened between 1651 and 1657, Catholic schools never completely
disappeared.
Monasteries
The monasteries had been the pillars of Irish education before their dissolution in 1539. Their
special importance for the old English dominated areas of the Pale can be apprehended by the
Lord Deputy Grey’s petition in accordance with the Privy Council which claimed that six
monasteries should be spared because without them the old English community would be left
without any education at all. The petition was nonetheless declined.147 Only the Cathedral
school of Christ Church, Dublin was conserved. Grey’s successor St. Leger was quick to
realise that by the dissolutions a fatal damage had been done to the fundaments of the English
settler-society in Ireland, regardless of its confessional preferences. In 1543 he recommended
the allotment of an increased budget to Christ Church for “the fynding of a free schole,
whereof there ys greate lacke in this lande, having never a one within the same.”148
Despite the devastated condition the Irish educational system was left in after 1539, it has
often been argued that the monastical education was already in decline long before the
143
Corcoran, State Policy, p. 76.
Sean Connolly: Divided Kingdoms, Oxford 2008, p. 116.
145
Auchmuty, Irish Education, p. 13.
146
Connolly, Divided Kingdoms, pp. 117-8.
147
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 326. Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 43-4. The monasteries
referred to were: “Saint Marie Abbay adjoynyng to Dublin, a house of White Monkes; Christes Churche, a house
of Chanons, situate in the middis of the citie of Dublin; the Nunrie of Grace-Dewe in the countie of Dublin;
Connall in the county of Kildare; Kenly and Gerepont, in the countie of Kilkenny.”
148
Quane, The Diocesan Schools, pp. 26-7.
144
39
Restoration. In the 1930s James Auchmuty postulated not to over-estimate the blow caused
by the dissolution as most monasteries had been in crisis before, and their teaching standard
was not as high as it once may have been.149 Patrick Corish and John Brady agreed in this
point.150 The quality of the clergy within Ireland was low following a time of isolation. Their
novitiates could not stand comparison with any continental colleges.151 Many had missed the
connection with the reform movements that preceded the Reformation and were in
consequence not prepared for a confrontation with new ideas and methods.152 No Catholic
universities had been erected to incorporate new approaches until Pius IV ordered such a
foundation in 1564 through the Archbishop of Armagh Richard Creagh and the Jesuit David
Wolfe. The Pope complained about the lack of educated scholars since there were only six or
eight bachelors of theology and maybe one or two doctors of divinity to be found on the
island. But at such a late stage the project turned out to be inexecutable.153 Instead more and
more Irish scholars travelled to the continent to seek higher education in the seminaries. This
was not precisely illegal until 1583 when travelling abroad was prohibited officially and all
the students were ordered to return under heavy fines.154
But the fact that many young men were entering the colleges in Spain, France and Italy
contradicts the theory of the declining quality of monastical education. The colleges usually
required reading and writing abilities as well as a certain knowledge of Latin. Most of the
students must have acquired these facilities in schools at home and sources speak of Latin
schools in Limerick, Kilkenny, Kilmallock, Clonmel, Youghal, and Waterford under Jesuit
guidance by the end of the sixteenth century. Other institutions existed at Wexford, Cork,
New Ross, Drogheda, Fertullagh, Dublin, and Tipperary so that in conclusion it may be said
that many of the older monasteries were in decline because of lacking financial supply and
scientific isolation but other orders and newly founded monasteries took over the charge in
149
Auchmuty, Irish Education, p. 40.
Brendan Bradshaw on the other hand argues that different to England where a dissolution of the monasteries
in decline was underway even before the Henrician Reformation, Irish monasticism was subject to strong
influences of Observant reform and even enjoyed a certain prosperity since the end of the fifteenth century. In a
detail study on the Reformation in Limerick, Galway and Cork, he underlines that the monastical orders in these
particular towns were in a more than prosperous condition in the first decades of the sixteenth century and later.
Building projects were massively supported by the self-confident old English inhabitants of these cities what
leads Bradshaw to the conclusion that the orders had in no way the “moribund structure which the text-books
depict as conditioning the onset of the Reformation”. The general impression was, however, the same as
throughout Western Europe with dwindling communities that were “in no shape to take up the challenge of the
reformation”. Cf. Brendan Bradshaw: The dissolution of the religious orders in Ireland under Henry VIII,
Cambridge 1974, pp. 8-16, 207. Ibid.: The Reformation in the Cities. Cork, Limerick and Galway, 1534-1603,
in: Ibid. (ed.): Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland, Kilkenny 1988, pp. 445-476, pp. 448-452.
151
Patrick J. Corish: The Catholic Community in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Dublin 1981, p. 29.
152
Brady, The Irish colleges in Europe, p. 1.
153
Ibid., p. 2.
154
Ibid., p. 6.
150
40
the first decades after the Reformation.155 Eventually monastic education was complemented
by a variety of other Catholic teaching facilities.
Several Irish towns became famous for their Catholic schools such as the institute Peter White
founded at Kilkenny in 1565 that was later remembered by many prominent former
scholars.At the same time there was a Latin school in Limerick with space for over a hundred
students.156 The wardenship of Galway had maintained an important school since the end of
the fifteenth century and even though the official school had passed into Protestant hands by
1585 a parallel Catholic school for the mostly Catholic inhabitants was soon established.157
In many places the dissolution of the monasteries was not even put into effect or it came with
great delay. In 1664, Attourney-General Sir John Davies summed up that “the Abbies and
Religious houses in Tyrone, Tirconnell, and Fermanagh, though they were dissolved in the
33rd of Henry 8th, were never surveyed nor reduced into charge, but were continually possest
by the religious persons, until His Majesty, that now is, came to the Crown.”158 The
Franciscan monastery at Cavan city was officially in existence until 1608, still persisted on
the premises until 1618, and was connived at in the neighbourhood until the friars were
dispersed in 1650. Until approximately 1636 the Franciscans taught Latin and Greek in
surrounding villages according to Bishop Eoghan MacSweeney’s relation of Kilmore.159
In Clonmel and Athenry the Dominicans upheld schools. James O’Reilly was teaching at
Clonmel until the conquest of the city in 1649160 while Athenry had become the largest
Dominican teaching facility by 1638 with the strong support of the earl of Clanricarde.161
According to Jerome Fahey’s 1893 History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Kilmacduagh,
the Dominican schools at Athenry, Dublin, Limerick, Cashel, and Colraine were even
elevated to the status of universities under the Confederation of Kilkenny in 1644.162
Under Cromwell most of the monasteries were finally abandoned, although only for a short
time. It would be wrong to conclude that the Catholic underground school structure ceased to
exist in the face of fierce persecution as Philip O’Connell pretended.163 A few accounts of
Hedge Schools have survived from these times although the circumstances were extremely
difficult. In 1654 one Father Ford set up a school in the centre of a large bog where he taught
155
Ibid.
Dowling, Hedge Schools, p. 16.
157
Martin Coen: The Wardenship of Galway, Galway 1984, p. 13.
158
Dowling, Hedge Schools, p. 17. Quoted from Davies, A discovery of the true causes, p. 227.
159
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, p. 51. Cf. Ibid., The Diocese of Kilmore, p. 428.
160
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century, p. 109.
161
Ibid., pp. 173-175.
162
Fahey, Diocese of Kilmacduagh, p. 304.
163
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, p. 53.
156
41
literature. Similar facilities existed in many parts of the country.164 In conclusion the
monastical education of the old English in Ireland was in a process of change that was merely
accelerated by the Reformation and the demand for dissolution. The loss of property and
funding made new orientations necessary and caused a final blow to some of the older houses
that were not willing or able to adapt to the new circumstances since they had lost touch with
the reform approaches within the Catholic Church itself. Their downfall did not mean the end
of monastical education in Ireland. With competing Protestant schools lacking and a deeply
rooted affinity to Catholic teachers among the common people, the religious orders remained
the base of old English education in Ireland. It was only extended by new influences such as
the Jesuits who no longer depended on landed property and monastical houses as the older
orders did. Instead they increasingly invaded the urban heartlands of English settlement in
Ireland – the towns and cities of the Pale.
Jesuits
The Jesuit order had been expanding throughout Europe since its early days advantaged by its
non-commitment to the stabilitas loci that many of the older orders clung to. Soon the
education of lay people as a measure of spreading the faith and gaining powerful supporters at
the same time became a central characteristic.165 A Jesuit mission to Ireland was established
quite early after the foundation of the order but was abandoned soon after for a first time. In
Ireland as well as England the order stood heavily accused of political involvement apart from
their missionary work. Any serious conspirative activities of the Jesuits have been denied by
modern historians. Nevertheless, actions such as the participation of the Jesuit David Wolfe in
the FitzGerald’s revolt in Ireland made it more difficult for the Society to credibly deny
political intentions. Therefore the mission to Ireland was abandoned and only resumed in a
larger scale by the new Superior General Mercurian in 1580.166
Mercurian hoped for greater toleration for the mission on the British Isles as a result of the
marriage between Elizabeth I and Francois d’Anjou and thus sent three members of the order
to England. When the arrangement of the marriage failed in the same year and rumours spread
of a Spanish invasion in Ireland, the anti-Jesuit climate became even worse. Mercurian might
have suspended the mission again but he died in August of 1580 and was replaced by Claudio
164
Patrick Francis Moran (ed.): Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, Dublin 1874, p. 409.
A.C.F. Beales: Education under Penalty. English Catholic Education from the Reformation to the Fall of
James II., 1547-1689, London 1963, pp. 8-9.
166
T.M. McCoog: The Society of Jesus in the Three Kingdoms, in: Thomas Worcester (ed.): The Cambridge
companion to the Jesuits, Cambridge 2008, pp. 88-103, p. 89. John Bossy: The Society of Jesus in the Wars of
Religion, in: Judith Loades (ed.): Monastic Studies. The Continuity of Tradition, Bangor 1990, pp. 229-245, p.
230.
165
42
Acquaviva who had a high opinion of the Jesuit mission to Britain.167 The first members to
reach the Irish mission in 1542 were fathers Broet and Salmeron. While they focussed only on
the old Irish territories, a second mission consisting of David Wolfe and Charles Lea started
in the old English dominated Pale between 1564 and 1582. They soon realized that after the
dissolution of the monasteries and contrary to the old Irish areas there were only few qualified
educational facilities left, neither for clergy nor for lay people. A first initiative by David
Wolfe to establish a school had little success. It started in 1565 in Limerick but soon had to
change its place of residence and Wolfe taught the following fifteen years at Kilmallock,
Clonmel, and Youghal.168
An independent mission began in 1570, however in 1596 that a continuous mission was
established.169 James Archer and Dominic Collins were the first members with the task to
continuously reside in the country but their mission soon suffered another heavy blow with
the defeat of Hugh O’Neill in 1602. Archer was forced into exile and Collins was caught and
executed at Youghal. However, the inflow of new members was not to be stopped anymore.
While at the beginning of the seventeenth century there were only six Jesuits in Ireland, there
were already 55 in 1629.170 In the first half of the century the general strategy of the mission
underwent a complete change. While under the Superior Christopher Holywood (until 1626)
the mission was characterized by non-resident preachers wandering from town to town or
167
Even so, during the reign of Elizabeth I there were probably never more than twelve Jesuits in England at the
same time. Still, the internal differences with the other religious orders caused the greatest difficulties to the
English mission. Since the suspension of the episcopal hierarchy the Jesuits disposed of the best organisational
fundament and connections to Rome what earned them the envy of the others and the complaint that the Jesuits
abused their position. The problem was not resolved when Rome sent an archpriest to oversee the English
mission and only in 1602 when the archpresbyteriate of the secular clergy was officially separated from the
Jesuit mission a sort of peace was agreed on: McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 89-91. The English Jesuit
mission started to expand again when persecution slowed down under James I. While in 1606 forty members
were active in England and Wales their number increased up to 200 in 1619 although at the end of the
Commonwealth it had again decreased to 147 due to persecution: Maurice Whitehead: “To provide for the
edifice of learning”: Researching 450 years of Jesuit Educational and Cultural History, with particular reference
to the British Jesuits, in: History of Education, No. 36 (2007), pp. 109-143, p. 124. McCoog, The Society of
Jesus, p. 95. In the same year of 1619 England was officially made a vice-province of the order before it
received the status of a full province in 1623. By 1676 the province was organized in nine dristricts or colleges
and five smaller districts or residences: John Miller: Popery and Politics in England, 1660-1688, Cambridge
1973, p. 39. Under James I also the Jesuit school network flourished for some time. Larger schooling institutions
were erected at Holywell, Stanley Grange and Wolverhampton. A school founded at Cwym in Wales even
survived until 1678: McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 94. But different to Ireland the Jesuit teaching influence
was mostly reduced to instruction in private houses. Pedagogical innovations, however, were even willingly
adapted by English Protestant teachers. For example the Protestant school reformer Charles Hoole recommended
the Jesuit Latin learning book from 1590 well unto the middle of the seventeenth century and John Dury, author
of The Reformed School from 1650 recommended strongly to orientate on the Jesuit schools of the continent:
Beales, Education under Penalty, p. 11.
168
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators I, pp. 548-9. McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 88. Quane, The
Limerick Diocesan School, pp. 105-6.
169
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators II, pp. 59-60.
170
McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 98.
43
living with the gentry, the next Superior Robert Nugent (until 1646) started building fixed
houses and residences from where the missionaries spread throughout the country. As most of
these residences had to be located in or near larger cities the Jesuit activities turned from old
Irish over to old English dominance.171 The access to the old Irish territories outside the Pale
was slowly recovered with just a few members that were able to preach in Irish. Consequently
the emphasis of the mission remained in the urban areas of the East and Southeast.172 In the
decade of the 1620s the Jesuits flourished along with the other religious orders in Ireland. In
1629 there were officially 14 Catholic churches in Dublin with 80 resident priests until a shift
of policy led to new persecutions and the closure of the public chapels and schools.173
By then Jesuit teaching had become a common feature in Irish towns being highly esteemed
by merchants and gentry. There were schools to be found in all the larger commercial centres
along the southern coast such as Cork, Kilkenny, Limerick, and Youghal.174 As early as 1595
Sir John Dowdall stated in a letter that “every town is established with schools that have an
idolatrous schoolmaster, overseen by a Jesuit: thence they [the Catholic students, editorial
comment] go to Spain, Italy, France.”175 Consequently, Jesuit teaching prospered in Ireland as
rapidly as it did in every other country, even before it was officially made a continuous
mission. Only thirty years after the foundation of the first Jesuit school by David Wolfe, the
success of the newly introduced pedagogical institutions was undeniable.
A centre of the early Jesuit mission was Waterford. 17 of the 72 Irish members of the order in
1609 came from the important trading port – another 22 from the immediate surroundings of
the city. At the same time three of the seven city parishes were under Jesuit administration.176
In Kilkenny a fixed residence was established in 1605 by Barnabas O’Kearney. Since 1619
there was also a Sodality of the Blessed Virgin177 in the town and a school, likely under the
administration of one John Shee. Apparently the residence prospered immensely during the
time of political relaxation. By 1629 William St. Leger and John O’Carolan had joined the
staff of the school teaching grammar and poetry. A chapel and a library were also added to the
building. The residence hit its peak in the 1640s under the Confederation of Kilkenny. With
171
O’Donoghue, The Jesuit Mission in Ireland, pp. 361-2. Hore, County of Wexford, vol. 1, p. 100.
Corcoran, State Policy, p. 25. Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 26.
173
Tomás Ò Fiaich: Edmund O’Reilly, Archbishop of Armagh, 1657-1669, in: Franciscan Brothers (eds.):
Father Luke Wadding, Dublin 1957, pp. 171-228, p. 176. The Declaration is printed in Pentland Mahaffy,
Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland, 1625-1632, London 1900, p. 445.
174
Ibid., Trinity College, Dublin, pp. 25-6.
175
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators I, p. 550.
176
Patrick Power: The Jesuits in Waterford, in: Studies. An Irish Quarterly Review, No. 36 (1947), pp. 271-282,
p. 271.
177
The role of the Sodalities and their significance for the Jesuit mission in a Global perspective are still up for
discussion. Considering the Irish Sodalities see chapter VIII.II, footnote No. 1231.
172
44
the help of the Papal Nuntio Rinuccini the school was transferred into the abandoned
monastery of St. John. In 1646 a novitiate was added to the building.178 At the same time, the
Jesuits were commissioned to organize the educational system throughout Ireland in the name
of the Confederation; this was exactly what they did until the arrival of Cromwell. Meanwhile
the school at Kilkenny became a cultural centre staging plays in public places. The
supplement for a play staged in 1644 still exists, interestingly printed in English for the better
understanding of the audience while the play itself was in Latin.179 With the fall of the city to
Cromwell’s troops this “golden age” of the Jesuits in Kilkenny came to an end. The last
reference to a Jesuit in the city came from 1652. Subsequently there was nobody until 1658,
though it could well be that one or two members kept hiding in the town as it happened in
other places.180
Other early residences were established at Cashel and Clonmel, close to Kilkenny. By 1610
there were also houses at Fethard and Cork, underlining the Munster emphasis of the mission.
A school in Cork city was among the first ever built in Ireland. It was founded by Charles Lea
and Robert Rochford since a former student of their Cork school, Dominic Collins, was
executed for being a Jesuit as early as 1603. Apparently they upheld their residence even with
the approval of the Protestant Bishop, at least the Protestant Church reformer William
Lombard complained about this fact to Archbishop Florence Conry in 1629.181 By the 1640s
Jesuit teaching had reached Galway182 and New Ross183 and a flourishing school was
maintained at Limerick where the fathers William Hurley, Thomas Burkey, Nicholas Punch,
and James Forde, were teaching. The latter member stayed in Ireland during the
Commonwealth and even set up a secret school in a bog in 1656.184
But the most impressing accomplishment of Jesuit education was achieved in Dublin during
the 1620s with the establishment of a higher college in Back Lane called Kildare Hall which
some historians have tended to call a university.185 Such an institution had been planned by
the mission’s Superior Holywood since 1626. He entrusted Stephen White with the
foundation and it was hoped that the king would connive at it against the background of his
178
Finegan, Jesuits in Kilkenny, p. 9-13. Fletcher, Drama, Performance, and Polity, pp. 193-4.
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators II, p. 72.
180
Finegan, Jesuits in Kilkenny, p. 19.
181
W.D. O’Connell: A Jesuit mission in 17th century Munster, in: Journal of the Cork Historical &
Archaeological Society, No. 47 (1942), pp. 112-115, pp. 112-114.
182
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators II, pp. 70-1.
183
Ibid., State Policy, p. 24.
184
Begley, The Diocese of Limerick, pp. 465-6.
185
Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 29.
179
45
marriage with a French Catholic princess.186 While the political circumstances seemed
favourable, the General Superior in Rome was not as convinced. Acquaviva was of the
opinion that large residences always ran the danger of being dissolved but he was not
heard.187 The money came from Elizabeth, Countess of Kildare. She rented the land, paid for
the construction and the annual maintenance. In 1628 the college disposed of 280 scuta and
the novitiate of 252 scuta a year.188 Even in her testament the countess left the considerable
sum of 12000 scudi to the Jesuit mission.189 The Countess was the daughter of Christopher
Nugent, 14th baron Delvin, of Anglo-Norman stock and with rich lands in County Westmeath.
Despite his Catholic belief her brother was named Earl of Westmeath in 1621. Elizabeth had
married Gerald Fitzgerald, 14th Earl of Kildare, around 1600 and he died in 1612 leaving her
with a minor son and heir to his title and lands. The young boy was educated by the Jesuits
but died in 1620. James I left her land and income of great value and in the following years
she dedicated her wealth to the support of the Jesuit mission in Ireland.190
The construction of the college with an annexed novitiate and a chapel was completed in
1627.191 The teaching was separated threefold. The core area was the teaching of theology and
the scripture, supplemented by the novitiate and a school for boys. Seven Jesuits were
employed; five were teaching, two acted as heads of departments.192 In his impressive study
on the architecture and the history of the college Rolf Loeber pointed out that it was a large
institution for its time but that it was in no way designed a university to rival Trinity
College.193 There is still uncertainty about who was the college’s rector. Thomas Carte named
Paul Harris as a pobable rector but was probably mistaken as Harris was no Jesuit but led a
Catholic school close to the college in Back Lane. George Little convincingly argued that it
was probably Robert Nugent who was as well a cousin of Countess Elizabeth.194 The building
was of considerable size. The Jesuit report from 1629 spoke of 26 rooms for priests and
students.195
186
Corcoran, Early Irish Jesuit Educators II, pp. 69-70. Ibid., Early Irish Jesuit Educators I, p. 557. Quoted from
Pentland Mahaffy, Trinity College, Dublin, p. 207.
187
George Little: The Jesuit university of Dublin, c.1627, in: Dublin Historical Record, vol. 13, No. 2 (1952),
pp. 34-47, p. 35.
188
Currencies and exchange rates cannot be adequately assessed for the time. Therefore all amounts of money
that appear in the present work will be given in the currency they are referred to in the sources.
189
Loeber, Kildare Hall, p. 247.
190
Ibid., pp. 242-244.
191
Ibid., pp. 246-7.
192
Little, The Jesuit university of Dublin, p. 36.
193
Loeber, Kildare Hall, p. 251.
194
Little, The Jesuit university of Dublin, pp. 37-8.
195
Loeber, Kildare Hall, p. 252.
46
However, as General Acquaviva had feared, the institution was not long-lived. Following a
shift of politics on 1st April 1629 a decree ordered to close down all public chapels, schools,
and convents. On 7th January 1630 Kildare Hall was confiscated by the government and on
19th May the buildings were handed over to Trinity College.196 The Countess, however, did
not accept her defeat that easily. After the arrival of the new Lord Lieutenant Wentworth in
1633 she successfully demanded the restitution of her property including Kildare Hall. Since
1634 the house functioned again as a public chapel until the outbreak of the rebellion in 1641
when the Countess was declared a rebel and the building forfeited.197
In his work on the Jesuit mission in Ireland between 1598 and 1651 Fergus O’Donoghue
concluded that there were 18 places throughout Ireland where one or more members had
resided over a longer period. Apart from retreat areas such as the Aran Islands and Inishboffin
Island the others were concentrated mainly in the Southeast as well as the larger cities along
the Irish coast.198 Between 1651 and 1660 the traces of the Jesuits are scarce and incomplete
given the fierce persecution unleashed by Cromwell. Teachers and Jesuits were ordered to be
transported to America. In general it can be stated that the Jesuit presence in Ireland in the
first half of the seventeenth century was never very high. Nonetheless the mission was wellconnected, enjoyed the favour of many influential Catholics and dealt with old English and
old Irish which made them different to many of the traditional religious orders.199 With their
urban orientation and support network of wealthy citizens the Jesuit schools represented an
important element of Tridentine reformed Catholicism in Ireland. They did not displace the
monastical schools which still remained numerous and widespread, but they elevated Catholic
education in urban areas onto a new qualitative level that even attracted many of the resident
Protestants. It was this common allure that turned out to be an important factor for education
in Restoration Ireland.
Conclusion: The State of Education before the Restoration
Until the beginning of the seventeenth century a Ireland-wide structure of elementary
education was established. Usually these schools were financed through the local parish and
the parents of the students; therefore their quality differed immensely. However, this local
structure kept the teacher under the direct control and influence of both the parish priests and
196
Ibid., pp. 260-1. Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 67-8.
Loeber, Kildare Hall, pp. 262-3.
198
O’Donoghue, The Jesuit Mission in Ireland, p. 365. The places and number of total Jesuits resident in the
research period were: Aran Islands (16), Athlone (14), Carrick (9), Cashel (11), Clonmel (10), Cork (12),
Drogheda (2), Dublin (3), Dundalk (1), Galway (15), Inishboffin Island (17), Kilkea (5), Kilkenny (5), Limerick
(13), Naas (4), New Ross (6), Waterford (8), Wexford (7).
199
Ibid., p. 361.
197
47
the parents.200 Shortly after the Reformation Protestant teaching had produced more
innovative methods focussing mainly on reading capacity. By the end of the century Catholic
institutions had gained ground primarily because of Jesuit methods that were soon adopted by
Protestant counterparts alike.201
The development of elementary education in Ireland after the Restoration until the end of the
sixteenth century was mainly characterized by the intention of old and new English to civilize
and anglicize the “barbarous” old Irish. Until the Act for free grammar schools in 1571 this
ambition even overlay the different confessions of these two groups.202 In his closing speech
of Parliament in 1571 the famous Protestant politician James Stanihurst pointed out that “our
realme is at this daie in halfe deale more civill then it was, since noble and worshipfull and
other of habilitye have been used to sende their sonnes into Englande to the lawe, to
universities, or to schools.” And in consequence he expected that “when the same schools
shall be brought home to their doares that all that will maie repaier unto them, I doubte not,
this will foster a yonge frie likelie to prove good members of this commonwealth and desirous
to trade their childrein the same weye. Neither weare it a small helpe to the assurance of the
Crowne of Englande when babes from their cradells should be enured under learned
schoolemasters with a pure Englishe tonge, habite, fashion, discipline (…).”203 Although
certainly some achievements were made the civilizing target with its English-speaking
teachers still ignored much of the Gaelic society and language. By this time, much of the old
English community were already so incorporated into this society that Irish Catholic
traditions weighed more than crown interests as was finally revealed in 1641 when both
groups joined in alliance in protection of of their confessional rights and property.204
Before the Reformation it was the monasteries that delivered basic education and it was with
their dissolution in the 1530s that a vacuum was created that could not be filled by the state
officials and thus impeded the establishment of a state monopoly on education. Private
Protestant initiative was never as high as in England and it was not until the end of the
century that a place for higher education was founded with Trinity College Dublin. By then
200
Ehrenpreis, Reformed Education, p. 41.
Ibid., pp. 48-9.
202
Colm Lennon: Education and Religious Identity in Early Modern Ireland, in: John Coolahan/Richard
Aldrich/Frank Simon (eds.): Faiths and Education. Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Gent 1999, pp. 5775, p. 58.
203
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 319. Cf. Edmunde Campion: Two Bokes of the
Histories of Ireland, edited by Alphonsus Vossen, Assen 1963, p. 144.
204
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, pp. 326-7.
201
48
the Catholic majority of the Irish had already gotten used to sending their sons to the
continent and supporting unofficial Catholic schools in Ireland itself.205
The sheer absence of Protestant teaching in many places was responsible for more and more
old English who had conformed to the new confession prioritizing their Catholic tradition
over the ideal of Anglicization. While the parents expressed their loyalty to the Crown and
even the Church of Ireland, they sent their children to Catholic teachers so that they might be
brought up in the religion of their grandparents.206 Only a massive financial intervention
could have achieved the establishment of an adequate network of elementary Protestant
schools. While Colm Lennon is of the opinion that the failure of Protestant education in
Ireland could be taken as a proof of strength of the Catholic schooling, it could as well be
possible that many state officials soon realized that it was easier to let the Catholics maintain
schools, educating only a Protestant élite for higher offices and thus saving a huge amount of
money nobody was willing to pay.207 Consequently, the problematic areas concerning the
investigation of education formulated by Stefan Ehrenpreis and mentioned in the beginning of
the chapter are absolutely applicable to the Irish case. The new pedagogical approaches such
as offered by the Jesuits attracted Protestant parents despite any general plans or general state
strategy. Thus the competition over education with the Catholic schools made the
government’s desire for an educational monopoly in Ireland hardly achievable and the state’s
educational capability was limited to the new English Protestant élite.208
Ute Lotz-Heumann pointed out correctly that the success of Catholic education in Ireland was
in no way self-evident. It was only possible because the government was reluctant to execute
radical reforms and tried to avoid major costs.209 With higher Protestant education no longer
available and insufficient schools in the countryside, the old English community was
disconnected from its English base and forced to draw back to the Catholic tradition they had
belonged to before.210 It was Catholic priests and alumni of the seminaries on the continent
that brought the private initiative to Ireland that was necessary for education and was lacked
by the Protestant community.211 Soon the Catholic schools became a regular feature of Irish
205
Ibid.: Erziehung und Bildung in der Konfessionalisierung. Der Fall Irland, in: Heinz Schilling/Stefan
Ehrenpreis (eds.): Erziehung und Schulwesen zwischen Konfessionalisierung und Säkularisierung, Münster
2003, pp. 129-142, pp. 136-138. Compare as well Hammerstein, Aspects of the Continental Education, p. 139.
206
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 330.
207
Lennon, Education and Religious Identity, p. 59.
208
Ehrenpreis, Erziehungs- und Schulwesen, pp. 28-33.
209
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 331.
210
Ibid., p. 320.
211
Ibid., Erziehung und Bildung, pp. 139-40.
49
towns with little protest by the Protestant authorities. Apparently it was not until 1630 that
Catholic institutions were forced into hiding again.212
These parallel structures of education originated a fascinating interconfessional group of
scholars that enjoyed the benefits of all confessions and communities at the same time. The
old English John Lynch was highly influenced by the old Irish poet Duald MacFirbis with
whom he had lived for a while, being able to read and write in Irish. In 1615 he had attended
the Jesuit school at Galway but was also well-connected with the old English community of
the Pale that had conformed to Protestantism.213 His contemporary Sir James Ware who had
been working on a Praesulibus Hiberniae himself in 1665, was probably better financed and
had access to all the available source material but the Protestant Ware could not read them
because he was not acquainted with the Irish language. Additionally he lacked the
connections to the old Irish and thus had no opportunity to gather the oral tradition on which
Lynch could rely while working on his own Praesulibus Hiberniae.214
Finally, the quality of teaching differed immensely and is difficult to grasp. While Protestant
teaching after the Restoration was based on the English language, Latin seems to have been
an important element in Catholic schools. Several authors of the sixteenth century underline
the high level of Latin spoken by many, even women.215 But lay education in classical
literature and languages as delivered especially by the Irish Jesuits was attractive to more than
just the Catholics. More and more Protestants made use of the Catholic schools that were
nearly everywhere available. In this they differed decisively from the Protestant schools that
in most cases existed merely on the paper of some Act for education. And wherever Protestant
schools existed they had to compete with the local Catholic school for the approval of
students and parents. But given the chronic lack of funding well-qualified Protestant teachers
were scarce and no wide-spread obstruction to the expansion of Catholic teaching.
212
Ibid., Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 333.
Gwynn, John Lynch’s “De Praesulibus Hiberniae”, pp. 38-41.
214
Ibid., p. 44.
215
Edward MacLysaght: Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century, Cork 1950, p. 32. Robert Payne: A Brief
Description of Ireland, 1589, p. 3.
213
50
III. Available Catholic Education during the Restoration Period
In 1662 the Jesuit St. Leger summarised in his account of the Jesuit mission to Ireland: “Nunc
rebus omnibus in Hibernia perditis, eversa Religione Catholica ejusque cultoribus viris
Ecclesiasticis, bonorum ac terrarum spoliatione, carceribus, exilio, morte affectis et oppressis
dici breviter possit – Fuerunt in Hibernia Collegia, Residentiae, Scholae, oratoria,
Congregationes B. Virginis, missiones, et jam non sunt – Status in Hibernia noster est, rerum
perditio.”216 As has been previously outlined Catholic teaching had been in existence in
Ireland well over a hundred years after the English Reformation, but the two decades of
rebellion, civil war, and Cromwellian conquest left most places in an educational terra vasta
that until now the following twenty-five years have not been considered worthy of research.
While it has been widely acknowledged that Catholic structures, especially their
representation in forms of schools, were destroyed, the following chapter forms an inventory
of Catholic teaching in existence during the research period. Where did monasteries with
aggregate novitiates survive? Where were they recovered after the Restoration, where were
schools re-opened or Jesuit residences established? This chapter will help to draw a map
indicating that the destruction of Catholic teaching infrastructure was far from complete as
previously thought. Most of the residences active until the 1640s were soon recovered and
indeed Catholic teaching prospered for most of the Restoration period contrary the St. Leger’s
lamentation in 1662.
While the actual numbers of Catholic clerics in Ireland in 1660 are comparatively low, they
do reveal that the clergy was still present in many parts of the island which allowed the quick
recovery that followed the Restoration. The Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, O’Reilly,
compiled lists of the clerics of some dioceses in July 1660. According to him there were eight
clerics in Ferns, four in Leighlin, six in Kildare, seven in Dublin, more than twelve in Ossory,
26 in Armagh, 30 in Clogher, 16 in Kilmore, twelve in Dromore, 15 in Down and Connor, 17
in Derry, 21 in Raphoe and five in Clonmacnoise. By far the highest number had the diocese
of Meath with 60 clerics.217 Assuming that a lot of the clerics were still in hiding without
fixed place of residence the accurate numbers might have been higher.
Diocesan and provincial synods were held in many places in the following years and a certain
optimism of recovery was felt. However, the high expectations tied to the restored king
quickly vanished. As early as 1663 O’Reilly reported to Rome that the situation of the
216
217
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 429.
Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 49.
51
Catholic clergy was disastrous and the hopes for toleration were by no means fulfilled.218
Hierarchically this conclusion might have been correct. It took Rome until the end of the
decade to finally promote new bishops to Ireland.219 The following chapter will show that the
religious orders as well as many of the secular clergy returned to Ireland, schools and
novitiates were set up all throughout the country, and an educational network had been
restored that was following up the prospering years of the 1620s. The chapter distinguishes
between lay teachers, secular, and regular clergy. While the novitiates of the regulars are
reproduced along the four provinces of Ireland – Leinster, Munster, Connaught, and Ulster –
the subchapter on the Jesuit schools follows their distribution in different residences as far as
they can be identified. The secular teachers will be organized according to the Catholic
dioceses that often bear the same names as the Irish counties but have different geographical
borders.
1. Franciscans, Dominicans, Other Orders
The religious orders, specifically the Franciscans and Dominicans, played an important part in
Irish education before the Reformation and throughout the turmoils of the 1640s, and even
more so after the Restoration of Charles II. It did not take long for many of the friars to return
to Ireland, while many of them had never left during the Commonwealth.
General numbers are hard to produce and differ from source to source. Daphne PouchinMould has counted 48 Dominicans in Ireland in 1656 while in the Registrum Provincia 321
were numbered for 1688.220 In contrast, Lord O’Brien estimated in February 1674 that there
were 2,600 Franciscans and no less then 600 Dominicans residing in Ireland.221 Though the
latter numbers were most certainly exaggerated, it may be concluded that the number of
regular clerics in Ireland increased constantly throughout the Restoration period. In 1660 the
Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, O’Reilly, assumed that there were still members of the
traditional orders in each diocese, notwithstanding the persecutions and deportations in the
previous decade,222 and Sean Connolly came to the conclusion that by the end of the 1660s
the numbers of friars had doubled up to 400 Franciscans and 200 Dominicans, although it is
uncertain on what ground he made such calculations.223
218
Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna” in Propaganda
Archives: part 4, ff. 281-371, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 43 (2001), pp. 13-33, pp. 14-16.
219
Howard, Irish Catholic Education, pp. 191-193.
220
Daphne Pochin-Mould: The Irish Dominicans, Dublin 1957, p. 244.
221
CSP, Dom. Series: November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, p. 160.
222
Benignus Millett: The Irish Franciscans 1651-1665, Rome 1964, p. 302.
223
Connolly, Divided Kingdoms, p. 144.
52
The Franciscans appointed guardians for 57 convents with six unattended houses on their
synod in Athlone on 5th March 1670.224 This number was kept constant because in 1682 there
were guardians named for 55 houses while eleven had no superior.225
The number of convents that had novitiates is hard to estimate, not counting the educational
tasks fulfilled by many members apart from the education of their own offspring. On April
20, 1676, in a session of the congregation of Propaganda Fide concerning Irish affairs, a list
was created comprising 63 educating convents in Ireland, 22 in Munster, 18 in Leinster, 13 in
Connaught and 10 in Ulster.226 As will be shown later on, these numbers were probably quite
different to what was actually happening. The following chapter will summarize the available
source material and hints given in secondary literature on where Catholic education was to be
found during the Restoration period in order to create a general map of Irish Catholic
education for the first time.
Leinster
Dominicans
The educational facilities of the Dominican order in Leinster were limited to few areas, for
they had not had a strong presence in that part of Ireland even before the turmoils of the 1640s
and 50s. Nevertheless, they maintained institutions in the major cities throughout most of the
Restoration period. When five members of the order named Edmund Wall, Edward
Chamberlain, John Reynolds, Christopher Farrell, and Michael Fullam were questioned by
government authorities at the end of the year 1672, they all gave evidence of reunions held in
a Dominican chapel on Bridge Street in Dublin. They also refer to a similar meeting in a
Jesuit chapel on 2nd December 1672 where the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot,
pronounced the excommunication against a cleric named Byrne. Though these testimonies do
not tell about educational activities, they do reveal Dominican presence within the walls of
the capital.227
There is a fair amount of importan information about the Dominican house at Kilkenny. The
member of the order John O’Heyne, who compiled a chronicle about the Dominican mission
in Ireland of which he himself had been a part in earlier years, tells about a Dominican school
outside Kilkenny that was opened in 1665 with a total of approximately 300 students.228 Apart
from this there was also a Dominican convent within the city itself. In his Hibernia
224
Giblin, Liber Lovaniensis, pp. 115-16.
Ibid., pp. xix-xx.
226
Jennings, Ireland and Propaganda Fide, p. 48.
227
CSP, Dom. Series: March 1st to October 31st, 1673, pp. 246-47.
228
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 181/225/239/249.
225
53
Dominicana from 1762, Thomas Burke reports on Cornelius Mac-Mahon who had received
his education in Athenry and was transferred to the convent in Kilkenny “ad docendum ibi” in
1674.229 The Dominican and Augustinian orders in Kilkenny were located near the Franciscan
Friary in St. James Street according to William Burke.230 The residence in the city of
Kilkenny was in no case short-lived. In a report on 14th April 1684 the Archbishop of Cashel,
James Brenan, complained about the newly increased prosecutions. According to him the
members of the Franciscans, Capuchins, and Dominicans who resided in the city took to
flight after the Superior of the Jesuits there had been imprisoned and four public chapels that
the orders had maintained were destroyed.231 From these sources we may conclude that
Dominicans lived and worked in and around Kilkenny at the least between 1665 and 1684,
teaching considerable numbers of both lay people and novices.
Dominicans were also present in the northern parts of Leinster, in Counties Meath and Louth.
Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, tells about the diocese of Meath that many regular
clergy of Dominicans, Augustinians, and Franciscans were to be found there.232 In September
1671 he wrote to Brussels more specifically that “in the diocese of Meath, the Dominicans
have a convent at Trim of five friars; they have also a novitiate there; amongst the friars there
is one named Father John Byrne, a great and learned preacher, but quarrelsome.“233 Already
in April 1670 Plunkett had written to the Roman Secretary of Propaganda Fide, Baldeschi,
that a Dominican residence with only three friars could also be found in the city of Drogheda,
a small number that surprised him in a city that had six thousand inhabitants as he asserted,
although the majority were of English origin and Protestant.234 On 22nd November he referred
to this house for a second time when writing to the General Superior of the Jesuit order,
Oliva, so that at least after two years the residence was still intact.235 Apart from the strong
presence in Kilkenny the Dominicans were limited to an area around Dublin. While large
parts in the east of Ireland seem to have been left unattended, three residences offered their
services in the very proximity of the capital, in contrast to the more rural residences in the
North and West as will be shown later on.
229
Thomas Burke: Hibernia dominicana, sive, Historia provinciae Hibernia ordinis praedicatorum, Kilkenny
1762, p. 576.
230
Burke, Penal Times, p. 19.
231
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 77.
232
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 2, p. 119.
233
Ibid., p. 123.
234
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 73-75.
235
Moran, Rev. Oliver Plunket, pp. 137-38.
54
Franciscans
The Franciscan activity in Leinster was very diverse. On a middle synod in Athlone on 5th
March 1670 guardians for 57 residences throughout Ireland were named while six houses
were left vacant.236
In 1658 members of the order had already returned to Kilkenny as Philip Kelly was reported
to be their guardian in the city chronicles. In 1659 the Franciscan James Phelan returned to
the town only to be made Bishop of Ossory shortly after. In years prior, he had lived as
chaplain in the household of Richard Butler of Kilcash, brother to James, Duke of Ormond.
Phelan remained in the city until 1678 when he wrote to Rome about the conversion of one
hundred heretics. In this context he gave the number of Franciscans in the city as being
eleven, three of them working as parish priests.237 In the already mentioned letter from
Archbishop Brenan from April of 1684 the Franciscans were part of those orders that fled the
city from persecution.238
Similarly they were referred to in the letters of Oliver Plunkett of Armagh as having
residences in the diocese of Meath. Plunkett identified two convents, one of them in Trim
with six friars, the other one in Multifarnham where ten friars lived. Both houses maintained a
novitiate according to the Archbishop. Contrary to most of his reports on the Franciscan
novitiates in his archdiocese he did not complain of the quality standard in these houses but
highlighted two members of the Tuite family at Trim as the most distinguished ones there.239
Reference to the house at Multifarnham was also made in Henry Piers’ Chorographical
Description of the County of West-Meath, written in 1682. According to the Protestant settler
Piers, the Franciscan monastery in Multifarnham had been dissolved soon after the
Reformation. The land fell to a Dublin Alderman called Jans who permitted them to return to
their residence until the final defeat of the Confederates, when the house was finally
abandoned and fell to ruins. For the Restoration period Piers noted that “ the friars of this
convent had before the discovery of the late Popish plot in England, a friary and convent on a
piece of land near this place, being a parcel of Knights-wood belonging to Sir Thomas Nugent
baronet, where they had built all manor of conveniences both for the receipt of strangers and
for their own use, but all thatched cabins which are to this day kept up in good repair, and are
ready for their reception whenever they shall please, or find the opportunity of re-entering,
and some stay that it is not now altogether void of them, altho’ he who owns to be an
236
Giblin, Liber Lovaniensis, pp. 115-16.
W.G. Neely: Kilkenny. An Urban History, 1391-1853, Antrim 1989, pp. 119-20.
238
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 77.
239
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 2, pp. 119/123. Coleman, Ancient Dominican Foundations, p. 32.
237
55
inhabitant therein is said to be a Protestant.“240 Apparently the order stuck to the places where
it was traditionally located, no matter who owned the land and the new proprietors,
Protestants or Catholics, connived at the Franciscans until late in the reign of Charles II.
Other residences of the order were located in Drogheda where four members lived, in
Clonmacnoise, and in Dundalk, only sixteen miles distant from Drogheda. Plunkett estimated
that there were two thousand inhabitants there, a fourth of whom he considered to be
Catholic. If he was correct, the Franciscan convent had three friars in it.241
The last Franciscan residence in Leinster that can be traced was located in Athlone on the
very border to Connaught. Though Catholics formed a major part of the town population
during the Restoration period, the spiritual attendance in the area was low. The diocese of
Clonmacnoise had no bishop and in 1675 only seven parish priests were to be found. The only
exception was the Franciscan convent in or near to Athlone where a new guardian was first
mentioned in 1669.242
Not all of these convents survived the whole period, or at the very least, they closed their
novitiate because on its capital synod in 1687 the order only confirmed the novitiates in
Dublin, Athlone, Kilkenny, and Multifarnham for the province of Leinster.243
Augustinians and Capuchins
The only other orders that displayed educational activity in Leinster were the Augustinians
and the Capuchins, although their numbers were much smaller than those of the Dominicans
and the Franciscans. The Augustinians maintained a convent in Kilkenny like the former two
orders, close to the Franciscan convent in St. James Street.244 An old house of the order was
located at Clonmines. Dissolved during the Reformation, they settled themselves on the
opposite bank of the river Scar, a place that is still called ‘the Friar’s Bank’. They stayed there
for the next three hundred years “instructing the youth, and counselling those who needed
their advice” as Philip Herbert Hore put it in his 1902 History of the Town and County of
Wexford.245 Augustinians and Capuchins also had houses in the city of Drogheda as Oliver
Plunkett reported in 1672.246 In 1670, the Capuchins already had three residences.247
240
Piers, A Chorographical Description, p. 69.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 73-75/336.
242
Harman Murtagh: Athlone. History and Settlement to 1800, Athlone 2000, pp. 140-41.
243
Canice Mooney: The Irish Franciscans 1650-1699. “Rough and uncultured men?”, in: Catholic Survey, vol. 1,
No. 3 (1953), pp. 378–402, pp. 389-90.
244
Burke, Penal Times, p. 19.
245
Hore, Town and County of Wexford, vol. 2, p. 204.
246
Moran, Rev. Oliver Plunket, pp. 137-8.
247
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 73-75.
241
56
In 1662 the members of the Capuchin mission to Ireland wrote to Propaganda Fide in Rome
requesting for help. They declared that after the death of Cromwell, members of the order had
returned to all Irish provinces and in a second letter from June 2nd they specified this
statement, counting five residences in the province of Leinster alone.248 Not all of these can
still be located. Apart from the three already mentioned the other two are untraceable. It can
be said of the residence in Kilkenny that it most likely existed during the whole research
period. Assuming that it was one of the five mentioned in 1662, it is referred to in an account
of the diocese of Ossory compiled by the bishop where it is said: “Jesuitae duo hospitium
tenent Kilkenniae, et Capuccini tres, quorum aliqui concionantur et missionariorum exercent
officium.”249 Again in 1684 the Capuchins were identified by Archbishop Brenan as part of
those orders who fled the city in face of persecution.250
Munster
Two religious houses in Munster are not identifiable as belonging to one order or the other.
The monastery at Carrickbeg had a guardian from 1669 onwards, while another convent close
to it at Mothel was not reoccupied because its former owners, Cistercians and Augustinians,
could not agree on who had the rights to it.251 A second institution was located in Creagh
Parish in the County of Limerick. Again it is neither possible to identify the religious order
nor to say if they disposed of a novitiate or any sort of teaching institution.252
Dominicans
Differing sources exist for the Dominican residences in the diocese of Limerick. Nevertheless,
they all agree on the fact that the old religious orders were present in the region. The vicar
James Dooley claimed in his report from 25th July 1670, which he said to have composed
after a visitation of the diocese that two Dominican convents existed.253 As John Begley has
shown in his history of the diocese of Limerick, it is probable that those were the convents in
the city of Limerick itself and at Kilmallock. There the order survived mostly without
disturbances except during the times of the Popish Plot.254
248
Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna” in Propaganda
Archives: Part 1, ff. 1-131, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 29 (1987), pp. 34-58, pp. 40-1.
249
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 254.
250
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 77.
251
Ibid., Carrick on Suir, pp. 58-9.
252
Begley, The Diocese of Limerick, p. 483.
253
Benignus Millett: Rival Vicars: disputed jurisdiction in Limerick 1654-1671, in: Etienne Rynne (ed.): North
Munster Studies. Essays in commemoration of Monsignor Michael Moloney, Limerick 1967, pp. 279-307, p.
296.
254
Begley, The Diocese of Limerick, p. 485.
57
Members of the order also returned to their old house in the city of Cork. In 1672 all the
important clerical offices except the bishop were manned, and Dominicans as well as
Francsicans lived in their communities within the walls. Most of their activities concentrated
nonetheless on the Irishtowns outside the city walls where the majority of the Catholic
population lived, but in 1685 even a chapel was allowed in Shandon Street.255
In general, the Dominican presence in Munster was poor as is revealed by Archbishop
Brenan’s report to Propaganda Fide on 20th September 1675. Brenan had just returned from a
visitation of his dioceses of Waterford and Lismore counting only two Dominicans.256 And
when in July 1678 he refreshed his report, only one Dominican was mentioned. This one lived
in the city of Waterford, expounding the Gospel and teaching the catechism.257
Franciscans
The Franciscans had a much stronger presence in the southern province, especially in the
Southeast. Together with the Dominicans they had returned to Cork, teaching the catechism in
the outskirts of the city in 1672.258 When John Brenan reported to Rome after his visitation,
there were ten members of the order in Waterford and Lismore, distinctly the only ones that
maintained closed communities.259 This development seems to have continued for the next
three years. In 1678 there was a Franciscan residence in the city of Waterford, where the friars
were able to lead a common life and even have a public chapel. Three residences could be
found in the adjoined diocese of Lismore; one in Clonmel and one in Carrick. Brenan did not
mention the exact location of the third residence. In both towns they maintained a public
chapel. The Clonmel residence provides more detailed information. Brenan wrote in 1678 that
the convent had three priests, one lay brother and four novices.260 The Clonmel novitiate
educated constantly for at least a large part of the Restoration period. In 1669 the member of
the order, James White, reported that five novices had been accepted and made good progress
in their studies; they had advanced knowledge in the humanities and all of them knew how to
write in Latin.261 The novitiate was again referred to when John Brenan sent his relatio status
to Propaganda Fide in 1672. He reports that “there are four religious priests and one lay
brother; two of them preach; they have a novitiate here with four novices.” The education
offered in Waterford in Lismore was nonetheless not enough for the high standards that
255
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, pp. 246-7.
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 465.
257
Ibid., A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 62-65.
258
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, pp. 246-7.
259
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 465.
260
Ibid., A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 62-65.
261
Mooney, The Irish Franciscans, pp. 389-90. Compare as well Burke, History of Clonmel, p. 307.
256
58
Brenan had. In the same refers to schools erected in other dioceses that were more agreeable
to his demands because he complained that the teachers in his own dioceses had so far not
been able “to break the ice”.262
Farther west the Franciscan presence seems to have decreased in comparison with the
Dominicans as in the diocese of Limerick only one convent is mentioned in 1670.263 No
references at all are to be had about their presence in Kerry.
Other orders
Of the other religious orders there was a much higher diversity than in Leinster. Vicar Dooley
of Limerick named convents of Augustinians, Carmelites, and Cistercians in the diocese in
1670.264 Two Augustinians as well as one Capuchin priest were registered by Brenan in
Waterford and Lismore in 1675.265 In 1678 he wrote that the Augustinians had one convent
and a public chapel in Dungarvan.266 In a letter to Propaganda Fide in 1662, the members of
the Capuchin order said that there were two residences in Munster, though we cannot say
where these residences were located, apart from the information of the one Capuchin in
Waterford and Lismore by Brenan.267 In any case, there was no special reference made to the
existence of novitiate although it seems improbable that none of the formerly mentioned
convents should have taken in any novices.
Connaught
The situation of the old orders in Connaught was very different to the southern and eastern
provinces. Many monasteries were recovered after the Restoration, and the friars returned to
their spiritual and educational duties. As for the quantity of the institutions, there are several
references to convents without mention of the occupying order but instead, the astonishingly
high quality of the buildings and interiors. In 1680 Charles Collis from Sligo had seized two
friars in a convent of Ballymote and secured a library and the friars’ vestments which were
referred to as comparatively rich.268 A similar case was reported by Dudley Pearce, Dean of
Kilmacduagh, on 22nd December 1684. He stated that the monasteries at Kilnalehine and
262
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 27-34.
Millett, Rival Vicars, p. 296.
264
Ibid., p. 296.
265
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 465.
266
Ibid., A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 62-65.
267
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 1, pp. 40-1.
263
268
Burke, Penal Times, p. 61.
59
Kilconnel were in a state of good repair while the friars whose order is not mentioned lived in
a community and took care of the souls.269
Dominicans
The Dominicans regained much of their former strength in the Counties of Connaught while,
as has been shown before, their presence in the eastern provinces was not very high. A
Dominican residence in Ennis in County Clare as well as in Athleague in County Roscommon
is mentioned however the details are limited270 and in an undated report on regular clerics that
deserved promotion, there is a reference to Dominic Burke, lecturer in theology in Killala or
Clonfert and Richard O’Madden, lecturer in theology in Clonfert.271
The largest and best documented Dominican convent was near Athenry, a short distance from
Galway. The impressive size of the facility was mentioned in a variety of sources, but the
most detailed account of the school was written by John O’Heyne, printed in Louvain in
1706. O’Heyne compiled a history of the Dominican order in Ireland of which he was a
member. He had studied in Athenry and was ordained there in 1666. Afterwards he went for
further studies to Salamanca and Louvain before returning to Athenry as a teacher. He finally
fled the country during the Popish Plot.272 A second important source that survived is the
Athenry House Chronicle. The Book had been purchased by Fr. John Burke Fitzredmond of
Athenry in Limerick in 1676 and contains several valuable pieces of information on the
Athenry school and the Dominican order in Ireland in general, up to the middle of the
eighteenth century.273 Edmund Burke, another former student at Athenry, wrote a third
account on the school in his Hibernia dominicana, sive, Historia provinciae Hibernia ordinis
praedicatorum in 1736.274 It appears that the school and the convent were reestablished
shortly after the Restoration by Fathers Tully and MacMahon, who had returned from the
continent. The two led the school during the next ten years. According to O’Heyne, the school
had about three hundred scholars when he received the habit in 1665/66.275
What made the convent so powerful was the financial support by the Burke family, Earls of
Clanricarde, who had supported the convent for decades. Members of the Burke family were
269
HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series,
vol. 7, pp. 311-2.
270
Hugh Fenning: The Athenry house-chronicle, 1666–1779, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 11 (1968), pp. 3652, p. 38.
271
Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of „Fondo di Vienna“ in Propaganda
Archives: part 3, ff. 217-280, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 41 (1999), pp. 10-35, pp. 20-1.
272
Fenning, The Athenry house-chronicle, p. 38. See as well Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, p. 138.
273
Fenning, The Athenry house-chronicle, pp. 36-7.
274
Coleman, Ancient Dominican Foundations, pp. 84-5.
275
Burke, Hibernia dominicana, p. 576.
60
guardians of the friary, Bishops of Elphin and Archbishops of Tuam. The later Bishop of
Elphin, Dominic Burke, entered the order in Athenry at the age of eighteen while the convent
was led by his uncle, of which we learn from John Lynch’s De Praesulibus Hiberniae:
“Matris tamen cognatorumque sollicitudo tam probam illi educationem comparavit, ut
memorabili progressu in studii facto, decimum octavum aetatis annum agens, ordini
praedicatorum nomen Athenriae dederit, cuius coenobii, per id tempus, prioratum patruus eius
Dominicus de Burgo cum laude gessit.”276 Lynch’s description underlines the quality of the
school as well the familiar connection with the Burkes. Consequently it gives a good example
of the intertwined interests of family politics and religious orders in Ireland and especially in
the old Irish dominated areas of Connaught. This again became clear after the destruction of
the convent in the 1650s when the Marquis of Clanricarde, Ulick Burke, helped to rebuild it.
Lynch comments on the procedure: “Corruentia enim conventus aedificia restauravit, et novis
concinnioribusque amplificavit, oppiparoque apparatu provinciale capitulum excepit, Ullecho
de Burgo Clanricardiae marchione (cui, dum Dominicus vixit, a sacris erat) potissimam
utriusque sumptus partem suppeditante.”277 According to Pochin-Mould, the school and the
novitiate were located in Brosk, a safe distance from the city. Until 1678 the school had been
growing and students came from all over the country. They lived in small huts distributed
around the forest, each group with its own tutor.278 But the existence of the school could not
have been much of a secret. The prominence of the convent was also demonstrated in 1681
when the Duke of Ormond wrote to the Protestant Archbishop of Tuam that he had heard of a
monument or tomb for a certain Dominic Burke within the abbey of Athenry and that such
construction should not be tolerated.279 It is unclear if the monument was ever built, but the
fact that it needed the intervention of the Irish Lord Lieutenant to prevent it underlines the
importance of the convent and the economic potency behind it that was able to pay for the
tomb.
However, Athenry was not simply an educational centre in the area, but more an originator
for further institutions throughout Connaught. Its scholars filled the posts of teachers in
several other convents; one of the more important convents was Urlar Abbey in County
Mayo. The abbey was one of the few that had not been left during the times of Cromwell and
its intact infrastructure was used after the Restoration for the installation of a novitiate.280
276
John Lynch: De Praesulibus Hiberniae, vol. 2, 1672, edited by John Francis O’Doherty, Dublin 1944, p. 296.
Ibid., p. 296.
278
Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, p. 140.
279
Ibid., pp. 149-50.
280
Coleman, Ancient Dominican Foundations, pp. 96-7.
277
61
Dominicans could also be found in the city of Galway. In 1673 Oliver Plunkett wrote in a
letter to the Internuntio Baldeschi that there were three convents, one belonging to the
Dominicans who also had the most ornate church. Plunkett even considered it the most ornate
church in the whole country.281
Another large school was maintained in County Mayo, according to O’Heyne most likely at
the convent of Burrishoole. The school was comparatively young, founded just during the
time of the Confederation in 1642 by the theologian John O’Hart. It was abandoned between
1653 and 1660. Apart from these seven years there was constant teaching there until 1697.
O’Hart himself was still in charge when he and his fellows were temporarily arrested in
1666.282 One John O’Ruane/O’Ryan taught there after returning from exile until his death in
1674.283 He had studied in Spain and was quite renowned for his poetry before he returned to
his homeland.284 Burrishoole is also thought to be the place where the chronicler O’Heyne
died in 1682 after he had returned for a second time from the continent. Additional to John
O’Ruane/O’Ryan Frs. William Burke Jr. and Walter Gibbons worked there.285 From the
occasional persecutions at Burrishoole we get a great insight into the structure of the convent
and the school. On September 1, 1683, the Duke of Ormond wrote a letter to his son, the Earl
of Arran, and commanded him to arrest “the mad friar at Burrishoole”, probably the then prior
William de Burgo Jr. who was in charge between 1683 and 1686. The act that caused the
Duke’s rage was the admission of new nuns to the convent – something very unusual in
Restoration Ireland.286
John O’Hart likely left the school after his short arrest in 1666 as he died according to
O’Heyne in a convent in Sligo in 1668. It does not seem improbable that he continued
teaching there.287 In any case, the convent at Sligo was the last larger traceable Dominican
residence in Connaught. O’Heyne tells about one Fr. Michael O’Hart who had studied in
Sligo before going abroad. “Returning home, as the persecution had declined somewhat, he
conducted a large school of philosophy and moral theology for many years.” He died in the
convent of Roscommon in 1688.288 O’Heyne did not reveal the exact location of the school.
Since the Counties of Roscommon and Sligo share a common a border, it could have been in
both areas with which O’Hart apparently had a strong relation. It would also be possible that
281
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 367-8.
Ò Mórain, Annala, p. 21.
283
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 223-225.
284
Ò Mórain, Annala, pp. 21-2.
285
Howard, Irish Catholic Education, p. 201. Cf. Ò Mórain, Annala, pp. 19-23.
286
Ibid., pp. 22-3.
287
Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 138-9.
288
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 247-249.
282
62
the school was the same as the one of the convent in Sligo since another member of the order,
Patrick MacDonogh, stayed there “preaching, catechizing, hearing confessions and promoting
the holy rosary” as O’Heyne commented.289 In his Records relating to the Dioceses of Ardagh
and Clonmacnoise John Monaghan tells about Dr. Ambrose O’Connor who was named
Bishop of Ardagh in 1709 dying in 1711 at the age of 55. He had received his primary
education in the Dominican school at Sligo around 1670. Unfortunately, the author does not
quote any sources for this relation.290
Franciscans
Among the regular clerics that were recommended to Propaganda Fide as suitable for higher
offices were also three Franciscans, Joseph Burke, lecturer in theology in Killala,
Bonaventure O’Kelly, lecturer in philosophy in Clonfert, and Bonaventure Magrannell,
lecturer in theology in Ardagh. Since only the dioceses were named, we cannot be sure where
exactly they resided.291 The order of Saint Francis maintained a convent in the city of Galway
as is mentioned by Oliver Plunkett.292 However, the order was more concentrated on the
southern parts of Connaught, in the old lands of Thomond. In 1666 the Earl of Orrery wrote to
the Duke of Ormond concerning a Franciscan abbey on the island of Brintine/Brentry in
County Clare “where they wear their habits, and do all things else as openly as if they were in
Rome”.293 Following this complaint, the friars were seized in January 1667. Four of them
were arrested but the guardian, Francis Broady, was absent. The reason for the arrest was the
fact that they had refused to subscribe the Remonstrance of Loyalty to which will be referred
later on. In the context it is revealed that another Franciscan house existed close to that in
Brentry, at Quin. Having affiliated themselves, they were not approached by the government
authorities in any way. In fact, not even the Franciscans at Brentry were punished as Orrery
had to transmit. The goal of the county was too ruinous, so the friars were let out on bail
again.294 The transcripts have left us the names of the four arrested: Mortagh O Gripha, Teig
O Hehir, William Browne, and Richard Lysaght.295
Another residence of the order existed in Ennis, County Clare. Contrary to most of the
Franciscan houses during the Restoration, it did not have a novitiate as it was only added in
1687. Since most of the guardians had studied on the continent and taught students in Ennis
289
Ibid., The Irish Dominicans, pp. 249-251.
Monahan, Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, p. 37.
291
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 3, pp. 20-1.
292
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 367-8.
293
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, pp. 73-76.
294
Ibid., pp. 108-9.
295
Ibid., pp. 110-1.
290
63
and its surroundings in the 1640s, it seems unlikely that they would have stopped these
activities after 1660.296 The last traceable Franciscan residence in Connaught was at Elphin
where the order held a synod in 1672. It was there that the order decided to establish two
educational centres iuxta discretionem in each of the civil provinces.297
Capuchins and Augustinians
Of the other orders even fewer residences are known. The Capuchins reported two houses in
Connaught in 1662, not mentioning where they were,298 and Oliver Plunkett spoke of one
Augustinian house in the city of Galway in 1673.299 Additionally, two Augustinians were
included in the promotion list for Propaganda Fide already quoted – David Burke, lecturer in
theology from Tuam and Patrick Kirwan, a master from Tuam.300 Although, again we have no
reference to where exactly these men lived nor if they were actually living or teaching in the
archdiocese of Tuam or if they were just consecrated or born there.
Ulster
Dominicans
While it seems that in the three preceding provinces one of the two larger orders was clearly
dominant, the province of Ulster turned out to be the major “battleground” between
Franciscans and Dominicans with a strong presence from both orders. Oliver Plunkett
complained constantly to Rome about the unnecessary high number of novitiates in his
archdiocese and about the generally low standard these educational institutions had to offer.
In 1671 he first spoke of eight monasteries with a novitiate without specification to which
order they belonged.301 In another letter the same year he increased that number up to seven
Dominican residences in the whole province who all lived in closed communities but who
would not preach nor catechize.302 In September 1672 he identified three Dominican
novitiates in the archdiocese of Armagh, one in the diocese of Down and Connor and two in
the diocese of Derry, one in the city with six friars.303 Another Dominican novitiate could be
found at Coleraine Abbey. 304
In 1660 the Dominicans had returned to Ulster eager to take over the old destroyed residences
in the province which later caused heavy disturbances with the Franciscans who claimed
296
Patrick Conlan: The Franciscans in Ennis, Athlone 1984, p. 28.
Giblin, Liber Lovaniensis, p. 131.
298
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 1, pp. 40-1.
299
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 367-8.
300
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 3, pp. 20-1.
301
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 238.
302
Ibid., p. 215.
303
Ibid., p. 336. Coleman, Ancient Dominican Foundations, p. 6.
304
Ibid., p. 11.
297
64
several of the houses for themselves. In the end, the archbishop had to make a decision about
the matter and granted the disputed houses of Carlingford, Newtownards, and a place named
Gola near Enniskillen to the Dominicans. The novitiate at Gola increased in the following
years where they received “the best families in the county, thus gaining to the Order the
friendship of the gentry and the people”, as the Domincan chronicler O’Heyne reports.305 It is
obvious that O’Heyne’s description of the novitiate and its reputation contrasts highly to
Oliver Plunkett’s complaints, but the judgment of the sources and the teaching quality offered
will be discussed elsewhere.
Franciscans
In 1671 Oliver Plunkett saw the Franciscan order expanding even more than the Dominican.
He counted up to ten convents, though he also included an accusation that they did not preach
nor catechize but only quested for alms.306 The only exception he made was for the
Franciscan friary near Armagh about which he had written to Baldeschi in April 1670. He
considered them good religious people who kept a large public chapel and a novitiate. They
were appreciated by the population so much that even the Protestants sent them alms without
the friars having quested for them.307
One Franciscan residence was reclaimed in the diocese of Derry which had four brothers,
though no exact location was mentioned.308 Another large house was situated near the city of
Donegal. In 1671 the archbishop had visited the diocese of Raphoe reporting that “there is a
residence of the Franciscan friars: it has eighteen friars and is the best formed convent that I
have ever seen.”309
But most of the time Plunkett kept complaining. On 30th September 1672 he manifested his
distaste of the two Franciscan novitiates in the diocese of Down and Connor, one at
Downpatrick, the other one at Carrickfergus as well as the institutions in the dioceses of
Raphoe, Kilmore, Clonmacnoise, and Meath; the former three having one institution and
Meath having two.310 Notwithstanding his continuing complaints, the number of novitiates
kept increasing so that in 1676 the archbishop wrote to the internuntio at Brussels, Tanari, and
claimed that the Franciscans kept thirteen of them in the Armagh province alone.311
305
Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 139-40.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 215.
307
Ibid., pp. 73-75.
308
Donnelly, Ardstraw West and Castlederg, pp. 60-1.
309
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 226.
310
Ibid., p. 336.
311
Ibid., pp. 460-1.
306
65
Capuchins
In the same letter Plunkett appreciated that the other orders, namely the Capuchins and the
Jesuits, did not keep novitiates in the region because of the impossibility of giving a proper
formation.312 Capuchin residences, on the other hand, did exist. In 1662 three houses were
located in Ulster. If they had any form of novitiate, they were probably already closed down
when Plunkett arrived on the island some years later.313
2. Jesuits
Jesuit education in Ireland had, as has been shown already, a long tradition when Charles II
was restored to his throne in 1660. Throughout Europe the order was identified as the main
educating institution of the Counter-Reformation and offered a quality in teaching that was
even attractive to many Protestants, as will be analysed later on. After the great expansion that
the order had experienced since the middle the sixteenth century, the focus turned to
consolidating the achievements in the second half of the seventeenth century. Maintaining
their outstanding position had become more and more difficult especially in cities where there
existed several educational offerings competing against them.314 Clearly this was not the case
in Ireland where Trinity College, Dublin still remained the only institution for higher classical
education and where the Catholic majority of the population had officially no access to higher
education if they did not want to or could not send their children illegally to the continent.
In contrast to most of the other religious orders that laboured in Ireland after the Restoration,
the Jesuits’ numbers and their missionary structure can be reconstructed with more or less
certainty. While the superiors of the Irish mission sent their Litterae Annuae to Rome, of
which several have survived, the Irish government was eager to apprehend members of the
order that were identified by many Protestants as the major Catholic threat. This is why a
quantity of interrogation documents on members of the order can still be found giving names
and residences in many cases.
In his detailed study on the Jesuit mission in Ireland up to 1651, Fergus O’Donoghue was able
to draw a map of Jesuit activities throughout the research period, counting the number of
Jesuits who stayed longer periods of time in certain places. It turned out that most of the
Jesuit activity was centred on the Southeast315 with other urban residences in Athlone (14),
Dublin (3), Galway (15) and Limerick (13). Extremely high numbers were also found in the
312
Ibid.
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 1, pp. 40-1.
314
Compère, Der Unterricht der Jesuiten, p. 29.
315
Carrick (9), Cashel (11), Clonmel (10), Cork (12), Kilkea (5), Kilkenny (5), Naas (4), New Ross (6),
Waterford (8), Wexford (7)
313
66
western isles of Aran (16) and Inishboffin (17) that were likely used as retreat areas in times
of persecution. After the Restoration, retreat areas were not as much needed and the two
islands were of little use because they had been strongly garrisoned under Cromwell and
continued as such after the Restoration.316 As will be seen, the Jesuits returned to most of
these traditional strongholds after 1660 as the other orders did, only with a few exceptions.
The majority of the Jesuits lived in residences, though most of the time they could not lead a
life in community. Only a few of them lived as private tutors in the houses of wealthy
Catholics since their numbers had decreased immensely before 1660.317
It is revealing that the Protestant contemporaries seemed to be well-informed about Jesuit
activities in Ireland. When Lord O’Brien estimated the number of Jesuits in Ireland to be 25
in 1674, he was relatively close to the actual number. However his estimtes regarding the
other clerics in the country were rather ambiguous.318 A first list of the members originates
from 1662 and bears the names of 24 priests.319 By the end of 1663 the mission was expecting
the arrival of another three members by the following year in July.320 Until Easter 1665 this
number had again increased up to 29.321 In 1666, their names and residences were compiled
again like in 1662.322 Three years later there were 32 members of the Society on the Irish
mission distributed in eight cities with their surroundings. Around 1670 the Jesuit order in
Ireland reached the peak with 36 members under the Superior Richard Burke. This number
was kept constant the following year before three members, Oliver Eustache, Richard
Shelton, and Edward Locke, died and the number decreased to 33 at the beginning of 1672.
316
O’Donoghue, The Jesuit Mission, p. 365. Kieran Concannon (ed.): Inishbofin through time and tide,
Inishbofin 1993, pp. 15-6.
317
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259v.
318
CSP, Dom. Series: November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, p. 160.
319
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r. The names are: William Salinger
(illegible), Richard Shelton (no place given), Andrew Saulus (Waterford), Francis Tirry (Cork), Gerard Nugent
(Meath), William Long (Dublin), James Tobin (Kilkenny), James Ford (Dublin), John Clare (Waterford), John
Talbot (Galway), John Usher (Dublin), Maurice Conaldi/Connell (Kerry), Maurice Ward (Galway), Michael
Chamberlain (Cork), Nicholas Talbot (Galway), Stephen Gellous (New Ross and Wexford), Ignatius Carbery
(Dublin), Thomas Quirke (Kilkenny), Thomas Leraeus/Leary (Cashel), George Vitus/White (no place given,
apparantly dead), Thomas Quin (maybe left Ireland), Peter Creagh (Cashel), Stephen Brown (Galway), Stephen
Rich (Limerick)
320
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 262.
321
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266.
322
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v. The names are: Nicholas Talbot
(Dublin), James Ford (Dublin), William Hurley (Limerick), Richard Shelton (Dublin), Francis Tyrrhaeus (Cork),
John Usher (Dublin), Andrew Sallus Benedicti (Dublin), John Talbot (Dublin), William Long (Dublin), Andrew
Sallus Joannis (Cashel) (Jansenist und Konvertit), John Clare (Waterford), Richard de Burgh (Galway), Nicholas
Netterville (just returned from France), Nicholas Nugent (Dublin), Stephen Rice (New Ross, Leinster), Thomas
Quirk (Kilkenny), Stephen Brown (Galway), Stephen Gellous (New Ross, Leinster), Peter Creagh (Limerick),
John Stritch (Limerick), Maurice Connell (Cork), Gerald Nugent (just returned from France), Ignatius Carbery
(Drogheda), James Tobyn (Kilkenny), Thomas Leraeus/Leary (Cashel), Fiachra Demspy (Dublin), Dominic
Kirwan (Galway), Ignatius Brown (Waterford), Ignatius Gough (Dublin, just returned from Holland)
67
By the end of 1672 there were 35 priests again, reinforced by fathers from France and Spain,
a number that was still accurate in 1674.323 For several years thereafter there was no detailed
evaluation of the members. In 1678 the Jesuit Nicholas Netterville was questioned by the
Protestant Bishop of Meath, Jones, and gave further information on the remains of the
mission. According to him, there were more or less 30 members in the country, though he
pretended not to know the exact number, their names, nor their residences.324 A last reference
comes from the year 1685 when in a letter to Rome it was said that the mission consisted of
around 28 members in seven residences.325 In conclusion the number of Jesuits on the Irish
mission was more or less constant between 1660 and 1685, although the total number is
astonishingly small compared to England where 147 members were still resident in 1660.326
Dublin
Though it has been assumed that Dublin was too Protestant-controlled and too accurately
searched, the capital of the island was always the best-staffed Jesuit residence during the
whole Restoration period. It was never totally abandoned and apparently the Jesuits were not
even always forced to act in secret as they openly maintained a public chapel.327 The early
collector and editor of the Irish Jesuit documents, John MacErlean, even argued that shortly
after the Restoration there had been six Jesuits in Dublin city.328 But this number appears a bit
too high as in 1662 only four members were active in the town, William Long, James Ford,
John Usher, and Ignatius Carbery.329
In the following year another member had joined the Dublin residence that held private
communions. Only one of them dared to celebrate mass in public every day or at least once a
week.330 Four members were concerned with the instruction of the people in the countryside
around the capital.331 The staff of five members was consistent until 1665 when it was
reported to Rome that every residence had two members, except for Dublin and Galway, each
of them with six members.332 An extremely high number was ascertained in 1666 when the
323
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo.
271/278/ 279/281v./282/283v.
324
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
325
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 91, 91v.: Letter from Jacob Reilly to Nicolao Avancino, Dublin, 22. Mai 1685, fo. 91,
91v.
326
McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 95.
327
Burke, Penal Times, p. 34.
328
John MacErlean: The Dublin Residence, in Ibid.: The Irish Jesuits. Being a Collection of Articles on the
History of the Irish Province, S.J., vol. 1, Dublin 1962, pp. 77-81, p. 78.
329
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
330
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 258v.
331
Ibid., fo. 258v.
332
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266.
68
Catalogus brevis missionis Ibernicae by Andrew Sall noted ten members of the Dublin
residence.333 This can probably be explained with several members arriving or passing
through the city such as Ignatius Gough who had just returned from Holland. Three of the
four members from 1662 were still there, only Ignatius Carbery had left the residence for
Drogheda.
While Jesuit schools existed openly other Irish towns for a number of years, the Jesuits in
Dublin mostly taught in private and secretly. Only in 1670 was a public school opened in
Saggart near Dublin, but it was shut down just after three months. Despite this, evidence
shows that the school was reopened in 1677.334
During the Popish Plot the situation of the residence got worse. On 15th October 1678 the
Catholic Archbishop of Dublin was questioned and he admitted knowing Frs. Netterville,
Gough, Usher, and Johnson335 from the Jesuit residence in Dublin. Two days later, on
October 17, 1678, Netterville himself gave account of a Mr. Corsher, Mr. Gough, Mr.
Johnson and Mr. William Long. Additionally he mentioned Nicholas Nugent, living in
Beggstown in the County of Dublin and Ignatius Carbery, residing at Balledoyle in the
County of Dublin.336 If Corsher and Usher are the same person, their information was very
accurate. Netterville was arrested and forced into exile in 1679 from where he returned in
1684.337 When James, Duke of York, the king’s Catholic brother, succeeded to the throne in
1685, religious tolerance allowed the order to open pubic schools for a short period of time. In
Dublin they had an institution in Lucy Lane.338
Drogheda
Drogheda was one of the smaller and newer residences the Jesuits had in Ireland. It became
famous because of the Jesuit school that the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett,
entertained there since 1670 even though a Jesuit had been around prior to that in 1663.339
One member was considered sufficient in a place so close to Dublin but the Litterae Annuae
tell about great deficiencies in knowledge of the Christian doctrines among the common
people of that area.340 In his work the father supported a local parish priest in Drogheda so
333
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
Howard, Irish Catholic Education, p. 202.
335
Burke, Penal Times, pp. 105-107.
336
Ibid., p. 54.
337
MacErlean, The Dublin Residence, p. 79.
338
Ibid., p. 79.
339
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 262.
340
Ibid., fo. 262v.
334
69
that the Jesuits were not the only ones taking care of the flock in the 1660s.341 According to
the Catalogus brevis missionis Ibernicae from 1666, the Jesuit in Drogheda was Ignatius
Carbery who had still been a part of the Dublin residence in 1666. When the new Archbishop
of Armagh arrived, Drogheda became a place of crucial importance for Catholic and
especially Jesuit education. The Archbishop built a school that had places for over one
hundred scholars including both youths and priests, and was connived at by the Lord
Lieutenand Berkely and the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, James Margetson.342 By April
1671, the schools had space for 150 boys and 25 priests343, educated by the Jesuits Stephen
Rice who had come from New Ross and one Father Brown.344 But the schools financed by
Plunkett did not last very long. In another wave of persecution they were forced to close their
doors in 1673. Farther north of Drogheda no report on Jesuit activities exists. The only
reference appears in a letter of the clergy of the province of Armagh, assembled in synod 8th
October 1670 where it is written: “Patres Societatis in Dioecesim Armacanum ad pueros
docendos et Sacerdotes juniores instruendos induxit, ipsisque domum et scholam propiis
expensis aedificavit.” It is most likely that this reference referred to the Jesuits in Drogheda
being part of the church province of Armagh.345
Meath (Diocese in general)
In the diocese of Meath the Jesuit Gerard Nugent became active in 1662.346 Nine years later
Archbishop Plunkett reported to the internuntio in Brussels that there were “some fathers of
the Society, who with great applause attend to the education of youth, so that the heretics
themselves send their children to their schools.”347 It does not appear that he was referring to
his own school at Drogheda but no further reference could be found concerning a Jesuit
school in Meath. In his 1678 interrogation, Nicholas Netterville mentioned “Mr. Gerald
Nugent of Brackly in the County of Westmeath who is now coming to reside in Dublin”.348
There still is a Brackly in County Meath, so perhaps Netterville got confused, which would
make the place likely to be the school Plunkett wrote about in 1671. Last of all Daniel Byrne,
an innkeeper from Kilcock, informed the authorities in 1673 about a Jesuit named Gerald
341
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
342
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 155.
343
Ibid., pp. 186-7.
344
Ibid., pp. 300-302.
345
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 211.
346
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
347
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 2, p. 119.
348
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
70
Nugent who was accordingly the parish priest of Killdrought.349 But as Kilcock and Brackly
are quite distant, it is hard to believe that they would be the same person. If this were true, it
would indicate that some members of the Society attended various places in vast areas and
were not limited to one fixed residence.
Athlone
Of those residences O’Donoghue counted up to 1651, Athlone was the only one that
disappeared. No further references were made regarding the members living in Athlone in the
lists of 1662 nor 1666. The residence was likely abandoned when it became a centre of
military importance. In 1673 the Lord Lieutenant avouched in a letter to Secretary Arlington
that he considered the castle “one of the most important places in Ireland, being situated in the
very centre of the kingdom and upon a pass over the Shannon, for both which reasons it has
always been held a most necessary place to be strongly garrisoned.”350
Only when the Westmeath-born Jesuit Hugh Cullen became chaplain to the king’s wife,
Katherine of Braganza, in 1674 did he hope to gain her financial support for the project of a
Jesuit novitiate and seminary at Athlone. But when the political circumstances became more
difficult most of the money collected was paid for the newly opened college at Poitiers,
specially designed for Irish students.351
Kilkenny
The city of Kilkenny had long been an educational centre of all sorts, especially for the
Jesuits, so their return after the Restoration is not a surprise. In 1662 James Tobin and
Thomas Quirke had settled in the city352 and one of them taught a school353 until it was closed
down in 1664.354 Nevertheless, both continued to be active in the city; they had a chapel and a
mass house355 and were both still listed among the 29 Jesuit priests in Ireland in 1666.356 In an
account of his diocese that the Bishop of Ossory recorded in 1678 “Jesuitae duo hospitium
tenent Kilkenniae, et Capuccini tres, quorum aliqui concionantur et missionariorum exercent
officium.”357 And in the same year Nicholas Netterville named Mr. Quirck as residing in
349
CSP, Dom. Series: March 1st to October 31st, 1673, p. 249.
CSP, Dom. Series: March 1st to October 31st, 1673, S. 390.
351
Murtagh, Athlone, p. 142.
352
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
353
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259v.
354
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 263.
355
Burke, Penal Times, p. 19.
356
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
357
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 254.
350
71
Kilkenny when questioned by the authorities.358 Apparently the officials could not or would
not do anything against the residence in Kilkenny, even after they were informed about the
Jesuits being there as on 5th February 1679 an anonymous letter accused the Duke of Ormond
of tolerating a Jesuit school at Kilkenny.359 The letter is full of false accusations but the
continued presence of the Jesuits makes the re-opening of a school not unlikely, with or
without the consent of the Duke. Only in 1684 the Jesuits in Kilkenny had to experience that
they were not impregnable when according to Archbishop Brenan the superior of the mission
was arrested in the town and thrown into prison. This affirms that the residence was still in
existence until then.360
New Ross
The Jesuit residence at New Ross in County Wexford was officially founded in 1626 but
existed only sporadically until 1648 when Maurice O’Connell was given the parish church of
St. Michael. Since then New Ross had been an educational stronghold of the Society with
Stephen Gelosse as one of the most prominent teachers on the mission. Gelosse outlived the
Commonwealth in the town and was the first to open a school in 1660 that first lasted until
1670 and again with interruptions until 1676. Even then he did not leave the place but
persisted in New Ross likely until his death which date is not known.361 At least he was still
there when Nicholas Netterville made his testimony in 1678.362
In the Litterae Annuae from 1665 it appears that Gelosse was joined by another member of
the order, Stephen Rice, who was listed as being in New Ross in the 1666 Catalogus as
well.363 Rice had been teaching in Kilkenny before, but after the Kilkenny school was shut
down, he proceeded to New Ross.364 Together they led the school with about one hundred
students and even a library.365
Clonmel
Not far from Kilkenny was Clonmel which had the oldest Jesuit residence in Munster.
Founded in 1606, it was continually manned until the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773.
The residence was home to a number of prominent members of the order and since they were
358
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
CSP, Dom. Series: January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, pp. 71-2.
360
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 77.
361
Flood, History of the Diocese of Ferns, p. 84 (no source reference)
362
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
363
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
364
Francis Finegan: Stephen Gellous, S.J., in: Jesuit Year Book (1972), pp. 30-37, p. 37.
365
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
359
72
usually working as parish priests in the town the residence was not totally dependent on
alms.366 Nevertheless, it appears that during the Restoration period the residence was usually
just occupied by one father as in 1663 and 1665. In 1664 it was even reported that the town
was just visited from time to time from one member of the better-staffed residences close to
Clonmel.367 The same was done with the residences at Carrick and Thurles, if there ever were
residences at all or if the towns were just casually attended by the Jesuits. Anyhow, it seems
unlikely that a sort of continuous teaching was upheld in these places with such irregular
Jesuit presence.368
Cashel
Cashel had been among the first residences to where the Jesuits returned. In a letter from 1663
it was said that there were two members, one of whom was already there for six years
teaching the catechism.369 The two fathers mentioned were Thomas Leary and Peter Creagh,
though it cannot be identified which one had returned as early as 1657.370 By 1666 only the
name of Thomas Leary appears in the Catalogus brevis, together with Andrew Sallus Joannis
who had of late been identified a Jansenist and converted to the Protestant faith.371
Nevertheless, the school was still successfully maintained. In the compiled Litterae Annuae of
1669-1674 the school was characterized as being famous in the whole country of
Tipperary.372
Waterford
The city and diocese of Waterford had been a home for an astonishingly high number of
Jesuits throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth century. A residence existed within the city
walls since 1604, and by 1629 even a Jesuit grammar school was connived at by the mayor.373
Little wonder that the residence was soon reoccupied in 1660, first by Edward Cleere, later by
Andrew FitzBennet Sall and Ignatius Kelly since 1662. The 1662 list of priests also names
366
Power, Waterford and Lismore, p. 150.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 262, 264. Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr.
1665, fo. 88v.
368
Ibid., Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 264.
369
Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v.
370
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
371
Ibid., ff. 148rv, 149v.
372
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad
exitum anni 1674, fo. 272.
373
Power, Waterford and Lismore, pp. 288-9.
367
73
one John Clare who could be identical to Edward Cleere as the sources originally give both
names without ever mentioning them in the same document.374
By 1663, however, only two members of the order were left who were praised by the Litterae
Annuae to enjoy the high estimation of the inhabitants, teaching the catechism to both boys
and girls of seventeen as well as nine years of age.375 Apparently, the Waterford residence had
a certain fluctuation among its members. Apart from John Clare, Ignatius Brown resided there
in 1666.376 These changes could be explained by the importance of Waterford as a harbour
where many of the illegally entering Jesuits arrived to or left the country.
In regards to Waterford, the reports of Bishop John Brenan are rather negative. In 1672 he
relates of a school with fifteen youths and that all the religious orders are compelled to live of
alms except for the Jesuits. Patrick Power takes this as an indication that the Jesuits had a
certain parish income from the town to sustain their school.377 In 1675 the Bishop composed a
second relation of his diocese. According to this there were five Jesuits to be found in
Waterford and Lismore but none of them had the means to live in a community.378
The last references of the Jesuits in Waterford are from 1678. Again the Bishop reported that
there were three members in their residence, two of them teaching. They had a chapel and
celebrated Masses and Vespers on Sundays but lived separately in the houses of friends and
relatives.379 The three members were also mentioned in the interrogation of Nicholas
Netterville in 1678. He said there were Mr. Francis White, Mr. Martin White and Mr. Cleere
residing in Waterford.380 In the case of Edward Cleere this signifies that he resided in the
town between 1662 and 1678 without interruption, thus constituting the permanent element of
the Waterford residence in addition to the constantly changing staff.
Cork
The city of Cork had been a Jesuit stronghold up to 1651 notwithstanding the political
allegiance of many of the local gentry with the Parliament or the strong anti-Catholic politics
pursuit by the Earl of Cork and his broad family. Contrary to what has long been expected,
the Jesuits returned immediately after the Restoration to this economical centre in the South
of Ireland and could labour in the area for long parts of the period nearly unhindered. When
the Jesuit Dominic Roche became vicar apostolic in the early 1660s, the city began to enjoy a
374
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260.
376
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
377
Power, The Jesuits in Waterford, p. 273.
378
Ibid., Archbishop John Brennen, p. 465.
379
Ibid., A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 62-65.
380
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
375
74
certain Catholic revival that continued well into the 1670s. By 1672 all Catholic Church
offices were occupied except for the Bishop, and by 1685 the situation had become so
favourable that even a public chapel could be entertained in Shandon Street.381
The Jesuit residence was revived as well. In 1662 Francis Tirry and Michael Chamberlain
resided in the city382 and an unnamed third member lived between Cork and Limerick.383 In
1663 and 1664 the sources speak of only one member of the Society living in the Cork
residence teaching the young folk.384 However in 1665 another member joined him whose
name is given in 1666 as Maurice Connell.385
Limerick
Limerick as well as the other major urban centres in the South had attracted Jesuit teaching
since the early time of the Irish mission. In 1662 Stephen Rich returned to the city386, being
reinforced the following year by a second member to teach the local boys.387 Two
unidentified members were active in Limerick in 1665388 as well, but in the 1666 Catalogus
brevis three names appeared, none of which were Stephen Rich. The names given were
William Hurley, Peter Creagh, and John Stritch.389
Maybe the residence had executed a shift of staff in 1666 since in the same year on 19th
October Roger Boyle, the Earl of Orrery, complained in a letter to Ormond about Jesuit
schools that were set up in Limerick County. In this case it seems plausible that the former
members of the Limerick city residence progressed into the County periphery while the city
residence was taken over by newly arrived members which would be the three previously
mentioned.390 In any case the Limerick school still existed five years later when it appeared in
Dr. Dowley’s report to Propaganda Fide on 13th January 1671.391 In 1666 we know of the
foundation of a Jesuit school in Ennis, County Clare, as well, led by John Stritch who was
supposed to reside in Limerick the same year. This school survived until 1679 when Stritch
381
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, pp. 246-7.
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
383
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v./261.
384
Ibid.
385
Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88. Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
386
Ibid., f. 147r.
387
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v./261.
388
Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88/88v.
389
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v. Brián Ò’Dálaigh: Priest of
Ennis: Doctor Andrew Burke, 1650-1727, in: The Other Clare, No. 31 (2007), pp. 21-22, p. 21. Cf. Morrice,
Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, pp. 73-4.
390
Ibid., pp. 73-76.
391
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 506.
382
75
eventually went into exile and died in France in 1681.392 Stritch left the residence in the late
1660s but what happened to William Hurley remains unknown because according to Nicholas
Netterville’s questioning in 1678, it was recorded that Mr. Peter Creagh was the only resident
in Limerick.393 As his testimony is very accurate in other cases, it would be unlikely that he
just did not know the name of the other member or that he wanted to protect him out of all the
others.
Kerry
The southwestern province of Kerry was poorly attended by the Jesuit order and others
according to the sources which may not be representative in every case. Maurice Connell was
listed for Kerry in 1662394 and for the following two years the Litterae Annuae mention a
member in the County who wandered catechizing through the area staying with the gentry or
the common people.395 Connell was born in 1615, became member or the Society of Jesus in
1641, and joined the Irish mission in 1649. He first stayed at New Ross, later moved on to
Cork before he spent his final 17 years in Kerry. He died in 1687 at the age of 72, being
referred to in the Litterae Annuae 1671-74 as “Thaumaturgus”.396 Nevertheless, in 1666 he
had been listed among the three members at Cork, likely continuing his residency in Cork, but
spending only a short time there and working mainly in the Kerry countryside.
Galway City
Galway and its surroundings was the second largest Jesuit residence during the Restoration
period after Dublin. In 1662 there were four members on the mission including John Talbot,
Maurice Ward, Nicholas Talbot, and Stephen Brown, however not all of them actually lived
in the city.397 In the following year it was reported that after the death of Maurice Ward on the
2nd November there were no members living in the residence but two of them were living in
the surrounding countryside, one of whom was already very old and of little use. At this time
they were expecting two new members arriving from the continent.398
As reported, the old member died by 1664 and the three new members arrived, however none
of them resided in the town; instead, they chose to live with the local gentry.399 The turnover
392
Ò’Dálaigh, Andrew Burke, p. 21.
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
394
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
395
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v., fo. 261.
396
J. McDonnell: A short History of some early Irish Jesuits, in: Memorials of the Irish Province, S.J., vol. 1 No.
7 (1903), pp. 315-342, p. 329.
397
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
398
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v., fo. 261v.
399
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 262.
393
76
rate continued to increasingly fluctuate. In 1665 the Litterae Annuae speak of six members for
Galway400, three in the countryside, which would mean that three lived in the city.401 This
would coincide with the 1666 Catalogus where the names of three members of the Galway
residence were given: Richard de Burgh, Stephen Brown, and Dominic Kirwan.402 These
three were also among those 14 clerics who supported the promotion of James Lynch to the
bishopric of Tuam in a letter of 29th July 1667.403 For the next ten years there is no
information about the residence but in 1678, according to Nicholas Netterville, Dominic
Kirwan was still resident in Galway while Richard de Burgh had moved to Portumna near the
city. 404
Sligo and Raphoe Diocese
Any references further North than Galway are scarce and probably only of temporary notion
as no internal sources exist on any residences. In November 1678 one Jeremiah Jones
reported to Ormond that a Jesuit named John FitzGerald was arrested near Sligo. FitzGerald
pretended that he had only been in Ireland for seven weeks.405 It is impossible to tell if this
man truly was a Jesuit and if he intended to build up a residence in Sligo. A second reference
on Jesuit activities in the diocese of Raphoe originates from January 1679 when the Council
in Dublin thanked one Mr. Hopkins for the apprehension of a Jesuit named Stretch.406 The
timely coincidence of these two men in the northwestern part of the island could be
understood as a leading sign for a planned residence but no proof has survived.
3. Secular Clerics
By the end of the sixteenth century more secular clerics arrived in the country and took over
the posts of parish priests that had long since been taken care of by the local religious orders.
When another strong emphasis was undertaken by Rome to install a diocesan hierarchy in
1618, the disputes between secular and regular clerics became notorious. The problem itself
was far from being solved when Charles II was restored to his throne and originated a dual
system of Catholic education in some areas, where local monasteries as well as local parish
priests taught at least the catechism. General estimates of the number of secular clerics in
400
Ibid., Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266.
Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
402
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
403
Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of volume I (1625-68) of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi,
Irlanda” in Propaganda Archives, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 6/7 (1963-64), pp. 18-211, pp. 86-7.
404
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
405
Ibid., pp. 55-6.
401
406
Ibid., p. 55.
77
Restoration Ireland are difficult to formulate. Lord O’Brien gave an estimate of 1600 in 1674,
but as his other approximationswere not correct this can only be taken as a guessing.407 More
reliable are the calculations of Archbishop O’Reilly of Armagh from the year 1662.
According to him there were 60 seculars in the diocese of Meath, 29 in Clogher, 17 in Down
and Connor, 19 in Raphoe, 15 in Derry, 17 in Kilmore, 18 in Ardagh, 4 or 5 in Clonmacnoise,
10 in Dublin, 7 in Kildare, 6 in Louth, 9 in Ferns, and 14 in Ossory. He admitted to not having
a total calculation for the archdiocese of Cashel and other dioceses were missing as well.408 In
total he pretended to know 226 secular clerics in Ireland, which would be a significant
number given the incompleteness of his register and being directly after the Restoration. The
following pages will attempt to localise some of these seculars who were active in teaching.
Dublin and Kildare
Most astonishingly there are no references to secular teaching in the city of Dublin for the
period when a high volume of the religious orders were labouring in the town. Archbishop
Talbot initiated a school in Saggart near Dublin in 1671 as reported by Oliver Plunkett, but
the school was closed just after a few weeks, and even in this case it is not clear if it was the
seculars or the Jesuits acting as teachers.409 While Dublin was left more or less vacant several
seculars were active in County Kildare. In March 1673 Sir Henry Ingoldsby reported to Lord
O’Brien in a letter that he was aware of Dennis Eagan, parish priest of Kilcock, Patrick Relye,
parish priest of Donadea, and John Healan, parish priest of the Naas.410 The latter priest is
especially of some interest as a school at Naas was also mentioned by Michael Comerford in
his Collections relating to the Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin printed in 1883. According to
him, Cornelius Nary, who was recommended for the bishopric of Kildare and Leighlin in
1733, had attended a school in Naas before he was ordained as a priest in 1684 and went to
the continent. Sadly Comerford did not name his sources, nor was he explicit about the nature
of this school, but since Nary was ordained secular it seems probable that he was not educated
in a novitiate before.411 Additionally, there was another secular priest conducting a school in
Tully close to Kildare town and not too far from Dublin either, but only one scarce reference
to it can be found in the State Papers.412
407
CSP, Dom. Series: November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, p. 160.
Millett, Benignus (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in vols. 12 and 13 (ff.1-200) of “Fondo di Vienna” in
Propaganda Archives, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 24 (1982), pp. 45-80, p.64, f. 107v.
409
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 166-7.
410
CSP, Dom. Series: March 1st to October 31st, 1673, pp. 108-9.
411
Comerford, Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, p. 74. (Unfortunately Comerford does not quote any source
material.)
412
CSP, Dom. Series: January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, pp. 71-2.
408
78
Ossory Diocese
In 1669 the diocese of Ossory disposed of fourteen secular priests, according to Bishop
Phelan. In 1678 the number had increased to 56; the majority of these priests were located in
Kilkenny and its surroundings, where comparatively many wealthy Catholics were able to
support them financially. 23 of them had studied at universities on the continent. In the same
year, the Bishop reported to Rome that his diocese consisted of 120 parishes but only 28
parish priests, five of them were not being educated abroad. “I have bound each of them,
under pain of suspension, to instruct the people committed to their care, either by preaching or
catechizing, and this they do to the great benefit of souls.”413 What the other 28 secular priests
were doing was not said. Notwithstanding his enforcement to instruct the people, Phelan’s
expectations concerning education were quite low. His requirements for clerics to teach in the
parishes were simple; they had to possess a copy of the catechism and a book on moral
theology.414
Nevertheless, the educational facilities in the diocese of Ossory and the financial background
they had were considered above average and envied by others. Bishop Brenan of Waterford
and Lismore mentioned in several cases that despite all his efforts to promote Catholic
education in his diocese, the situation in Ossory was much better.415 This was understandable
in parts because Kilkenny as the traditional educational centre was situated within the diocese
of Ossory. The religious orders had returned there and set up schools along with the bishop.
At least in 1679 a school was conducted by secular priests in the town.416 After the succession
of James II, Bishop Phelan tried to strengthen the secular position in Kilkenny by founding a
large institution for higher education whose teachers’ names can still be known. Most likely
they were already among the 23 teachers active in Ossory during the reign of Charles II.417
Ferns Diocese
The diocese of Ferns was administrated by Dr. Luke Wadding for the longest part of the
Restoration period, while the Bishop, Nicholas French, had to live in exile on the continent.
When French died in 1678, Wadding became his official successor but delayed his
consecration until August 1683 after the trouble of the Popish Plot was past. In that very year
413
Carrigan, Diocese of Ossory, vol. 1, p. 119.
Neely, Kilkenny, p. 126. Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685 II, p. 316. Compare Moran,
Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 253-4.
415
Corish, The Catholic Community, pp. 64-5.
416
CSP, Dom. Series: January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, pp. 71-2.
417
Carrigan, Diocese of Ossory, vol. 1, p. 120. Cf. Edward Ledwich: Antiquities of Ireland, 2nd edition, Dublin
1804, pp. 430-32. The names and subjects of the teachers were: Edvardus Tonnery, Philosophy, Jacobus Cleary,
Rhetorics, Gulielmus Phelan, Literature and Humanities, Fran. Barnwall, Tertii Ordninis Professor, Johannes
Meagher, Quartae Classis Professor.
414
79
he wrote a letter claiming that only 21 priests had remained in the diocese and that in the city
of Wexford only 40 Catholics were found. But there was still a public chapel in existence on
High Street, where mass was held regularly. His own situation improved when James II came
to the throne two years later. Wadding was among those Irish bishops who received an annual
pension of 150 pounds from the crown.418
Simultaneously, Wadding acted as a parish priest of Wexford between 1672 and his death in
1691. According to him the parishes of the city had been reduced to five in 1683 and the
number of Catholics in the whole diocese had decreased from 200,000 in 1684 to
approximately 400. Of course, the accuracy of these numbers is generally to be doubted. If
there were only 40 Catholics in the city of Wexford according to his own calculation, five
parish priests would have been quite an over-supply.419
Apart from Wadding’s information, we know that secular clerics returned to Ferns soon after
the Restoration. In 1662 the Protestant William Wendon wrote from St. John’s to his cousin
Sancky that there were two priests in his areas who dared to enter the city every day to
celebrate mass. Their names were James FitzGerald and Carue Carroll.420 In general it seems
that where parish priests were active they enjoyed great stability living in their parishes for a
long period. Patrick Rossiter took care of his flock at Bannow between 1662 and 1712 for the
whole period of 50 years. His relative Michael Rossiter was a parish priest of Killinick,
Kilmachree, and Rathmacknee between 1673 and 1709. The Rossiters were an Old English
family residing in Rathmacknee Castle. They had been restored by Charles II and disposed of
the necessary financial means to support clerical members of the family.421 Luke Wadding
enjoyed a similar stability at New Ross, where he was parish priest between 1669 and 1688.
In 1673 he was even allowed to build a church there.422
Cashel, Waterford and Lismore
Similarly to the condition in Ossory the level of education among the seculars in the
archdiocese of Cashel was very high. Archbishop Brenan stated in one of his letters that all
aspirants for ordination between 1677 and 1684 had studied on the continent,423 while in 1678
he reported that out of a total of 34 secular clerics in Waterford and Lismore, 33 had been
418
Flood, Diocese of Ferns, p. xvi-xvii. Furlong, Wexford port, pp. 160-1.
Flood, Diocese of Ferns, p. 126. (Flood does not name any sources.)
420
Burke, Penal Times, p. 6.
421
John Gahan (ed.): The Secular Priests of the diocese of Ferns, Ferns 2000, pp. 45, 295.
422
Ibid., p. 260.
423
Cf. Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 77.
419
80
abroad.424 These numbers contrast sharply to Brenan’s earlier complaints about the much
higher standards in the dioceses of Ardagh and Ossory from 1672. Perhaps he overemphasized the better conditions elsewhere or he described the situation in his own diocese
before his arrival worse than what it actually was in attempts to highlight his own
achievements.425
Only six weeks after Brenan had reached his diocese of Waterford and Lismore in 1672, he
completed his first visitation. On a following diocesan synod he assembled the 24 secular
priests, complaining that the majority of them were too old.426 Brenan had been educated in
Rome with Oliver Plunkett and had obviously exaggerated ideals of education compared to
the actual Irish situation. Thus, for example, he was disappointed by the fact that in the city of
Waterford there was only one priest keeping school for about fifteen boys and there were
three other places in the diocese where schools existed. Maybe their standard was as low as
the Bishop described, but they nevertheless existed and four schools in a comparatively small
diocese such as Waterford would seem adequate, not counting the convents or Jesuit
schools.427 High expectations or not, when he reported for the second time to Rome on 20th
September 1675 the situation had improved. By then Brenan had achieved that every priest in
the diocese had a chapel or a church where mass was celebrated and each of them taught at
least the catechism.428
The Dioceses of Killaloe and Limerick
In the diocese of Killaloe a secular priest can first be identified in the town of Ennis around
1680 when Bishop O’Moloney started a school there. Under the protection of Daniel O’Brien,
3rd viscount Clare, one Dr. Cargill was the teacher in charge.429 The following year the
presence of Cargill in the town caused serious trouble with the Protestant Bishop, John Roane
who demanded to exile the man. O’Brien pretended that Cargill would leave on his own in
May 1682, however if he really did cannot be said. In the same context, reference was made
to two other secular clerics committed in the diocese who were also released by O’Brien,
though there is no further reference to any school they might have kept.430
424
Howard, Irish Catholic Education II, p. 315. Cf. Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 62.
“Relatio status” to Propaganda, 6.9.1672, in Ibid., p. 33.
426
Ibid, pp. 21-2.
427
Ibid., Archbishop John Brennen, p. 258.
428
Ibid., p. 465.
429
Ó Dálaigh, Religious practice in Ennis, p. 17.
430
Howard, Irish Catholic Education, pp. 200-1. HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of
Ormonde, preserved at Kilkenny Castle, new series, vol. 6, pp. 39/45.
425
81
There are two contradictory statements that exist about the secular clerics in Limerick diocese
because of the internal dissensions that will be analyzed later on.431 In 1669 John White, who
was named preliminary archdeacon of Limerick by the pope, reported that there were 30
priests for the 100 parishes in the diocese, a number that Millett considers imprecise. White
criticized the quality of these clerics who had little interest in teaching the catechism.432 His
report contrasted sharply to the one written two years later by the vicar apostolic Dr. Dowley.
According to him “in hac Dioecesi sunt variae scholae in quibus juventus praecipue in
rudimentis fidei, nam fere in omnia parrochia invenitur unus aut duo Magistri. In Civitate
habent Patres Soc. Jesu unam domum, illic docentur scholae inferiores cum magno fructu et
instruuntur juvenes in articulis fidei et bonis moribus, illas scholas frequentant aliqui adversae
religionis. In duabis villis hujus Dioecesis docetur Philosophia et etiam scholae inferiores. In
Dominicis et festis in qualibet Dominica fit concio vel docetur doctrina Xtiana.”433 It is
uncertain which of those two reports came closer to the truth. In the end, it can be concluded
that secular clerics were active in Limerick in a considerable number and that they were
engaged in teaching, however good or bad their teaching might have been. A letter written by
the Earl of Orrery to Viscount Conway on July 28, 1671 proves that the seculars were more
established by the end of the 1660s. Orrery complained heavily about the quantity of mass
houses built in Limerick and Cork.434 Indication for another secular school in the diocese
comes from Begley’s The Diocese of Limerick in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.
The author did not quote the sources he used but tells about a school in Creagh Parish, close
to Curragh, where Dr. Dowley and his vicar-general Dr. Hedderman held ordinations in
1678.435
Tuam Archdiocese
A prominent figure among the secular clerics in the archdiocese of Tuam was Maurice
Donnellan. He studied at the University of Alcalá and returned in 1666 when he opened a
school for philosophy that he conducted for twelve years until 1678, when it was likely closed
during the Popish Plot. Donnellan was mentioned by several of his contemporaries as being
431
See chapter VII.II.
Millett, Rival Vicars, p. 290.
433
Dowley to Propaganda, 13.1.1671, in Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 506. See as well Begley,
Diocese of Limerick, p. 479. Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 506.
434
CSP, Dom. Series: January to November, 1671, p. 411.
435
Begley, Diocese of Limerick, p. 483.
432
82
an excellent scholar and enjoyed the special patronage of the Earl of Clanricarde. In 1695 he
was promoted to the bishopric of Clonfert until his death in 1706.436
Apart from Donnellan the number of seculars in the area was comparatively small. In 1667
the secular clergy sent a letter to Rome in order to support a promotion of James Lynch to the
episcopal see of Tuam. Only 14 clerics subscribed, three among them being Jesuits.437 By
1671 there was still a lack of educational facilities in Clonfert. Lynch’s successor Thady
Keogh instigated the foundation of more centres of study in his diocese. He recommended:
“Exinde in functionibus episcopalibus per suae dioecesis fines obeundis sollicite desudat,
duplici stimulo nativitatis et institutionis ad studium illud incitatus.”438 It is hard to sayif his
initiative was successful, but the Popish Plot forced the bishop to go underground again. In
1678 he retreated to his family’s small estate in Skevalley, a remote place in the parish of
Taghmaconnell. There he assembled a group of young aspirants and taught them secretly
while the persecutions continued. The ruins of the house can still be seen.439
For the northern part of the archdiocese there is nothing to be found about secular teaching
apart from a short reference in O’Rorke’s History, Antiquities and Present State of the
Parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet in the County of Sligo printed in 1878. Without quoting
his sources the author referred to the parish of Kilvarnet in County Sligo, where a secret
Catholic school was maintained after the Protestants had taken over the parish church in 1615.
Allegedly, one Mr. Devine was the last to teach there in 1780 but of this story no further
proof exists.440
Armagh Archdiocese
The source material for the northwestern diocese of Raphoe is no better than for Tuam or
there were just not more secular clerics in the area. A school is mentioned only in one work
which was most likely led by a secular cleric: in the legend of Brathair Anthony who had fled
with his father during the Cromwellian conquest to the parish of Ardara. While the legend
itself is of no interest to us, it is bequeathed that Anthony attended a school in Kilraine near
Ardara before he left for France.441 Similarly scarce is the material in the diocese of Kilmore.
Only in 1676 Oliver Plunkett proposed Thomas FitzSimons as Bishop for the diocese “ubi
436
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, p. 201. Egan, Ballinasloe, p. 99. Compare Eric MacFhinn:
Muircheartach Ò Dmhnalláin, Easbog Chluain Fearta, in: Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical
Society, vol. 25, No. 1/2 (1952), pp. 52-59, p. 53. Brenan to the internuntio, 15.6.1678, in Power, A Bishop of
the Penal Times, p. 59.
437
Millett, volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 86-7.
438
Lynch, De Praesulibus Hiberniae, vol. 2, pp. 317-8.
439
Howard, Irish Catholic Education II, p. 315. Compare Egan, Ballinasloe, p. 99.
440
O’Rorke, Parishes of Ballysadare and Kilvarnet, pp. 304-5.
441
McGill, Parish of Ardara, p. 65.
83
aliquot annos probe exequutus est officium vicarii capitularis, et juniores sacerdotes
theologiam edocuit.“442 Nothing else can be said about the seculars in that diocese. While
nothing is known about secular clerics in the dioceses of Derry and Dromore, the situation in
the last of the most northern dioceses in Down & Connor was slightly better. In 1669 Bishop
Patrick Plunkett of Meath wrote to Rome about a school at Down443 and in 1670 Oliver
Plunkett mentioned a certain William Flaherty “a priest and good teacher of the humanities,
who keeps school in Down, but there are few scholars in it.”444 It was probably the same man
the two bishops we writing about.
When looking ar the poor condition of the secular clergy in the metropolitan diocese of
Armagh, it is not surprising that the provision with capable personnel in the remote dioceses
of the North was not adequate. Schools only existed in the southeastern part of the diocese in
Dundalk and Drogheda. Most likely the Archbishop not only maintained the Jesuit school at
Drogheda but also a secular school in Dundalk only a few miles from that town. Henry
Hughes visited the school before he left for Rome445 and the school is also mentioned in a
memorandum by the Protestant Archbishop from 17th August 1670.446 In addition, Plunkett
placed Edward Drumgoole as assistant teacher in the Jesuit school in Drogheda where he took
care of the education for future priests. Drumgoole was highly esteemed by the Archbishop
and supposed to become vicar general after Plunkett’s death.447
In the southern provinces of Meath and Clogher the situation was drastically different. When
Bishop Patrick Plunkett was transferred to the diocese in 1669, he reported that there were 80
secular priests, although admittedly Meath was the most extensive of the Irish dioceses.448 In
the same year he was happy to write about the progresses in education that he had
achieved.449 According to his biography, Neil Carolan taught in a private school on the
borders of Meath in 1667. Two years later he took over the parish of Slane, and likely
continued his teaching there. Carolan has left a unique document of his life and educational
442
Brendan Jennings: Ireland and Propaganda Fide, 1672–6, in: Archivium Hibernicum, No. 19 (1956), pp. 1-60,
p. 38.
443
Plunkett to Baldeschi, 1.11.1670, in J. O’Laverty: An historical account of Down and Connor, vol. 5, Dublin
1878, p. 469.
444
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 145.
445
Donnchadh Mac Phóil: The clergy of Oliver Plunkett, in: Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh
Diocesan Historical Society, vol. 11, No. 1 (1983/1984), pp. 48-69, pp. 58-9.
446
MacLysaght, Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century, p. 303.
447
Mac Phóil, The clergy of Oliver Plunkett, p. 50.
448
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 2, p. 119.
449
Plunkett to Propaganda, 22. 6. 1669, in Ibid., p. 119.
84
progresses since he converted to Protestantism in 1679 and composed an apologetic tract that
survived the centuries.450
Even more detailed are the accounts of Father Gargan or Garrigan in Moybolge. Gargan was
a parish priest and taught the children until his death around 1730. An English traveller met a
90-year-old student of Father Garrigan in the ruins of the church in 1780. In 1704 a Father
John Gargan was registered in Moybolge parish being 55 years of age, giving the year 1677
as the date of his ordination by Patrick Plunkett in Dublin.451
The sources for secular clerics in Clogher diocese are mostly of the later part of the
Restoration period, though in 1677 Bishop Tyrrell complained about the high volume of
priests in his diocese. He counted 66 priests, of which only 38 had the care of souls. The
others he considered a burden to the people. The bishop realized the ignorance of people and
blamed the lack of education among the priests, because most of the Clogher clerics had only
been educated within their own diocese. Clogher cultivated a very traditional, Old Irish
church structure where the parish priest had always been member of certain families, not ever
leaving his own parish.452 Among the 194 clerics in Clogher, Patrick Gallagher could identify
only 18 in the seventeenth century who had received higher education on the continent, and in
1704 all the 33 registered parish priests in Clogher had been ordained at home.453
By 1677 this situation slowly began to change with secular teachers who had received their
education in Plunkett’s schools in Drogheda at the beginning of the decade. Peter MacMahon,
Denis Owens, and the vicar Gavan were among those who continued teaching humanities
after returning to their native diocese.454 On 12th May 1677 Bishop Tyrrell reported that he
had the permission of an important Protestant Lord to erect a school for priests and lay people
on his land. The school never again appeared in the sources. If it was ever built it could as
well be identical to the school Father Gargan maintained in Moybolge.455
450
Neal Carolan: Motives of conversion to the Catholick faith, as it is professed in the reformed Church of
England by Neal Carolan, Dublin 1688, p. i.
451
O’Connell, Moybolge, pp. 204-206/211-2. Cf. Charles Henry Wilson: Brookiana, vol.1, London 1804, pp.
32-3. O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, pp. 259-265.
452
Gallagher, Seventeenth-Century Clogher, p. 30. Thomas Ò Fiaich: The appointment of bishop Tyrrell and its
consequences, in: Clogher Record, vol. 1, No. 3 (1955), pp. 1-14, pp. 10-11.
453
Gallagher, Seventeenth-Century Clogher, p. 30.
454
Ibid., p. 30.
455
Howard, Irish Catholic Education, p. 198.
85
4. Lay Teachers and Education for Women
While in England the reform of the educational system was supported by the government and
brought forth lots of private lay initiatives to substitute the former monastical schools, the
Tudors had failed to implement such supportive measures in Ireland as well. Very few
educated lay people influenced by the thoughts of the English Reformation took over the
charge to instruct the Irish people in the new confession. This was instead left to the activists
of their Catholic counterparts.456
But nearly the same can be said for the Catholic population, although the reasons were
different. Educated Catholics who lacked the financial and structural background of the
religious orders may have been working as private tutors but usually did not lead public
schools. Some of the old bardic teachers had even been deported under Cromwell. In a
document from 1679 the story of Master O’Shane from the area of Breiffne was told who
taught Latin in Boston after having fled from Barbados.457 The only probable Catholic lay
school in Ireland was located in Kilkenny. Burke cited a report from the city chronicles listing
all Catholic institutions in the town. For St. Mary’s parish it says: “One Lench teacheth a
schoole at John Shea’s near Mr. Walter Lawlesse his house.”458 Since the report names all the
religious orders as having a separate residence, it is likely that this Mr. Lench was not a priest
or friar.
But as has already been shown, the need for Catholic lay teachers probably was not as great as
it would have been for Protestants because so many of the dissolved monasteries were
recovered and resumed the teaching. It was a much bigger problem for women’s education
though. Even if the orders returned, confessional, political, and last of all financial
circumstances had become much more difficult and female education had little priority in
most cases.459
Additionally, the education of women had been a controversy even before the Reformation.
The intellectual dispute between the so-called “friends of women” and “enemies of women”
was nothing new to early modern history, but it affected a broader group of society and
originated a process that made the institutional education of girls possible.460 On the continent
456
Margaret MacCurtain: Women, Education and Learning in Early Modern Ireland, in: Ibid. /Mary O’Dowd
(eds.): Women in Early Modern Ireland, Edinburgh 1991, pp. 160-179, p. 163.
457
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, p. 55. Cf. Michael O’Brien: Pioneer Irish in New England,
New York 1937, pp. 260-61.
458
Burke, Penal Times, p. 19.
459
MacCurtain, Women, Education and Learning, p. 163.
460
Anne Conrad: Zwischen Kloster und Welt. Ursulinnen und Jesuitinnen in der katholischen Reformbewegung
des 16./17. Jahrhunderts, Mainz 1991, pp. 174-75.
86
female education usually developed in a twofold system based on free elementary schools and
a boarding school system where the girls could live as well. The latter schools substituted in a
way the male universities and delivered higher education.461
In the Catholic territories it was mostly the Ursuline order that took care of the girls’
education, geared to the catechetical education the boys received,462 while in England it was
Mary Ward who founded the English Ladies, using the Jesuit methods of teaching as a role
model. In her schools the girls even learned Latin which was criticized by many.463 Because
her intent to incorporate the English Ladies into the Jesuit order failed in the 1630s, the
boarding schools developed into independent institutions for the reduced Catholic élite. The
girls were to be educated to be understanding wives to their husbands and capable of
transmitting the Catholic doctrine in their role as mothers and ladies of the household.464
In Ireland such a development was hard to achieve. While even the Jesuits on the continent
were not concerned with women’s education, the Dominicans and Franciscans usually did not
have the means for it nor did the political circumstances make it possible. According to
Rome, women monasteries always had to be built within fortified towns, something that was
not tolerable for the Protestants in most parts of the country.465
It is even more surprising, however, that education for women did exist during the
Restoration period, although it cannot be compared to the facilities that existed for boys. In
the already mentioned Kilkenny chronicle it was said, that “in the sd parish of St. Maryes one
Mrs Trennell & Mrs Cantwell keepes schooles.”466 Nothing further is said about them, but as
it is highly unlikely that the women were teaching boys, it may be concluded that this was a
girl’s school. And although on the continent the Jesuit order refused to keep schools for
women, they did teach girls in Ireland. In 1665 the superior of the mission, Andrew Sall,
reported in his Littera Anni that one member was teaching the catechism in Dublin to young
Catholics, the boys on Tuesdays and the girls on Fridays. Each Sunday he gave an extra class
461
Ibid.: Weibliche Lehrorden und Katholische höhere Mädchenschulen im 17. Jahrhundert, in: Elke
Kleinau/Claudia Opitz (eds.): Geschichte der Mädchen- und Frauenbildung, vol. 1, Frankfurt/New York 1996,
pp. 252-262, p. 259.
462
Ibid., Zwischen Kloster und Welt, pp. 208-211.
463
Ibid., Weibliche Lehrorden, p. 260. Hersche, Muße und Verschwendung, vol. 1, p. 208.
464
Conrad, Weibliche Lehrorden, p. 261. A general level of female education, however, is most difficult to
assess even for continental areas that provide a more sustainable source base. Cf. Ibid: Bildungschancen für
Frauen und Mädchen im interkonfessionellen Vergleich, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 95 (2004),
pp. 283-299.
465
MacCurtain, Women, Education and Learning, pp. 168-69.
466
Burke, Penal Times, p. 19.
87
for the servants, male and female alike.467 The year before, he had already reported from
Waterford that the teaching of the catechism had been resumed in the city and that young
people of both sexes of the age of seventeen or eighteen were allowed to participate in it468,
and in 1669 a Jesuit was teaching in the County Louth to youth of each sex.469
Monastical education for women only continued to exist in the western parts of Connaught. A
Franciscan nunnery had been built in the city of Galway in 1641 and was destroyed by
Cromwell’s troops. Nonetheless, the nuns returned to the city in 1672 where they resumed a
cloistered life in their community.470 It was most likely these nuns that caused some trouble
when in 1683 the city was visited by the Earl of Longford and Sir Lemuel Kingdon in the
name of the Lord Lieutenant. Kingdon reported later:
“In Galway on Sunday was sevennight, with great pomp and formality, were to nuns entered
into their habits and brought into a nunnery at Galway, where likewise is great resort of
priests and public worshipping at mass. My Lord Longford spoke with the Mayor and
Magistrates of the town, as likewise with the principal merchants of that opinion. He showed
them the folly of their behaviour, and the magistrates, the neglect of their duty for suffering it.
How the government would resent it, he likewise told them. Whereupon the merchants
immediately promised that the nunnery and mass should be broke up and stifled, and the
magistrates engaged to see it done accordingly.”471
Apparently, the nunnery at Galway was not the only one in the region, as just a few weeks
later the Duke of Ormond had to learn about the admission of a nun into a convent at
Burrishoole to which he commented: “The nuns are silly creatures, yet they must be
dispersed, and those who gave them a retreat ought to be sought after, but those priests or
friars who governed the ceremony of admitting a new nun, ought to be prosecuted as far as
the law will reach, and if some of the lay assistants of best quality at the profession of the nun,
and at the mass at Burrishoole, were also prosecuted, it will be better.”472 In the end, the fact
that women received Catholic education did not disturb the Lord Lieutenant. However, he
thought it was necessary to interrupt them if they lived in closed communities.
467
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266,
266v.
468
Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260.
469
Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279.
470
MacCurtain, Women, Education and Learning, p. 169.
471
HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series,
vol. 7, pp. 114-15.
472
Ibid., p. 119. Ò Mórain, Annala, pp. 22-3.
88
5. Conclusion
Catholic teaching was present throughout Ireland although the quality of teachers and schools
certainly differed. Given the incompleteness of the available source material it can be
assumed that no Irish County was without any form of Catholic education. Accumulations of
schools can be identified especially in the densely populated areas of the southeast where the
Jesuit order recovered most of its residences after the Restoration. Regional priorities of
traditional and reforming orders can be noted the reasons for which will be discussed later on.
Secular teaching was numerically rare. It can mostly be traced where episcopal authority was
strong or, what may be more relevant, where episcopal documents have survived in greater
number. While monasteries often left some traces of their existence independent of the
general fate of their order or the circumstances of their diocese, documents relating to single
secular teachers are scarce and only a few extant documents compiled by the bishops
responsible for the secular clergy exist which could provide further information.
After having outlined the sheer existence of Catholic teaching in Restoration Ireland and
framing the quantity of the institutions with which must be dealt, the following chapter will
describe the organization of these Catholic teaching facilities as to what schoolhouses looked
like, what was regularly taught in them, and how they were financially provided for. These
pieces of information shall complete the sketch of Catholic teaching in Restoration Ireland
before in the second part of the work larger contexts of political and confessional aspects can
be analyzed.
89
IV. Organizing Catholic Education
1. Curriculum and Teaching Methods
The general state of learning
To evaluate the state of learning in Restoration Ireland is nearly impossible due to the lack of
concrete numbers. Nevertheless it might be possible to get an impression of it through the
perception of strangers and outsiders though, of course, their memories were always
subjective and not representative. Three sources of the early 1680s dedicated a few lines to
the general state of education among the inhabitants and all of them were surprised by the
local standards. A man named Synnott characterized the Irish as “ingenious, and being by
Education assisted, apprehensive of the most abstruse and exquisite School learning”473 and
the English traveler Henry Piers commented on the educational situation of the Catholic Irish
quite precisely in 1682 that “the people still retain an ardent desire for learning, and both at
home and abroad do attain unto good measures thereof. There are from the highest to the
lowest classes of the that are very ingenious and docile; in this only unhappy, that they will
not breed their youth in our universities, neither in this kingdom nor in England, because of
the religion therein professed, but choose rather, being not permitted to have public schools of
their own, to educate their children under private professors, or else send them abroad into
France or Spain for their breeding.”474 Another anonymous traveler noted in County Kerry a
year later that the speaking of Latin and a certain inclination to philosophy was common to
the old Irish inhabitants. He was surprised by the quantity of people able to read even the
classics though their spoken Latin was “bold and barbarous and very often not
grammatical.”475 Of course, these three statements are just the personal impressions of a few
unrepresentative individuals. However, on a limited scale, they do indicate results that results
Catholic teaching had achieved in the Restoration period and before.476 After outlining the
number and locations of Catholic schools in Restoration Ireland, the following chapter will
describe the daily life teaching circumstances in these schools although the specific source
material is more than limited. What was taught, how the school houses looked and what
books were used are important questions but the most difficult to answer. The best approach
473
Hore, Barony of Forth, p. 71.
Howard, Irish Catholic Education II, pp. 309-10.
475
Ibid., Irish Catholic Education, p. 200.
476
Raymond Gillespie agrees with the assumption that literacy especially among the native Irish was growing
considerably during the seventeenth century. According to his data from leasing contracts the number of those
economically active that was able to sign their names rose from about 40 per cent to over 73 per cent at the end
of the century. Cf. Ibid., Reading Ireland, pp. 40-1.
474
90
is still offered by the Jesuits that disposed of an international teaching guideline although the
Jesuit Litterae Annuae of the Irish province do not specifically affirm its application. It can
only be assumed that Jesuit teaching was not completely adverse to the pedagogical
recommendations proposed by the order’s central in Rome.
Language
The language was a major problem for teaching in Ireland as many of the students spoke only
one language or the other. While old Irish inhabitants may have spoken Irish alone, new
English Protestant settlers who sent their children to Catholic schools spoke only English.
Consequently it appears that in many schools Latin was the most common language everyone
could understand, especially the teachers, which would confirm the anonymous traveler’s
perception quoted above. Distinctly in the western parts of the island where Irish was still the
dominant language, many of the newly-arrived teachers, priests, and missionaries who had
spent long years on the continent did not speak any of it, therefore a common tongue had to
be agreed on. After the suppression of the monasteries in the sixteenth century many of the
friars found shelter with their families and stayed in private houses during the worst
persecutions. Many were employed as unpaid household teachers to instruct the children in
the basics of Latin and Greek.477 In the Litterae Annuae it was reported that Latin was often
used in sermons and in the schools. Even plays were staged in Latin although it was likely
that most of the spectators did not understand it completely.478
But Latin alone was, of course, not sufficient. Archbishop Brenan wrote in several letters
about the difficulties he had communicating with everybody even though Brenan was a highly
educated man. In 1672 he reported that the mass of the people spoke nothing but Irish, and
only a few educated were able to speak English as well.479 Apparently Brenan realized that
speaking Irish to the people was important to secure a certain influence above them. In 1678
he was informed that the Protestant Bishop of Cashel announced that he would preach in Irish
from that point on and invited the Catholic community to come and listen. Brenan
immediately returned to the city and prohibited everyone to attend the Bishop’s sermon by
punishment of interdiction “from assisting at Mass and from receiving the Sacraments, even
in articulo mortis.”480 This episode makes it clear of what crucial importance the Irish
language was for the missionary work and that in many cases Catholic teachers and clerics
477
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Brieffne, p. 51. See as well Charles Patrick Meehan: The Rise and
Fall of The Irish Franciscan Monasteries and Memoirs of The Irish Hierarchy in the 17th Century, Dublin 1872.
478
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 278.
479
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 23-4.
480
Ibid., p. 61.
91
were preferred to the Protestant ones simply because they could be understood. In conclusion
it can be stated that Latin could be a popular compromise especially in the schools that
offered more education than the common catechism classes. Teachers and clerics who had
been in hiding spread basic Latin knowledge, even among many of the poorer people that
were thus able to participate in classes even though they did not speak any English. Outside
the Pale and the larger towns Irish was the dominant language. Since the Protestant postReformation schools aimed at the teaching of English as a civilizing project, the teaching and
preaching in Irish remained a traditional advantage of the Catholic clergy. It is therefore
reasonable to assume that outside the cities Catholic teachers tried to uphold the Irish
language as a unique characteristic of the Catholic Church.
Books
The mediation of knowledge through printed books had become a central feature of the
educational efforts of all confessional parties.481 Practical treatises on how to learn to read and
write were often combined with theoretical works on the ideals of education, learning, and
teaching and Irish Catholic scholars on the continent had taken an early part in these
developments. Already in 1611 the Jesuit William Bathe had published his Janua Linguarum
at the University of Salamanca, twenty years earlier than the much more famous work of
Comenius. The central element to both authors was the mediation of religious knowledge that
was considered necessary for a good Christian life. These concordances beyond the different
confessional backgrounds of the scholars have already been pointed out in 1911 by Timothy
Corcoran. He underlined that Bathe was more focused on the practical ability of speaking and
reading than the theoretical ideal of perfect command of a language. His work consisted of
1200 Latin sentences of different categories that allowed the scholar a quick advance and was
easy to teach for the missionaries that the work was designed for. Bathe asserted that in three
months a scholar could learn as much Latin with his book as he could in any other school in
three years. Of course, Bathe’s quality level was much lower than that applied by Comenius.
It taught only a vocabulary of about 5300 words compared to Comenius’ 8000. Nevertheless,
his book was in high demand, even on an interconfessional scale. Between 1615 and 1645
Bathe’s Janua Linguarum had several editions in England and was high esteemed by
481
Raymond Gillespie, however, emphasized that printed books were only of limited significance in sixteenth
and seventeenth century Ireland, given the difficulties of production and importation. Instead the hand-copied
manuscript remained the most important reading feature for the mass of the people. Cf. Gillespie, Reading
Ireland, p. 3. In this he agrees with Robert Welch who went even further arguing that the upkeep of the Gaelic
manuscript tradition formed an important part of old Irish identity building. Cf. Robert Welch: The book in
Ireland from the Tudor re-conquest to the battle of the Boyne, in: John Barnard/D.F. McKenzie (eds.): The
Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 4: 1557-1695, Cambridge 2002, pp. 701-18, pp. 706-7.
92
Protestant teachers. The only constraint made was that it was officially edited by Puritan
publishers since 1626 and that every reference to his author being an Irish Catholic was
eliminated for the English market.482
Apart from Latin teaching books most textbooks were designed to transmit reading facilities.
So-called “emblem books” became popular during the sixteenth century. They combined
elements of texts and pictures and were originally designed to transmit traditional values and
humanist curricula. First used by Protestant reformers they were soon applied by Catholic
teachers as easy educational introductions. The method became so popular that by the end of
the century even older textbooks were complemented with additional pictures.483 The most
popular and wide-spread reading book in English and Irish schools was the Seven wise
masters which was accessible to both Catholics and Protestants. The story of eastern origin
was popular in Ireland since earlier times, the Earl of Kildare owned a copy as early as the
1520s. Luke Wadding, the Catholic Bishop of Ferns possessed one in the 1680s and Samuel
Pepys considered it the primary use in all schools for the understanding of letters and texts.484
Officially it was very difficult to bring textbooks and especially Catholic spiritual printings
into Ireland where all harbors were controlled by English censors. Nonetheless, a growing
market developed for illegal reading material mostly printed in England and brought over to
Dublin, Wexford, or Waterford.485 There was no real shortage of Catholic books in
Restoration Ireland which can be seen at the considerable collections owned by some of the
Catholic bishops. In the diocese of Ferns, Luke Wadding left a nearly complete inventory of
his library that comprised of seven hundred volumes of most of the important contemporary
482
Corcoran, History of Classical Teaching, pp. ix-xv/35-6/54-56/106.
Stefan Ehrenpreis: Reading Materials and Visuality: Religion and Educational Models of Early modern
Europe, in: José Pedro Paiva (ed.): Religious Ceremonials and Images: Power and Social Meaning, Coimbra
2002, pp. 303-313, pp. 309-10.
484
Gillespie, Reading Ireland, p. 162.
485
CSP, Dom. Series: January 1 st, 1679, to August 31st, p. 14. Fox, Popular Literate Culture, p. 277. In England
alone 518 different Catholic titles were printed between 1660 and 1685 although 41 of these titles were
published in the year of the accession of the Catholic James II. Naturally Catholic publishing increased
significantly in the following years with a total of 393 in the few years between 1686 and 1688. To compare with
the general output of the English and Irish presses was much higher. For Ireland alone Raymond Gillespie
counted 837 printing products during the reign of Chares II and compared with the English presses the Irish
output remained marginal as he emphasizes. Cf. Gillespie, Reading Ireland, p. 187. Thomas H. Clancy (ed.):
English Catholic Books, 1641-1700, Aldershot 1996. Books were also directly imported from the continent but
this remained an exception during the Restoration period. In the 1660s two thirds of all Irish books came from
London not including those illegally brought to Ireland from the continent, of course. Although the government
was eager to prevent the smuggling of illegal Catholic books into Ireland it was at no time capable to eliminate
it. This is underlined by the fact that most smuggled books still came from England and not from the continent.
Those Catholics that wanted to procure books usually used did this with the help of agents and friends in
London. From there it seems to have been quite easy to bring them over to Ireland. Nevertheless, not all Catholic
books had to be illegally purchased. Some were even sold in Dublin bookshops for those curious or disputatious.
The Jesuit work Mariana was apparently still officially on the market in 1679 when it was attacked in a sermon
by a Church of Ireland bishop. Gillespie, Reading Ireland, pp. 147.
483
93
treatises as well as Latin and Greek classics.486 Mark Forstall, Bishop of Kildare left a certain
amount of reading material to his nephew, Richard Butler487, Bishop Phelan of Ossory
donated all his books to his diocese in order to establish a public library488 just to name a few.
But, of course, books were not only dangerous to import but also extremely expensive. In the
diocese of Ossory every priest was ordered to possess only one copy of the catechism and one
book on moral theology; this specifically underlines the scarcity of reading material.489
Consequently, if the priest did not possess more than two books his students would have had
even less access to printed exercises. In any case, however, it was made sure that every class
disposed of a printed Tridentine catechism, apparently the most important element of Catholic
teaching.
Irish Catechisms
The synopsis of textbooks and language problems raises questions about Irish catechisms.
The Tridentine reforms had originated the catechism as the crucial element for Catholic
confessional education. In 1626 Propaganda Fide had installed a printing press for the foreign
missions and not much later another one was brought to Louvain where books and catechisms
were printed for both the local college and the Irish mission.490 The problem with the
Propaganda printing press was that only books in Latin and Italian were allowed to be printed
so it took until 1674 when Francis Molloy asked for permission to print a catechism there in
Irish with the explanation “che altra malamente capisce e vacilla assai per mancanza
d’intruttore e d’intruttion sana.“491
In other places on the continent four Irish catechisms were composed between 1611 and 1645.
In 1611 Bonabhentúra Ò hEoghasa published his An Teagasg Críosdaidhe, in 1618 Aodh
Mac Aingil followed with Scáthán Shacramuinte na hAithridhe, and in 1645 Antoin Gearnon
brought forth his Parrthas an Anma. All three authors were Franciscans except for Theobald
Stapleton’s Catechismus which was composed by a secular cleric in 1639. All four were
generally simple translations of the Tridentine catechism but they also included certain
486
Patrick J. Corish (ed.): Notebook of Luke Wadding, in: Archivium Hibernicum, No. 29 (1970), pp. 49-114.
Howard, Irish Catholic Education II, p. 311.
488
Cf. Carrigan, Diocese of Ossory, vol. 1, pp. 123/125.
489
Neely, Kilkenny, p. 126. Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685 II, p. 316. Compare Moran,
Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 253.
490
Bartholomew Egan: Notes on Propaganda Fide Printing Press and Correspondence concerning Francis
Molloy O.F.M., in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 2 (1959), pp. 115-124, p. 115. Mary O’Reilly: Seventeenthcentury Irish Catechisms – European or not?, in: Archivium Hibernicum, No. 50 (1996), pp. 102-112, p. 102.
491
Egan, Propaganda Fide Printing Press, p. 117.
487
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passages that were not part of the official one, especially prayers to the virgin Mary and
several Saints as well as poetry as a pedagogical means towards an illiterate society.492
Mary O’Reilly proposed the theory that the Irish catechisms were basically Tridentine but in
their specialties they were more Irish than European dealing with the different situation of
Catholic belief and tradition on the island.493 In their structure and language they were more
likely to be used by the faithful while the Tridentine original was meant principally as an
instructional book for clerics. This difference is understandable given that parts of the Irish
Catholics did not always have a priest at hand.494 Another emphasis was laid on the adoration
of the Virgin Mary. As the Mother of God had been especially worshipped in Ireland since
the twelfth century the authors tried to incorporate the existing traditions into the new rules.495
The only thing completely different to the Tridentine catechism was the introduction of poetry
for educational purposes. According to O’Reilly poetry had always been of high importance
in Irish society and Irish language, allowing for the internalization of a text by heart through
the rhythm of words that could not be understood through reading. O’Reilly even pretends
that the Anglican mission in Ireland failed in many areas, because it would not adapt to these
pedagogical forms so rooted in the Irish tradition.496
Secular teaching
As has been seen in the previous chapter the secular clergy was less involved in keeping
public schools except for the basic teaching of the catechism or the expounding of the
Gospel.497 But still the quality of their teaching differed depending on their former education,
as for example Bishop Phelan had suggested in the diocese of Ossory.498 Nevertheless there
were positive exceptions that offered much more learning than the average standard to
everyone who was happy enough to live near such a school. In the diocese of Waterford
Bishop Brenan admonished the pastors to instruct the youth in reading and writing though he
complained about the teachers being weak in the humanities and sciences. This statement was
owed to Brenans exceedingly high expectations.499 A man who met such expectations was
492
O’Reilly, Irish Catechisms, p. 102.
Ibid., p. 102.
494
Ibid., pp. 104-5.
495
Ibid., pp. 105-6.
496
Ibid., pp. 107-8. While O’Reilley characterizes poetry for educational purposes as typically Irish Catholic it
needs to be mentioned that the tradition of printing of versified confessional instruction or simply entertaining
stories enjoyed high popularity also in England during the second half of the sixteenth century. Cf. Tessa Watt:
Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640, Cambridge 1991. Fox, Popular Literate Culture, p. 270.
497
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 62-65.
498
Neely, Kilkenny, p. 126.
499
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 27-34. Brenan’s assessment of the teaching quality has already been
mentioned on pp. 81-2.
493
95
Edward Drumgoole who was regarded by Oliver Plunkett as being versed in speculative
theology and morality when he taught together with the Jesuits at Drogheda.500 Similar was
the case with Henry Hughes who was recommended by the Archbishop of Rome with the
explanation that he was teaching philosophy in Ireland, likely at Dundalk.501
Mention has already been made of Maurice Donnellan who was reputed to keep an excellent
school of philosophy in the archdiocese of Tuam.502 Of Father Gargan at Moybolge the
formerly introduced Mr. Sheridan asserted that he taught Latin as well. Sheridan alleged that
he could still repeat some of Livy’s speeches by heart although the school had not even
possessed an English or Irish translation.503
What women could learn in Ireland will most likely remain unknown, so scarce are even the
sources for the existence of female education analyzed above. For the continent it can be said
that their catechism-based education was the same as for boys but differed in the aspects of
virtual life. It was considered helpful to teach the girls some handcraft which might sustain
them on their own in case of emergency.504 Most likely these standards were not different to
Ireland but no peculiar information on female education has survived.
Regular teaching
The education offered by the religious orders that was constantly criticized by the archbishops
and others had a different focus than the catechetical instruction of the secular clergy. The
critics may have been justified for some convents but as with the secular clergy the
monastical teaching standard differed extremely depending on the financial situation as well
as the protection through powerful landlords. The usual accusations against the regular houses
were that novices were taken in at random without ensuring that they had received any
previous education. In most convents a closed life could not be guaranteed and the novices
were required to quest for alms for which reason their formation was kept as short as
possible.505
Several tracts have been composed by contemporaries and historians in order to contradict
these appeals. Usually the formation of new members consisted of a one year spiritual
training followed by two years of study of philosophy and four years of theology. While on
the continent it was presupposed that novices had already acquired the necessary basic skills,
500
Mac Phóil, The clergy of Oliver Plunkett, p. 50.
Ibid., pp. 58-9.
502
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 59.
503
O’Connell, Moybolge, pp. 206-7. Cf. Wilson, Brookiana, vol.1, pp. 32-3.
504
Conrad, Zwischen Kloster und Welt, pp. 211-2.
505
The quantity of letters of complaints by the Archbishops Brenan and Plunkett is immense. The following is
just one example of them: Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 460-1.
501
96
this could not be expected in Ireland. Consequently many friars tutored one or two of the
novices in private so that they could meet the expectations. This ideal concept vehemently
defended by Canice Mooney in his apologetic essay was probably as far from the regular’s
real conditions than the fierce complaints Brenan and Plunkett brought forward. However it
gives an idea of what was aimed at if the general circumstances would have allowed it.506
Being requested to comment on the Archbishops’ accusations, the Superior General of the
Franciscan Order, Francesco Maria Rini di Polozzi, gave his view in 1672. He asserted that
the students came from all social ranks and that before the admission of a new novice his
family background was acutely reviewed and no one with a heretic relative would be
accepted. Given the quantity of people who wanted to join the orders he admitted that the
procedure had been a bit shortened but in general all novices lived closed in the novitiates for
at least a year without having access to lay people. Of course, many of the houses had been
destroyed but all the houses that they lived in now been formally accepted as substitutes by
Urban VIII. After the first year all students would be sent to the continent for their further
studies in safer monasteries where a high quality standard could be guaranteed before they
returned to the mission.507 Polozzi himself was convinced of the validity of the information he
had received but showed uncertainty in some points. Naturally not all the houses where
novices were received in could have been approved as substitutes and the majority of the
novices were not able to continue their formation on the continent. Those who did travel
might have received the education drafted by Mooney but it can be assumed with some
certainty that this was a minority.
In any case there are sources that relate the daily life conditions in some of the novitiates. At
Clonmel the novices were instructed in the humanities, they were able to write and read Latin
and even composed verses in that language.508 At Athenry not only novices were taught but
also common boys. John O’Hart taught philosophy there509 as well as Gregory O’Farrell and
Anthony MacHugh. Thomas Burke was responsible for the instruction in morality and John
Burke taught the catechism since 1670.510 All of them had studied on the continent before and
the quality of their teaching was no less than in any other convent of the order.
506
Mooney, The Irish Franciscans, pp. 387-8.
Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of volume III (1672-75) of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda” in
Propaganda Archives: part 1, ff. 1-200, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 17/18 (1976), pp. 40-71, pp. 61-2.
508
Burke, History of Clonmel, p. 307.
509
Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 138-9.
510
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century, pp. 53-55, 185, 203.
507
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Jesuit teaching – The Ratio Studiorum
Jesuit teaching was universally based on the Ratio atque institutio Studiorum which had been
published as a compulsive guideline in 1599 after fifty years of refinement. A second edition
appeared in 1616.511 Loyola’s Society followed the ideal of an education that was flexible
enough to adapt to the needs of men in order to labor in the name of God. This also involved
the discussion of non-Christians as well as mundane philosophy. The student was to run
through a hierarchical structure of classes and marks in order to achieve the greatest possible
success standardized for every scholar in each Jesuit school which allowed for schools to
compare and stimulate the students depending on the local necessities or possibilities.512
Theoretically, everyone was welcome in a Jesuit school. The Ratio Studiorum only obliged
the teacher to make sure that every student attended daily mass and listened to the sermon at
least on feast days (Rules Nr. 326/327). The students were to be prepared for the
confrontation with non-Catholics and be able to discuss theoretical questions in a civilized
and constructive way. Ultimately they were to avoid ideological discussions.513 Most
importantly the teaching was in Latin and to learn the language was considered crucial for
every student. When the English school reformer John Dury visited a Jesuit school in 1645 he
was impressed by the high level
that the students had reached with Latin contrary to what
he was used to in most other colleges he had seen.514 He also took notice of the unusual
pedagogical measures taken to enforce the use of Latin among the students: “but if hee (the
student, annotation of the author) speaketh, it must be in Latine. But if any doe speak the
Vernacula Lingua, he that was last clapt with the ferula for the same fault cryeth out Do tibi
signum.”515
But the Jesuit way of teaching was not uncriticized. As Marie-Madeleine Compére has
summarized the pedagogical homogeneity, the conservatory humanistic curriculum and the
forced devoutness arouse suspicion in a time where many parents looked for a practical
education for their children, something the Jesuits did not deliver and what finally made them
511
Pavur, The Ratio Studiorum, p. vii.
O’Malley, Cultural Mission, pp. 3-26, p. 6. Pavur, The Ratio Studiorum, p. viii.
513
Ibid., pp. 66-7. Under rule for scholastic theology it said: “Alterum genus in controversiis adversus haereticos
positum est; in quibus pertractandis, quoties in S. Thomae partibus occurrerint, servent scholasticam potius,
quam historicam rationem, et satis esse putent conclusionem quamlibet duobus aut tribus firmis munire
fundamentis, diluere etium totidem fere praecipuas haereticorum calumnias. In singulis tamen indicent auctorem
aliquem, ex quo cetera promere possit, qui velit.”
514
Corcoran, History of Classical Teaching, pp. 229-234.
515
Ibid., p. 237.
512
98
lag behind in the eighteenth century.516 Nonetheless, Compére argues in accordance with
Dainvilles, that it would be wrong to see the Jesuit schools only as one homogeneous block.
Instead it was a structure consisting of a variety of independent institutions that were
competent in adapting to local conditions and that were also able to change their curriculum if
need be.517 Compére gives the Jesuit theatre as an example which became hugely popular in
the seventeenth century. Originally the Ratio Studiorum allowed only the staging of tragedies
in Latin but in the course of the century a theatrical tradition evolved that was in most parts
contradictory and especially heterogeneous. Plays in the local language were common as well
as comedies, songs, and even ballet. Musical, dramatical, and literary performances became a
center-piece of Jesuit schools. It allowed a totally new access to education and let the
institutions soon become a cultural center in each town.518 It was this popular behavior that
earned the Jesuits contemporary critics by more severe approaches to Catholicism such as the
Jansenists in their beginning and maybe this could as well explain in parts why Jesuit teaching
was so popular in Ireland even among local Protestants.519
Irish Application of Jesuit teaching
The daily teaching of Jesuit education in Ireland can be imagined by several statements from
the Restoration period although they never refer to the Ratio Studiorum. The vicar apostolic in
Limerick stated that the Jesuits taught elementary education and good Christian behavior520
while in Kilkenny the two members of the order instructed the children in philosophy and
humanities521. When at first a Jesuit came to the area of Drogheda he was shocked when he
realized that the people had neither knowledge of the mystery of Incarnation nor of the
516
Compère, Der Unterricht der Jesuiten, p. 34. The critics applied to the Jesuit way of teaching is of special
importance when comparing it with the contemporary Jansenist methods. According to Wolfgang Mager the
Jansenist pedagogy of the second half of the seventeenth century was much more individualized than the Jesuit
Ratio Studiorum and consequently more adequate for the formation of the students. Most importantly the
Jansenist pedagogues refused Latin as a teaching language but preferred French, the language their students
could actually speak and understand. Contrary to what has often been argued the Jansenists did not deny the
value of Latin literature, they used it frequently and produced highly esteemed translations but their teaching of
the Latin language followed an approach completely different to the Jesuits. Cf. Wolfgang Mager: Jansenistische
Erziehung und die Entstehung des modernen Individuums, in: Heinz Schilling/Marie Antoinette Gross (eds.): Im
Spannungsfeld von Staat und Kirche. „Minderheiten“ und „Erziehung“ im deutsch-französischen
Gesellschaftsvergleich 16.-18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2003, pp. 313-355, pp. 313-7/345-7.
517
Compère, Der Unterricht der Jesuiten, p. 35. This approach is again underlined by Simon Ditchfield who
considers the Jesuit national missions as highly intertwined while not solely Rome-centred. The South American
and Asian provinces of the order had much more mutual influence than from the guidance provided by the order
central in Rome. Cf. Simon Ditchfield: Decentering the Catholic Reformation. Papacy and Peoples in the Early
Modern World, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, No. 101 (2010), pp. 186-207, pp. 191-2.
518
O’Malley, Cultural Mission, p. 11.
519
Compère, Der Unterricht der Jesuiten, p. 46.
520
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 506.
521
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259v.
99
Immortality of souls or the Holy Trinity. These exemplary accounts offer quite a detailed
impression of what contents the classes dealt with.522 Once Oliver Plunkett had provided the
means for a larger school at Drogheda the diversity of the curriculum increased. In April 1671
he wrote to Baldeschi that one of the Jesuits instructed the priests every morning and
afternoon for one hour in cases of conscience and the manner of preaching and catechizing.
He also taught them rhetoric for two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon while on
feast days and free days he gave instructions in ceremonies and the administration of the
sacraments. The other father of the school taught syntax and concordances.523 In the Cashel
residence the two members instructed the boys in moral theology and philosophy524 and in
New Ross the teachers were overwhelmed by the interest of their students learning Greek.525
In Ireland as well as on the continent the Jesuit theatre played an important role. Plays were
staged publicly in many towns and were enjoyed by a great amount of people. During the
Confederation of Kilkenny when a large Jesuit residence existed in the city, the school had
been a central part of the city’s cultural life as the chronicler William St. Leger writes: “In the
school plays, tragedies and other scholastic exercises were performed both brilliantly and
skilfully before large and appreciative audiences. Philosophical theses were also defended
publicly in the traditional manner.”526 This tradition was kept up after 1660. In the city of
New Ross Stephen Gelosse was especially eager to stage public plays on which he dedicated
much of the students’ time. One of the plays lasted over three hours527 and another year he
organized a play with the name Musa in Iberniam reduces. When the new Archbishop of
Cashel William Burgat, came to the town in 1669 the members of the school there had
already prepared to honor him with a public play.528
In 1666 the earl of Orrery described in detail the plot of a Jesuit play staged by one Thomas
Stretch, likely identical with John Stritch of the Limerick residence: “For the plot was, that a
pastor having lost his flock by wolves and other beasts of prey, he was persuaded to teach a
school, and his scholars having helped him to destroy the wolves, he turned pastor to a flock
522
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 262v.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 186-7.
524
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
525
Ibid., Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 263v.
526
Leonard, A University for Kilkenny, pp. 51-53.
527
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 278.
528
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 263.
523
100
again. This is the fable, and in this pastoral he seemed to shew to them his own condition and
hopes. The argument was bad, the plot worse, the contempt of authority worst of all.”529
In conclusion the curriculum of the Jesuit schools did not necessarily differ that much from
the guideline offered in the Ratio Studiorum or the Jesuit sources simply tried to evoke this
impression. While plays were staged in English or Irish for the better understanding of the
audience, the classes were usually in Latin and at least some schools even offered Greek.
Since all reports emphasize the teaching of high-standard contents such as philosophy and
moral theology it can be assumed that the Jesuit schools taught reading and writing as a mere
basic class. Different to many of the monastical schools, all the members of the Jesuit mission
returned from the continent where they had studied. Consequently they disposed of the most
modern pedagogical and scientific approaches that were in no way inferior to continental
standards.
2. Teaching Facilities
Novitiates and Religious Houses
After the Reformation but certainly after the wars of the 1640s and 1650s nearly all houses,
chapels, and other facilities used by the Catholic clergy in Ireland were dispossessed and/or
destroyed.530 But contrary to official Irish politics that would have liked to free all the cities
from any form of Catholic worship, religious residences reemerged after the Restoration. In
most cases these housings were poor, many did not even deserve the name, however others
were astonishingly well-furnished and decorated. These were the places where Catholic
education mostly happened. When looking into the sources, especially the letters to Rome,
one has to bear in mind that describing the miserable conditions of living and the asking for
financial supply often came hand in hand and that the times of persecutions where bishops
were hiding were few in comparison to the years where they openly lived and enjoyed a
limited but certain degree of prosperity.
A feature that seems to have been common to nearly every Irish town was the mass house;
semi-church buildings where Catholic communities could meet, celebrate mass if tolerated
and probably hold catechism classes.531 Moreover in many places the clergy even had public
chapels within the town walls. If this was not connived at by the authorities, chapels were
529
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, pp. 73-76.
Compare for example Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in volume 15 of “Fondo di Vienna”
in Propaganda Archives, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 33 (1991), pp. 54-92, pp. 61-2.
531
Mass houses are mentioned in such a quantity of sources that it is not necessary to quote them all. Exemplary
could be mentioned: CSP, Dom. Series: January to November, 1671, p. 411.
530
101
built in the Irishtowns outside the walls where mostly Catholic merchants, artisans, and
craftsmen resided. These chapels were usually very simple with a thatched roof but with
consecrated altars for Masses and Vespers.532 This religious infrastructure was different to the
situation in England where most clerics resided with wealthy Catholic landlords with a private
chapel for the household.533 While residences and convents of the religious orders existed in
the cities as well they were usually not able to lead a common life. In 1666 the Capuchins
asked the Pope to reconfirm their allowance to spend their monastic life in private houses.
This would be the only possibility in the towns to perform their duty.534 The Jesuits never
intended to live together. Since the majority of their members came from an urban
background of some wealth they spent their days with family members, relatives, or friends
depending on their financial aid.535 Novitiates and real closed communities could only outlast
in the countryside, usually protected by some local landlord. To have a novitiate in a city was
only possible if it was located within a private house where, of course, the seclusion of the
novices from the mundane temptations could not be guaranteed as the Augustinian Valvasori
reported to Rome in 1672.536
In the periphery there was in most cases more safety and isolation but as well more poverty.
This might explain the extreme statements that can be found in the sources where Propaganda
Fide inquired in 1664 if Franciscan novices truly resided in cabins and caves537 or when
Oliver Plunkett reported after a visit in 1679 that “the novitiate was in a cabin better
proportioned to take pigs than novices.”538 Examples of higher living standards can be found
alike. In 1680 Charles Collis seized a convent at Ballymote near Sligo that had a great library
and where all the friars possessed ceremonial vestments.539 At Multyfarnham the Franciscans
rebuilt their convent with the allowance of the new proprietor of the land and had, according
to Henry Piers “all manor of conveniences both for the receipt of strangers and for their own
use, but all thatched cabins which are to this day kept up in good repair, and are ready for
their reception whenever they shall please”.540 A similar description was delivered by Dudley
Pearce, Protestant Dean of Kilmacduagh in December 1684. There the religious orders had
532
Burke, History of Clonmel, p. 307. Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 62-65. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo.
271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 271v.
533
Miller, Popery and Politics, p. 34.
534
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of „Fondo di Vienna”, part 1, p. 45.
535
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
536
Millett, Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, part 1, p. 63.
537
Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 1, p. 55.
538
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 537.
539
Burke, Penal Times, p. 61.
540
Piers, Chorographical Description, p. 69.
102
rebuilt the abbey of Kilnalehin to the roof and shingles and the formerly ruined monastery at
Kilconnel was also being repaired so that the friars “walk in their habits and solemnly, at all
usual hours, chant their offices. They grow into numbers and are daily debauching souls.”541
Schools
The Jesuit schools were again a little different. On the continent they represented something
pedagogically and architecturally modern. Based on sufficient financial support their holistic
teaching approach included open space, light incidence, and recreational areas.542 In the
constitutions of the order rules were provided that new buildings should be constructed in
places conducive to fostering good health543 and in De ratione aedificiorum from 1558, it was
that added buildings should be erected to provide a humane living situation and favorable to
good health as well as they should give visible testimony to poverty.544 Apart from these
general rules there was no specific Jesuit architectural style although their buildings had to be
practical, functional, and affordable rather than aesthetic as Giovanni Sale pointed out.545
Naturally, the Irish setting differed immensely from what was done on the continent given the
limited financial resources of the mission although reasonable housing was a point regularly
discussed in the Litterae Annuae. While Stephen Gelosse had survived the Commonwealth in
a cabin in the woods near New Ross where he taught the children the catechism546 he took the
first opportunity to move into a more comfortable hut outside the walls. Later a second father
arrived who moved into the residence and as the school’s student body grew, it was clear that
more space was needed.547 Finally they were invited into the manor of a local wealthy
Protestant three miles outside the city where he offered them rooms for living and teaching
under the condition that his own sons were allowed to join classes as well.548 It is unknown
whether this offer was accepted, however shortly afterwards they rented their own house with
enough space for the school, a small hospital, and a chapel room which was also used for
staging plays.549 The school at Cashel seems to have had similar comfort with a house big
541
HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series,
vol. 7, pp. 311-2.
542
Hersche, Muße und Verschwendung, vol. 1, p. 207.
543
Giovanni Sale: Architectural Simplicity and Jesuit Architecture, in: John O’Malley/Gauvin Alexander Bailey
(eds.): The Jesuits and the Arts, 1540-1773, Philadelphia 2005, pp. 29-44, p. 33. Quoted from No. 827, part 10 of
the Consitutions
544
Ibid., p. 33.
545
Sale, Architectural Simplicity, p. 29.
546
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad
exitum anni 1674, fo. 273v.
547
Ibid., fo. 276v.
548
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 263.
549
Ibid., fo. 263v.
103
enough to accommodate boarding students from all over Tipperary.550 Only in Dublin the
political circumstances and the poverty of the members did not allow such convenient
housing. The student body there consisted of 30 students in 1669 and was kept in a small
chamber for fear of persecution, and only occasionally they made use of the little chapel the
Jesuits had within the city.551
3. Financing Education
The provision of education previously described, the maintenance of the residences, the
purchase of books, and the financing of any activities cohesive to Catholic confessionalization
were mostly dependent on funding. Apart from the Jesuits who it would seem had different
resources, the old religious orders lived of the alms they received from the few wealthy
supporters and the mass of the faithful population.552 Since the Irish had to pay tithes to the
Church of Ireland at the same time, the upkeep of the numerous friars and their convents was
a burden on many, and was precisely well calculated by the Protestant authorities.553 Lord
Lieutenant Essex exhibited his confidence that any actions against the Catholic clergy would
not cause widespread rebellion but would create applause by the majority of the people, as he
wrote to Harbord on 21st March 1674: “I am also fully assured there can be no danger or
discontent arise by sending them away, provided yt Parish Priests are indulged, for ye Friers
& ye others exercising Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction are a burthen & charge to those of yt
Religion, & I am confident yt being freed from them will be much to their satisfaction, for
indeed they have almost beggar’d them.”554 Parts of the Catholic authorities, especially the
resident bishops, were well aware of that danger. Bishop Tyrrell even reported to Rome in
1677 that half of his clerics were of no use to the people but a burden that caused
dissensions.555 For that reason, the Catholic clergy was always eager to procure new incomes
in order to sustain themselves without being too dependent on the poor but in the end it was
always reduced to three options: Private funding, money from Rome, and inherited money of
the own members.
550
Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni
1674, fo. 272.
551
Ibid., fo. 271vf.
552
Power, Archbishop John Brennen of Cashel, p. 357.
553
Richard Bagwell: Ireland under the Stuarts, vol. 3, Rome 1916, reprinted London 1963, p. 115. Airy, Essex
Papers, vol. 1, p. 166.
554
Ibid., p. 193.
555
Ò Fiaich, The appointment of bishop Tyrrell, pp. 10-1
104
Private Funding
Just a few Catholic families in Ireland were able to donate substantial sums to the religious
orders after 1660. The Earl of Clanricarde is reported to have given considerable amounts of
money, especially to the Dominican residence at Athenry, but they were not the only ones to
receive something. The Jesuit residence at Galway also received ten thousand florenos before
1665 from the Earl to build up their schoolhouse and make up for three thousand florenos the
fathers had already received earlier by the Archbishop of Tuam. The problem was that the
money was left in France for safety reasons and by then nobody dared to bring it over.556
Another wealthy Catholic who willingly supported the mission in Ireland was Charles’ II
wife, Catherine of Braganza. The Jesuit Hugh Cullen received financial aid to build a
residence at Athlone when he was her confessor but finally decided to give the money to the
newly erected seminary at Poitiers.557
Nonetheless, in most cases the money seems to have come from local Protestant landlords
who either had an interest in getting along well with their Catholic tenants, or whose families
had traditional bonds to monasteries, parishes, or schools. As will be analyzed later on, the
quality of the offered teaching convinced many to support the teachers as well. Of the
Dominican school at Gola the chronicler O’Heyne wrote that Fathers Thomas MacMahon and
Charles MacManus were so popular for their education that they “received several young men
from the best families in the county, thus gaining to the Order the friendship of the gentry and
the people”.558 A similar case has already been mentioned from New Ross where a Protestant
captain offered the Jesuits a schoolhouse and another Protestant of the city even donated them
enough money to establish a library.559 Although the cases of larger donations mentioned
were not the regular case, private funding was the most important source of income for the
local residences. It was not necessarily always a great sum to erect a school or restore a
convent, but the daily help to feed and house the members of an order actually allowed the
maintenance of schools and novitiates.
Money from Rome
Money also came from Rome, from Propaganda Fide and the Superiors of the religious orders
but it was never considered enough. In 1662 the Capuchins asked Propaganda for 1000
556
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
557
Murtagh, Athlone, p. 142.
558
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century, p. 15.
559
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
105
Brabant pounds to replace ceremonial items that had been stolen during the
Commonwealth.560 Apparently they received at least some of money since they wrote again in
1667 asking for more because other items had been confiscated the year before by the
government.561 The Dominican procurator John O’Connor requested books and other
requirements to re-establish the missionary work of the order. The problem according to him
was that most of the friars had gone into exile under Cromwell and the properties of the order
they managed to take with them were now retained by the monasteries they had sought refuge
in if they had died during their exile.562
In most cases it was the bishops that brought money with them once they were sent from
Rome, especially for the funding of schools and teachers. For example Oliver Plunkett
reported to Rome in 1670: “Ipsisque domum et scholam propiis expensis aedificavit.”563 And
his colleague John Brenan wrote continually to Rome in order to procure more money for
more teachers.564 In Cashel the Archbishop Thomas Walsh brought over 5000 florenos to
build a school. The money still belonged to the amount the Pope had given to Nuntio
Rinuccini to bring over in the 1640s. As the sum turned out to be insufficient the Archbishop
of Compostela sent another 1000 ducats and even the Spanish King contributed to the
collection.565
Apart from the larger sums of money offered at the beginning, Rome was not willing to
consistently pay for the maintenance of schools and personnel, which posed a major problem.
Oliver Plunkett soon had to realize that money only came sporadically and never enough to
meet the costs since he paid 20 scudi to the Jesuit fathers at Drogheda and another 50 to the
secular priest Edward Drumgoole to keep himself and the students alive during the winter of
1671.566 Finally all his private savings had been spent and in August 1672 he declared that
“the Jesuits and I are indebted to the baker, the butcher, the brewer and others this past year to
the tune of one hundred and fifty scudi.”567 In this case of emergency he finally received
another sum from the Internuncio at Brussels because he wrote in November 1672 to Peter
Creagh: “The internuncio writes me that the pension or salary assigned to the Jesuits in my
560
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, part 1, p. 43.
Ibid, p. 45
562
Ibid., Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, p. 40.
563
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 211. Compare as well Ibid., Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver
Plunkett, p. 66.
564
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 24/33. For reference to the non-Catholic schools see Auchmuty,
Irish Education, pp. 50/56.
565
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
566
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 300-302. Mac Phóil, The clergy of Oliver Plunkett, p. 50.
567
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 318.
561
106
province is for four years.”568 The abiding underfunding of the Drogheda residence eventually
caused serious trouble among the members of the Society as one of them probably accepted
money from students or parents in order to meet his expenses. When this came to light he was
accused of damaging the good reputation of the order that never took money for teaching. In
the end the Archbishop resolved the problem when he substituted the money taken for his
own and returned the school fees to the families.569 Nevertheless money from Rome played an
important role in Irish Catholic education although it was in no case sufficient to maintain the
mission independently.
The healing Jesuits and Missionary Funding
An elementary problem for the Jesuits in Ireland was the fact that the mission was still
considered an independent province of the order with own structures and own funding.570 But
without financial help from the order central in Rome the ambitious projects on the island
could not be realized. Many Irish Jesuits looked to the missions in China and Japan with envy
because huge amounts of money were transferred for missionary activities without requiring
them to raise money for themselves. The former Jesuit and Archbishop of Dublin Peter
Talbot, had been trying before 1668 to distract some of this missionary money for the Irish
province writing to Propaganda: “Quod sua Sanctitas Pontifex Romanus, Christi in terris
Vicarius et S. Petri successor, soleat quotannis mittere ad Asiam, Africam, et Indiam, ad
omnes orbis terrarum partes, immo ad Anglos, Hibernos, et Scotos idque suis expensis viros
doctos et zelosos, qui doceant plebem et instruant in ea fide, inter quos ego indignissimus fui
unus.”571
These measures, however, turned out to be insufficient and the Irish Jesuits started a new sort
of propaganda campaign. Suddenly beginning in 1665 the Litterae Annuae were full of
reports of miraculous healings performed by the members in nearly every residence. Often
these stories came along with attestations by local notaries and other neutral dignitaries to
certify their truth. In nearly every case a Protestant individual, male and female as well as rich
568
Ibid., p. 346.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 280vf.
570
Apart from the specific Irish difficulties in fundraising, the financing of the early modern Jesuit order is still
insufficiently researched. The multiple structures and sub-divisions in addition to the official poverty of the
order make it extremely difficult to keep track of the money flows. Michael Maher, S.J., points to this
desideratum in his essay on ‘Financing Reform’ and outlines the importance of Jesuit-associated Congregations
in this context. While his analysis is limited to the comparatively well-documented proceedings in the city of
Rome it can be imagined that profound knowledge of the funding of the Irish mission is nearly impossible to
obtain. Cf. Michael Maher: Financing Reform: The Society of Jesus, the Congregation of the Assumption, and
the Funding of the Exposition of the Sacrament in Early Modern Rome, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte,
No. 93 (2002), pp. 126-144.
571
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 140-142
569
107
and poor, young and old, was suffering of a disease that had been torturing him/her. The tale
of Paul Aylward in Waterford was a detailed story describing his suffering over the course of
18 months while local Protestant doctors tried everything to cure his illness. Having been
bedridden for six months he finally called for the “medicum caelestem”572 to help him. As in
every story the Jesuit appeared and healed the man within a short time, always through the
help of St. Xavier to whom was prayed, candles lit, images worshipped, or who had appeared
himself at the sickbed.573
The message of these reports was twofold. On the one hand it simply demonstrated that the
members of the order were dedicated to teaching and preaching alone, but that they also met
the medical needs of the people regardless of their religious affiliation. They executed a task
that the Irish government or Church of Ireland did in many cases not fulfill to the contempt of
the people which could be another reason why so many Protestants connived at them. But the
more important message that was sent to Rome in form of these stories was the attention paid
to Ireland by St. Xavier. It was no surprise that the famous healer and missionary to the East
Indies now turned his attention to Ireland. The mission there was to be considered equal to
Xaviers’ foundations in the East that received so much financial support. The authors of the
Litterae, Andrew Sall and Stephen Rice, drew a picture of a sick Irish society where so many
people craved for the healing spirits of Catholicism such as it was thought of the East and
where more members and more money could achieve a good many conversions. It is
uncertain if this campaign was ever successful. It was either not noticed or ignored since
officially the Irish mission of the Jesuits was not supplied with more money from Rome.574
Inherited Property
All these efforts to raise money communicated the image of the poor Irish clergy that lived of
alms and had to beg for their daily necessities. But a different light was shed on this depiction
by some references to land trading found in the State Papers. After the Restoration many
572
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 267.
The reports in detail are of no specific interest for this work. The references to the miraculous healings are to
be found at: Ibid., fo. 266v./267. Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab
ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 272/280v./282/283.
574
An interesting innovative approach in this regard has been presented by Luke Clossey in his 2005
presentation on the Jesuits as a global movement. Clossey attempts to construct the concept of a world church
system analogue to Immanuel Wallerstein’s idea of an early modern economic world system. Following
Wallerstein’s classifications into core, semiperiphery and periphery the core areas provided missionaries and
financial support while the periphery offered large numbers of potential converts. Although Clossey refers
mainly to the distant order provinces of Mexico, China and Japan, the Irish Jesuit’s efforts to be classified as
order periphery in need of financial support and qualified missionaries while at the same time promising a high
degree of conversions would well fit into this theory. Cf. Luke Clossey: The Early-Modern Jesuit Mission as a
Global Movement, presented at “Global Social Movements in World Historical Perspective”. A Conference of
the World History Multi-Campus Research Group University of California, Santa Cruz 2005.
573
108
dispossessed landowners agreed to deals where politically unbiased people claimed the landed
property for themselves or intervened at court in favor of the dispossessed sharing the income
with the true owners. The deal was profitable to both parties. Thomas Clarke named in his
History of the Life of the Duke of Ormond such prominent figures such as Charles Berkeley,
Audley Mervyn and Lord Carlingford who took part in such transactions. But the man who
profited most of them was Colonel Richard Talbot. According to Carte he brought 18,000
pounds to London in the summer of 1663 to plead there for the restitution of land.575 The
same year resulted in a letter from Talbot to Secretary Bennet on 28th April. In it he revealed
that the Jesuits had in Ireland mortgages of £7,000 or £8,000, which they did not forfeit by
rebellion, but since they were Jesuits:
“But in regard the persons who were liable to those mortgages have forfeited there estates, the
Jesuits cannot claim their own right because it’s in the name of the whole Society of the
Jesuits the mortgages go, and therefore not capable of being restored as a community, and yet
their interest not forfeited by this Act of Settlement. They have made it all over upon me, and
desire I may get a grant from the King for the said mortgages. You and I are to have half,
about £4000, and they the other half. (...) This injures no man but for the poor men who are
content to give us this in order to get the rest. The King loses nothing to which he had any
right, as it is not forfeited, but that they are content to make it so.”576
In Jesuit sources no reference was ever made to such a deal and neither did it appear again in
the State Papers. But if only part of it was secretly implemented it would have given the order
a considerable amount of money. £4000 of annual rent was a lot considering that Oliver
Plunkett could run his Drogheda school with £300 a year.
To prove that these deals were actually made was demonstrated by an incident in England
where Richard Gerard revealed to the crown in 1668 that John Biddulph had bought a part of
his land in 1662 and administered it for the Jesuit order. Since this was illegal Gerard claimed
the yearly income of £80 for himself. In the end he was generously compensated by the
crown, the land was forfeited and eventually fell back to the king.577
575
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, pp. 295-6.
CSPI, 1663-1665, p. 67.
577
CSP, Dom. Series: Nov. 1667 – Sept. 1668, pp. 128/283.
576
109
4. Conclusion
To the Catholic clergy that had remained in Ireland or returned after 1660 it was soon clear
that the high expectations for their confession raised by the Declaration of Breda would
remain unfulfilled. The Archbishop of Armagh O’Reilly, put it in appropriate words when
writing to Rome: “Expectavimus aliquam tolerantiam, aut conniventiam coronato nostro
Rege, sed nihil tale fuit; frustrati sunt qui talia sperabant.”578
Legal toleration could not be achieved but as has been shown in this previous chapter, official
toleration and silent connivance were different matters. In astonishingly high numbers
Catholic clergy of all orders and backgrounds labored in all parts of Ireland, taught the
catechism, preached, and educated. Already in 1668, just a few years after O’Reilly’s
frustrated words, the priest John O’Sullivan wrote to Propaganda about the state of things in
the diocese of Achonry but his words may well be understood as representative for the whole
island. He summarized that “there are very few heretics, although almost all the land belongs
to them in virtue of a grant from Cromwell; there are about thirty parishes in the diocese,
many of them being very extensive; of the faithful there are many persons of both sexes who
are pious, good, and instructed in the faith; but there are many unlettered people, who,
however, would show themselves docile and of good will, if they had a sufficient number of
learned and zealous directors; the situation is the same for the most part in other neighbouring
dioceses.”579
The financial situation had changed drastically for the Catholic clergy in Ireland; property
was lost, houses confiscated and destroyed. Nevertheless, they still had places to reside in and
the new owners, though they may have received the land from Cromwell, were in many cases
eager to co-operate with the traditional residents. Many friars found a way to collect money,
some from Rome, some from inherited property, some just from wealthy private supporters.
This financial dependence changed the face of Catholicism in Ireland dramatically, but it kept
it alive as well. Schools were erected throughout the country, visited apparently by both
Catholics and Protestants. But, of course, as O’Sullivan realized, there was still a great
number of people, the majority of them did not have access to education or were only taught
the most fundamental things. Tridentine doctrines were unknown to many in places where the
missionaries did not even speak the language of the local inhabitants and in the numerous
novitiates that were quickly set up, the lack of funding often made a proper education for new
578
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in vols. 12 and 13 (ff.1-200) of “Fondo di Vienna” in Propaganda
Archives, p. 64, f. 108r.
579
Ibid., Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 144-148.
110
friars and priests impossible. The bishops who were especially affected by the Tridentine
reforms such as Brenan and Plunkett had to admit that more clergy was not always helpful,
rather less priests with a better formation could be more acceptable.
Nonetheless, many schools and teachers offered a much higher standard than might have been
assumed. The clergy was in some way provided with books and other materials, schoolhouses could be rented or were offered by others. The subjects taught in the larger institutions
ranged from basic reading and writing, Christian theology, philosophy and rhetoric to Latin
and Greek, and the study of the classics. Higher education was nonexistent for Catholics in
Ireland but the basic education that was offered provided a constant number of young people
with the ability to matriculate at the colleges on the continent. In different parts of the island
the density of schools and teachers were extremely varied according to the sources that have
been left. In Connaught and Ulster the old religious orders maintained their superiority,
especially in the dioceses of Tuam and Armagh where a few Catholic families had preserved
their wealth to support them. But more importantly education was an urban development as
well as in England and on the continent. It was the densely populated and intensely
agriculturally exploited areas of the Southeast where most schools were found. The quantity
of teaching facilities in and around Kilkenny between 1660 and 1685 could easily stand the
comparison with any other European congested urban area, offering not only Jesuit schools in
nearly every town but also lay teachers, education for women, novitiates of several different
orders and, of course, Protestant schools.
111
V. The Schools and Confessionalization in Ireland
1. Formation of Confessions – Social Disciplination – Confessionalization
When Ernst Walter Zeeden established the idea of a process of the formation of confessions
in 1958 he introduced a new comprehensive approach to the study of early modern history.
Under this denomination he embraced the process of spiritual and organizational
consolidation of the different branches of the old church that had drifted apart since the
Reformation in order to establish a more or less solid church community according to their
dogma, constitution, and moral-ethical way of life.580
His approach outlined similarities between the three groups of Catholics, Lutherans, and
Reformed Church that were basically comparable, thus to contradict the dialectical approach
of the nineteenth century that looked at Reformation and Counter-Reformation as two
following processes that could be generally divided into modernistic and repressive.581 The
process Zeeden described was generally limited to inner-ecclesiastical developments but since
the confessionalized Churches were competing with each other they soon became intertwined
with the politics of their time, collaborating with differing interests in order to protect their
doctrine.582 While church politics became increasingly influenced and controlled by worldly
politics an exchange process evolved that blurred the different instruments of power.583
Consequently some governmental units turned out to be highly involved in the
confessionalization process achieving great uniformity of their subjects while in other
territories a mixed form of state and church survived well into the seventeenth and eighteenth
century.584
In his original concept Zeeden judged the influence of the common people in this formation
process as very low since in most cases they would not have been able to understand the
confessional distinctions and thus were willing to follow the direction of the authorities as
long as their daily life remained largely untouched.585 As a result the subject of state and
church was more an object to Zeeden than an active part of the society. His interest was based
on the acting authorities and not on the passively receiving mute subject.586
580
Ernst Walter Zeeden: Grundlagen und Wege der Konfessionsbildung in Deutschland im Zeitalter der
Glaubenskämpfe, in: HZ, No. 185 (1958), pp. 249-299, p. 251.
581
Luise Schorn-Schütte: Die Reformation. Vorgeschichte – Verlauf – Wirkung, München, 4th ed., 2006, p. 93.
582
Zeeden, Wege der Konfessionsbildung, pp. 251-2.
583
Ibid., p. 255.
584
Ibid., pp. 286-7.
585
Ibid., p. 271.
586
Ibid.: Die Entstehung der Konfession. Grundlagen und Wege der Konfessionsbildung in Deutschland im
Zeitalter der Glaubenskämpfe, München 1965, pp. 91-93.
112
Zeeden’s concept of the formation of confessions was complemented by the approach of
Gerhard Oestreich who developed the idea of social disciplination in the 1960s.587 For
Oestreich the social disciplination of subjects was a solely secular achievement of the
absolutist state that worked explicitly without the support of any of the confessional
churches.588 The expression encompassed the intervention of the state in the private life
through the control of opinion and sentiment of the subject. This process of disciplination
created, dominated, and regulated the position and action even of the common people and
thus originated a fundamental structural shift in all social classes of the society, if necessary
by force.589
Social disciplination interfered deeper with the society than any state institution might have
had entering the private life of every individual what would become decisive for the
development of modernity. It replaced the ancient idea of reciprocal compulsive fidelity with
the principle of order and allegiance. What Oestreich wanted to explain was the
transformation process of the associated state of individuals that the Middle Ages had known
to the modern state of government and subjects.590 This transformation was purposively
initiated and controlled by the secular élites of an absolutist state that emerged as a synthesis
out of the French wars of religion. Consequently it was confessionally indifferent and
independent.591 In this idea Oestreich’s theory can well be compared with Norbert Elias’
“Process of Civilization”. Elias stated change of the conduct of man during the early modern
period by means of control of emotions. Similar to Oestreich he saw the origin for this
dramatical change in the development of Absolutism and court culture where constraints from
without were in time transformed into constraints from within of the meanwhile civilized
courtier.592 But while Oestreich regarded the transformation as target-oriented process of
disciplination Elias considered it an unscheduled differentiation.593 In his idea of a
teleological process Oestreich revealed much of the historistic concepts of his former
teachers, although he incorporated it in the new design of structuralism as Winfried Freitag
587
Gerhard Oestreich: Strukturprobleme des europäischen Absolutismus, in: Ibid. (ed.): Geist und Gestalt des
frühmodernen Staates. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Berlin 1969, pp. 179-197.
588
Cf. Winfried Schulze: Gerhard Oestreichs Begriff “Sozialdisziplinierung in der Frühen Neuzeit”, in: ZHF,
No. 14 (1987), pp. 265-301, pp. 294-5.
589
Oestreich, Strukturprobleme, p. 181.
590
Ibid., pp. 187-8.
591
Cf. Ibid.: Der römische Stoizismus und die oranische Heeresreform, in: Ibid. (ed.): Geist und Gestalt des
frühmodernen Staates. Ausgewählte Aufsätze, Berlin 1969, pp. 11-34, pp. 13-4.
592
Norbert Elias: Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, vol. 2: Wandlungen der Gesellschaft. Entwurf zu einer
Theorie der Zivilisation, Frankfurt a.M., 13th ed., 1988, p. 338.
593
Ibid., pp. 312-3. Schulze, Gerhard Oestreich, p. 293.
113
pointed out.594 This could explain why a historical approach ‘from below’ was impossible for
Oestreich who considered the fundamental process of disciplination as something that had
first to be assimilated by the leading authorities of the state before passing down to more
willing facilitators.595
The formation of confessions established by Zeeden and the concept of social disciplination
created by Oestreich were finally combined and extended in Wolfgang Reinhard’s
prolegomena of confessionalization that followed the modernization theories of Weber and
Troeltsch. Nonetheless, it soon developed into a paradigm of early modern history that is
nowadays critically discussed, representing early modernity as the so-called “Vorsattelzeit” of
modernity as formulated by Heinz Schilling.596 Reinhard’s theory was contradictory to those
contemporary historians who characterized the Reformation process as something generally
modern and the Counter-Reformation as generally reactionary. Based on Zeeden’s formation
of confessions he preferred to look at both processes in a parallel study with several elements
that could well be compared with each other. By posing the question of the importance of
Catholicism for the development of the modern world he contradicted the approaches of
Weber and Troeltsch who only considered Protestantism as the engine of modernity.597
Meanwhile, Schilling based his concept of confessionalization on the question for a “second
Reformation”.598 He defined it as a fundamental social process that profoundly changed the
public and private life of Europe. At the same time it was often interdigitated with the
development of the early modern state and the formation of a modern disciplined society of
subjects that was institutionally and territorially organized, contrary to the personal and
fragmented medieval society.599 The main proposition of the confessionalization paradigm
was that the pre-modern society was not yet sufficiently divided into several sub-systems
therefore the sub-systems “religion” and “society” could only be analyzed in a reciprocal
way.600
594
Werner Freitag: Missverständnis eines Konzeptes. Zu Gerhard Oestreichs Fundamentalprozess der
Sozialdisziplinierung, in: ZHF, No. 28 (2001), pp. 513-538, pp. 519-521.
595
Ibid., pp. 530-538.
596
Cf. Wolfgang Reinhard: Gegenreformation als Modernisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des
konfessionellen Zeitalters, ARG, No. 68 (1977), pp. 226-252, p. 229. Heinz Schilling: Aufbruch und Krise.
Deutschland 1517-1648 (Das Reich und die Deutschen 5), Berlin 1988, p. 315.
597
Reinhard, Gegenreformation als Modernisierung, p. 231.
598
Heinz Schilling: Die „Zweite Reformation“ als Kategorie der Geschichtswissenschaft, in: Ibid. (ed.): Die
reformierte Konfessionalisierung in Deutschland – das Problem der “Zweiten Reformation”. Wissenschaftliches
Symposium des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte 1985 (Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte
195), Gütersloh 1986, pp. 387-437.
599
Ibid.: Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich. Religiöser und gesellschaftlicher Wandel in Deutschland zwischen
1555 und 1620, in: HZ, No. 246 (1988), pp. 1-45, p. 6.
600
Ibid., p. 5.
114
Based on Luhmann’s system theory Reinhard constructed a theory of confessionalization
according to which the system “religion” had reached a crisis following the establishment of
different confessions each of them proclaiming an absolute truth. In order to secure their own
claim for truth, the confessions required system stabilizing proceedings including their own
adherents and excluding the others. This process he called confessionalization. Granted that
religion, state, and society were highly entangled, confessionalization embraced not only the
churches but all other aspects of early modern life as well.601
Research has emphasized the connection between confessionalization and the building of the
early modern state since territorial states were able to make use of the confessional
conformity of their subjects what turned out to be an important supplement to Oestreich’s
social disciplination. By means of confessionalization the state gained access to the resources
of the Church thus being able to change society at its roots.602 Confessionalization was useful
to the state in three ways: First of all it strengthened the subject’s identity inward and
outward, secondly it eliminated the Church as a rival for the subject’s obedience, and thirdly
it was helpful because disciplined and homogenized subjects were much easier to control and
to influence than others. Because of these advantages Reinhard considered the
confessionalization as the first step of the social disciplination.603
The incorporation of rationalization, social disciplination, and state building made the
confessionalization very attractive to researchers but it also originated the question: is the
paradigm overburdened by too many theories? Accordingly the first critics were directed
against the fact that with so much theoretical background Reinhard and Schilling, similar to
Oestreich and Zeeden, used primarily the available normative sources of those actively
involved and predestined to leave written accounts of their deeds. Their purpose to make use
of the confessionalization may have been obvious but neither of the authors could verify if
planned measures and expressed policies were ever taken into effect. The doubtfulness of the
realization of such aims was subsumed by Jürgen Schlumbohm who identified laws that were
not implemented as characteristic for early modern Europe. Despite the fact that the
authorities knew of the non-implementation of the laws these were nevertheless printed and
published with all possible effort. The publication itself made sense because it demonstrated
601
Wolfgang Reinhard: Konfession und Konfessionalisierung in Europa, in: Ibid. (ed.): Bekenntnis und
Geschichte. Die Confessio Augustana im historischen Zusammenhang, München 1981, pp. 165–189, pp. 174177.
602
Heinz Schilling: Konfessionskonflikt und Staatsbildung. Eine Fallstudie über das Verhältnis von religiösem
und sozialem Wandel in der Frühneuzeit am Beispiel der Grafschaft Lippe (Quellen und Forschungen zur
Reformationsgeschichte 48), Gütersloh 1986, p. 25.
603
Wolfgang Reinhard: Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung? Prolegomena zu einer Theorie des konfessionellen
Zeitalters, in: ZHF, No. 10 (1983), pp. 257-277, p. 268.
115
to the subjects the sheer existence of the government. Schlumbohm, however, generally
questioned the existence of disciplination as a fundamental process since it would have shown
to the people that laws might exist but that they were not expected to be followed.604 Of
course, Schlumbohm only referred to the application of laws while Reinhard spoke of
confessionalization in a broader sense. It could be achieved through many different ways.
Rudolf Schlögl criticized the simple model of cause and effect Schilling and Reinhard
proposed. Although he agreed with the general assumption of confessionalization, for him it
represented only a symptom of a deeper lying process of restructuring that changed the
relation of politics and religion, state organization, and Church structure towards a
hierarchical-feudal basic order of the society. Accordingly the developing institutions of
church and state worked differently than the old nobility-based society and gave way to a
centralized state that intended to take care of his subject on his own.605
Luise Schorn-Schütte alluded to the limited time-frame of the confessionalization theory since
Schilling identified it with the concept of a “Sattelzeit” immediately before the modernity
which resulted in the idea being a part of a modernizing process. Given the genuine antimodern nature of the idea of confessionalization, Schorn-Schütte asked if something like it
could have attributed to the development of modern Europe?606 To answer this question
became the main object of Reinhard’s Prolegomena published in 1977.607 Using the example
of the Jesuit order Reinhard demonstrated that confessionalization could have modernizing
effects without having intended them although he had to admit that such not-intended results
were very difficult to identify. Consequently the question if the paradigm is able to analyze
early modern history is still controversially discussed.608
Other aspects of the paradigm have been revised, added or dismissed since then. Heinrich
Richard Schmidt started to combine confessionalization and micro-history when he replaced
the idea of social disciplination with his concept of the subject’s self disciplination based on
Peter Blickles theory of communalism. According to Schmidt the state only interfered when it
604
Jürgen Schlumbohm: Gesetze, die nicht durchgesetzt werden. Ein Strukturmerkmal des frühneuzeitlichen
Staates?, in: GuG, No. 23 (1997), pp. 647-663, pp. 651-659.
605
Rudolph Schlögl: Differenzierung und Integration. Konfessionalisierung im frühneuzeitlichen
Gesellschaftssystem. Das Beispiel der habsburgischen Vorlande, in: ARG, No. 91 (2000), pp. 238-284, pp. 2434.
606
Cf. Luise Schorn-Schütte: Konfessionalisierung als wissenschaftliches Paradigma?, in: Bahlcke/Strohmeyer
(eds.): Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa. Wirkungen des religiösen Wandels im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert
in Staat, Gesellschaft und Kultur, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 63-77, p. 65. Schilling, Aufbruch und Krise, p. 315.
607
Reinhard, Gegenreformation als Modernisierung, p. 226.
608
Ibid., p. 239. Ibid.: “Konfessionalisierung” auf dem Prüfstand, in: Bahlcke/Strohmeyer (eds.):
Konfessionalisierung in Ostmitteleuropa. Wirkungen des religiösen Wandels im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Staat,
Gesellschaft und Kultur, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 79-88, p. 79.
116
came to adjust the self-evolving new living environment the society had created.609 These new
approaches separated the confessionalization from the development of modernity as a concept
Reinhard and his contemporaries had come to know but it opened new views on early modern
Europe in its whole diversity. Meanwhile historians such as Olaf Blaschke discussed the
possibility if modernity was something that had its origins not as late as in the nineteenth
century for what he created the theory of a second confessionalization.610 Consequently, the
idea of the confessionalization as a “Sattelzeit” of modernity no longer seemed adequate.
Modernity could not be seen as a linear process beginning in the early modern period but
much more as a concept of the nineteenth century and modernity itself.
The confessionalization paradigm was highly connected with the question for state building
and social disciplination in early modern Europe. Oestreich based his research on the
presumption of downward activities of the absolutist state for what social disciplination
formed an alternative approach. The confessionalization paradigm adopted this focus on the
state, postulating a historical change without analyzing the situation of those who were
supposed to be affected by it. But while the social history asked for the development of
modernity postmodern historians have come to focus more on the subject in a micro-historical
approach. Speaking of the confessionalization this meant to change the perspective from
downward to a new perspective ‘from below’ and to pose the question: was the
confessionalizing state ever able to enforce its new laws and disciplinatory aims. Heinrich
Richard Schmidt criticized the etatistic and modernistic perspective of the paradigm and tried
to show that the behavior of the subjects could hardly be changed by means of rationalization,
civilization and social disciplination.611 Instead he returned to Peter Blickle’s concept of
communalism in order to approach the paradigm by which he achieved according to Andreas
Holzem, a connection of confessionalization with the main theme of structural history.612
Schmidt emphasized that the implementation of new Christian doctrines as well as
government politics did not depend on the disposition of the state but on the willingness and
personal interests of the people to adopt them.613 In the case of his micro-historical studies
609
Andreas Holzem: Die Konfessionsgesellschaft. Christenleben zwischen staatlichem Bekenntniszwang und
religiöser Heilshoffnung, in: ZKiG, No. 110 (1999), pp. 53-85, p. 63. Heinrich Richard Schmidt:
Sozialdisziplinierung? Ein Plädoyer für das Ende des Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungsforschung, in: HZ,
No. 265 (1997), pp. 639-682, p. 666.
610
Olaf Blaschke: Das 19. Jahrhundert. Ein zweites konfessionelles Zeitalter?, in: GuG, No. 26 (2000), pp. 3875.
611
Cf. Heinrich Richard Schmidt: Dorf und Religion. Reformierte Sittenzucht in Berner Landgemeinden der
Frühen Neuzeit (Quellen und Forschungen zur Agrargeschichte 41), Stuttgart 1995, p. 1.
612
Cf. Ibid., Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungsforschung, pp. 681-2. Holzem, Die Konfessionsgesellschaft,
p. 63.
613
Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, pp. 351-2.
117
concerning the periphery of the city of Bern, Schmidt came to the conclusion that former
achievements of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries diminished in the course of the
eighteenth century because the willingness of the local inhabitants diminished in accepting
them.614 In the end, he summarized that a certain disciplination had taken place but that it was
not the result of state policy but of the subject’s mechanism of self-regulation while the state
only acted in order to support this process through local representatives.615 André Holenstein
came to a slightly different conclusion pointing out that the state was willing to concede a
wide range of self-determination with his subjects but that the sheer presence of the state
authorities in the local communities indicated that it was the state who held the monopoly of
legal interpretation.616
Since Schmidt’s criticism the authors of the confessionalization paradigm have shown their
willingness to integrate micro-historical studies into the paradigm without dismissing it totally
thus contradicting historians such as Martin Dinges who identified the paradigm as solely
etatistic and confutable with superior micro-historical approaches. Instead Schilling
demanded a complementary double-perspective.617 In this he found the support of Thomas
Kaufmann who accused Schmidt of trying to write history without any institutional authority
whatsoever omitting the problem that the source material was always compiled by the
authorities and in consequence history of the common people out of their own perspective
would remain unwritable.618 Considering this debate it is not to be forgotten that the macrohistorical confessionalization paradigm embraced a lot of micro-historical potential and
should not be completely dismissed nor can it be wholly accepted but it can be taken as a
useful additional tool for micro-historical studies.
Similar to Schmidt’s work on Bern, Marc Forster argued that no confessionalizing changes
ever reached the villages of the Bishopric of Speyer and came to the conclusion that “the
Catholic population of the Bishopric of Speyer developed a confessional culture without
being confessionalized.”619 All intentions of the Bishop whom Forster identified as the local
614
Ibid., p. 355.
Ibid., p. 373. Ibid., Etatismus in der Konfessionalisierungsforschung, p. 666.
616
André Holenstein: Kommunikatives Handeln im Umgang mit Policeyordnungen. Die Markgrafschaft Baden
im 18. Jahrhundert, in: Ronald G. Asch/Dagmar Freist (eds.): Staatsbildung als kultureller Prozess.
Strukturwandel und Legitimination von Herrschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit, Köln 205, pp. 191-208, pp. 206-7.
617
Cf. Heinz Schilling: Disziplinierung oder “Selbstregulierung der Untertanen”? Ein Plädoyer für die
Doppelperspektive von Makro- und Mikrohistorie bei der Erforschung der frühmodernen Kirchenzucht, in: HZ,
No. 264 (1997), pp. 675-691, p. 681.
618
Thomas Kaufmann: Die Konfessionalisierung von Kirche und Gesellschaft. Sammelbericht über eine
Forschungsdebatte, in: ThLZ, No. 121 (1996), lines 1008-1025/1112-1121, line 1116.
619
Marc Forster: The Counter-Reformation in the Villages. Religion and Reform in the Bishopric of Speyer
1560-1720, Ithaca 1992, p. 4.
615
118
sovereign, failed because of the resistance of the population but the people developed a form
of communal Catholic identity independent from the state authorities.620 Provocative as his
theory might be Forster showed that confessionalization could work well without the control
of a government which would ultimately recommend disassociating the paradigm from state
building. Both could happen together at the same time and place as happened in Bavaria621
but it did not necessarily have to as Ute Lotz-Heumann discussed in her work on the case of
Ireland which will be be analyzed in more detail later on.622
In recent years new research has emphasized the importance of the local nobility and gentry
and their ambitions in an autonomous confessionalization such as Oliver Becher demonstrated
in the example of the Earldom of Mark where the state authority was low.623 Similar studies
were presented by Thomas Winkelbauer examining the role of the Austrian nobility that acted
as the central promoter of social disciplination and confessionalization and by Martina
Schattkowsky who showed with the example of Saxony that the confessionalization of the
nobility has still not been adequately assessed.624 And Jörg Deventer demonstrated with the
example of the Silesian family of Nortitz how difficult Catholic confessionalization could be
for the nobility in bi-confessional territories where little could be achieved by force but only
by patronage.625 The concept of confessionalization of the nobility created a new approach to
the paradigm limiting the importance of the state without dismissing the influence of the
authorities in general by replacing the early modern state with the landlord.
But, of course, it was not only the authority of the state that could or could not
confessionalize. If state and Church are not viewed as completely united the Church
authorities could promote confessionalization on their own, especially in the periphery where
state authority was weak or not existent. For this a second generation of confessionalized
priests was required who were educated outside their own community in the schooling centers
620
Ibid., p. 185.
Cf. Angelo Turchini: Bayern und Mailand im Zeichen der konfessionellen Bürokratisierung, in: Wolfgang
Reinhard/Heinz Schilling (eds.): Die katholische Konfessionalisierung, Gütersloh 1995, pp. 394-404, pp. 394-5.
622
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 15.
623
Oliver Becher: Landstände und autonome adelige Konfessionalisierung in der Grafschaft Mark, in: WF, No.
53 (2003), pp. 43-70, p. 69.
624
Thomas Winkelbauer: Sozialdisziplinierung und Konfessionalisierung durch Grundherren in den
österreichischen und böhmischen Ländern im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, in: ZHF, No. 19 (1992), pp. 317-339, pp.
324-326. Maria Schattkowsky: Adel und Reformation. Grundherrschaftliches Engagement zur
Konfessionsbildung im ländlichen Raum, in: Winfried Müller (ed.): Perspektiven der Reformationsforschung in
Sachsen. Ehrenkolloquium zum 80. Geburtstag von Karlheinz Blaschke, Dresden 2008, pp. 125-133, p. 125.
625
Jörg Deventer: Adelskonfessionalisierung? Überlegungen zum Rollenspiel katholischer Adelseliten im Milieu
der Bikonfessionalität, in: Gerhard Ammerer/e.a. (eds.): Bündnispatner und Konkurrenten der Landesfürsten?
Die Stände in der Habsburgermonarchie (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische
Geschichtsforschung 49), Wien/München 2007, pp. 442-460, pp. 453-4.
621
119
of their confession, a development that initiated after the end of the Thirty Year’s War
according to Forster.626
When speaking of the interest of the state and the implementation of rules and laws it has to
be reminded that religion was also a question for truth and the confessions were not
comparable institutions as it might appear with the paradigm.627 Thomas Kaufmann
demanded to re-consider the different contents since the success or failure of confession in
certain areas could only be understood when looking at the contents that were promoted and
asked for, which leads to the crucial question: Does speaking of confessions as a
homogeneous structure make sense at all?628 While the Catholic Church was somehow
different Johannes Merz pointed out that the reformed confessions of Lutheranism and
Calvinism were ideal types of more fluent confessional structures.629 Thus the paradigm was
limited to certain approaches while inner-confessional differences could not be included and
exchange-processes between the confessions were not intended. As a result Schindling listed
several aspects that had to be left out when dealing with confessionalization or at least
followed different rules.630 Schindling proposed to dissociate from the paradigm in order to
better judge each case individually.631 Other modern historians have agreed with Schindling’s
argument to re-focus on the daily-life realities of the people. Religion was no longer supposed
to be an ideal uniform construct but a cultural phenomenon with different expressions in
different parts of early modern Europe.632 Von Greyerz assumed that if religion would be
taken not as an ideal standardized type but as a form of life it could be recognized that early
626
Forster, The Counter-Reformation in the Villages, pp. 194-199. The importance of the educated priest and his
special influence on the rural community was also discussed by Freitag, Kirche im Dorf, pp. 112-3.
627
Cf. Reinhard, Konfession und Konfessionalisierung, pp. 176-7. Schilling, Die Konfessionalisierung im Reich,
pp. 20-1. Kaufmann, Kirche und Gesellschaft, lines 1120-1.
628
Ibid.
629
Johannes Merz: Calvinismus im Territorialstaat? Zur Begriffs- und Traditionsbildung in der deutschen
Historiographie, in: ZBLG, No. 57 (1994), pp. 45-68, p. 66.
630
Schindling, Grenzen von Konfessionalisierbarkeit, pp. 29-35. The aspects included imperial law, international
relations and humanistic education although Schindlings arguments have been controversally discussed since by
Martin Heckel: Die katholische Konfessionalisierung im Spiegel des Reichskirchenrechts, in: Wolfgang
Reinhard/Heinz Schilling (eds.): Die katholische Konfessionalisierung, Gütersloh 1995, pp. 184-227, pp. 213-4
and Schilling, Konfessionalisierung und Staatsbildung, pp. 395-6/591-597. Limits of confessionalization and the
restricted significance of the source material has also been discussed by Hartmut Lehmann: Grenzen der
Erklärungskraft der Konfessionalisierungsthese, in: Kaspar von Greyerz/Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen/Thomas
Kaufmann/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): Interkonfessionalität – Transkonfessionalität – binnenkonfessionelle
Pluralität, Heidelberg 2003, pp. 242-250. Taking a look at the society from below Lehmann is the opinion, that
with the diminishing wealth of the common people at the end of the sixteenth century most of them were simply
looking for the promise of salvation and would not distinguish between the doctrines of different confessions.
631
Schindling, Grenzen von Konfessionalisierbarkeit, pp. 40-1.
632
Cf. Kaspar von Greyerz: Religion und Kultur. Europa 1500-1800, Darmstadt 2000, pp. 10-14.
120
modern Europe consisted of a variety of different forms of beliefs that were in many points
contrary to their own ideal doctrine.633
This suggestion was seized by Thomas Kaufmann who composed the keywords of
transconfessionalty, interconfessionalty, and internal confessional plurality that would
amplify the paradigm with the new aspect of plurality between the confessions as well as
amongst themselves. The diversity of early modern religious culture should be contrasted
with
the
functional
political
leading
perspectives.634
According
to
Kaufmann
transconfessional would be those who willingly and knowingly transgressed the borders of
their confession especially including intellectuals that united in the ideas of Humanistic
learning common to all confessions based on the ideals of Thomas of Aquin. The
interconfessional aspect represented the mutual exchange processes that occurred between
individuals or groups of different confessions while internal confessional plurality concerned
all dynamic processes of differentiation within one confessional group.635 All these aspects
question the existence of a homogeneous confession itself while at same time they do not
deny the theoretical existence of such confessions as an ideal.
For the territory of East Frisia, Nicole Grochowina has outlined that different confessional
groups could live intertwined with each other as well as confessionally indifferent people and
that the state of confessions was in no way static but fluent, originating a constantly new
orientation of the faithful.636 The deliberate participation in one individual confession was not
given. In this she was supported by Frauke Volkland’s work on conversions. Volkland argued
that religious conversions were not necessarily an expression of fundamental confessional
convictions but of personal motives depending on the social status and options of the
individual.637
633
Ibid., pp. 67-8.
Thomas Kaufmann: Einleitung: Transkonfessionalität, Interkonfessionalität, binnenkonfessionelle Pluralität –
neue Forschungen zur Konfessionalisierungsthese, in: Kaspar von Greyerz/Manfred JakubowskiTiessen/Thomas Kaufmann/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): Interkonfessionalität – Transkonfessionalität –
binnenkonfessionelle Pluralität. Neue Forschungen zur Konfessionalisierungsthese (Schriften des Vereins für
Reformationsgeschichte 201), Gütersloh 2003, pp. 9-15, p. 13.
635
Ibid., pp. 14-5.
636
Nicole Grochowina: Grenzen der Konfessionalisierung – Dissidententum und konfessionelle Indifferenz im
Ostfriesland des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, in: Kaspar von Greyerz/Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen/Thomas
Kaufmann/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): Interkonfessionalität – Transkonfessionalität – binnenkonfessionelle
Pluralität. Neue Forschungen zur Konfessionalisierungsthese (Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte
201), Gütersloh 2003, pp. 48-72, p. 49.
637
Frauke Volkland: Konfession, Konversion und soziales Drama. Ein Plädoyer für die Auflösung des
Paradigmas der “konfessionellen Identität”, in: Kaspar von Greyerz/Manfred Jakubowski-Tiessen/Thomas
Kaufmann/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): Interkonfessionalität – Transkonfessionalität – binnenkonfessionelle
Pluralität. Neue Forschungen zur Konfessionalisierungsthese (Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte
201), Gütersloh 2003, pp. 91-104, p. 103.
634
121
2. Education and Confessionalization
Common to all the different approaches of confessionalization has been the importance that
was adjudged to the aspect of education. Reinhard and Schilling pointed out that the
confessions as well as the state authorities needed to rely fundamentally on the
implementation of knowledge to promote the new rules, laws, and definitions. To propagate
the central authority of the state by the new media in form of pamphlets and protocols was not
sufficient as long as the subjects were not able to read them.638 Similarly the local
representatives of church and state, above all the parish priest who functioned as a basic
teacher in most cases gained importance and required more elaborate formation. At the time
educational facilities could accelerate one’s own disciplinatory objectives while acting
defensively against intruders of other confessions or authorities and possibly converting
adherents of a neighboring confession.639 As a result Anton Schindling identified an
especially intense educational policy in those areas where different confessions were
immediately confronting each other such as in most German territories or Ireland as well, and
less interest in educational politics where no direct influence of the other confessions had to
be feared such as in Spain.640
Nevertheless, education as well as confessionalization and social disciplination remained
often independent and uncontrollable through the state.641 Willem Frijhoff underlined the
heterogeneous character of early modern education, irrespective of the confessions.642
Education could be intended by the government but, like the government’s law process,
education could not always be applied since the formation of children was always a process of
positively enforced acculturation that aimed at adapting the student to new contents and
structures while at the same time bewaring the existing social order.643 Thus it created a
638
Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe characterizes the teachers as being “at the forefront of the battle for confessional
conformity”. Ibid., Lutheran Schools in Württemberg, p. 286.
639
Lotz-Heumann, Erziehung und Bildung, pp. 129-132.
640
Schindling, Schulen und Universitäten, p. 562. In addition to Schindling’s argument Heinz Schilling
emphasized that education was of special importance to early modern societies where confessional or ethnical
minorities or dissenters from the official orientation were involved. Thus the majority could define through the
framework conditions of the formation process if it wanted to integrate the minority into its own process, if it
wanted to concede it an independent formative organization or if it simply wanted to exclude ‘the other’. Cf.
Heinz Schilling: Einleitung. „Minderheiten“ und „Erziehung“ im Spannungsfeld von Staat und Kirche – zum
Versuch eines deutsch-französischen Gesellschaftsvergleiches, in: Ibid./Marie Antoinette Gross (eds.): Im
Spannungsfeld von Staat und Kirche. „Minderheiten“ und „Erziehung“ im deutsch-französischen
Gesellschaftsvergleich 16.-18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2003, pp. 9-26, p. 15.
641
Stefan Ehrenpreis emphasized that the analytical concept of social disciplination via educational control
needs to be re-assessed. In many cases it obscures the actual processes on local levels more than it illuminates
the general circumstances. Cf. Ehrenpreis, Kulturwirkungen, p. 242.
642
Frijhoff, Seitenwege der Autonomie, p. 26.
643
Ibid., pp. 27-8.
122
tension between the conservative expectations of the common people and the reforming
intentions of the state and the confession.
This difficulty was common to all early modern confessions since they shared the
fundamental intellectual values of Humanism. Rudolf Keck underlined that it would be a
mistake to underestimate the traditions of knowledge that originated long before the
Reformation.644 The humanistic tradition had its origins in the fourteenth century and was
further developed up to the sixteenth century, postulating the rediscovery of the human being.
Formation and education were crucial to this process, enabling the people to act in an
adequate way. Such ideals had been common to intellectuals but not until the Reformation
transpired when the structural circumstances permitted these ideals to be accessible to a wider
audience.645
The question of how effective educational measures really were in the context of
confessionalization has been controversially discussed since Gerald Strauss proposed the
theory that most educational efforts failed, reaching the common people only in a highly
retarded time. The conservative mass of the people was not interested in reforms and could
not be reached by sermons, schools, and/or catechisms. On the contrary, Strauss was of the
opinion that enduring success of the Reformation was only achieved where it was promoted
by massive military engagement in limited territories.646 Kittelson followed Strauss in his
view, claiming that only an already educated humanistic élite was attracted by the reforming
ideas.647 But with the example of the visitation reports from Strasbourg, Kittelson also
showed that educational progresses were achieved, however slowly. After a first wave of
reforms that was generally accepted by the people local teachers and pastors started the slow
but sustainable process of educating the youth in order to create a second generation of a
reformed society that would have internalized those doctrines of which the older generation
could not be totally convinced.648 But, of course, this process had to be continued for several
years and it is most difficult to trace.
Similarly controversial has been the discussion of the “modernity” and “superiority” of
reformed teaching in opposition to Catholic teaching.649 Reinhard was of the opinion that the
644
Keck, Schulgeschichtliche Entwicklungen, p. 14.
Ibid., pp. 16-7.
646
J.M. Kittelson: Successes and Failure in the German Reformation. The Report from Strasbourg, in: Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte, No. 73 (1982), pp. 153-175, p. 154.
647
Ibid., pp. 153-4.
648
Ibid., p. 155.
649
The Weber thesis in its popular version proposes a general coincidence of especially Calvinist penetration in
one area and the simultaneous spreading of a reading culture. As Willem Frijhoff pointed out this coincidence
645
123
reformed churches did keep a certain advance on the field of alphabetization but that a final
conclusion would be difficult since the Reformation prevailed largely in those areas that had
already enjoyed a higher level of education so that the respective improvements were difficult
to compare.650 Certainly the Catholic educating movement did not start until the Tridentine
reforms were enacted but it soon gained ground, especially because of the Jesuit order that
expanded immensely during the second half of the sixteenth century. Their success was
primarily based on the combination of traditional humanistic contents and modern
pedagogical approaches. They considered the student to be an independent individual and
intended not to teach only separate elements but to form the complete human being as the
humanistic ideal recommended. This teaching tradition implicated a high degree of mobility
and equality that soon became attractive not only to Catholics.651
As a result, confessional education remained a process of interconfessional communication as
well as transconfessional values. The Erasmian ideal of a via media was discussed in
intellectual circles of both Catholics and Protestants and the traditions of medieval mysticism
and popular piety were relevant aspects common to all larger confessions.652 Stefan
Ehrenpreis indicated three problematic areas when researching education, especially reformed
education in his case. First of all, in accordance with the paradigm and the social
disciplination, the intention of the authority to educate did not necessarily imply that changes
actually happened. While the interest of the church was mainly a broad mediation of basic
doctrines corresponding to the respective confession, the interest of the state was primarily the
formation of an élite that would be able to diffuse the central control through the state so that
in many cases the mostly state-financed education remained a local phenomenon. Secondly,
the competition of confessions, especially in bordering areas, allowed choosing between
different types of schools depending on what was required and offered. This educational
mobility weakened the state’s ambition for an education monopoly and made the central
control of teaching contents even more difficult. And thirdly, Ehrenpreis remarked that the
comparative research of education would need to focus much more on the small changes in
didactics and pedagogy such as music and theatre which would probably have had a higher
can actually not be denied but he poses the question if the coincidence was a logical causal relation and if it was
so, if it has sufficient explanatory power. Frijhoff, Northern Netherlands, pp. 252-3.
650
Reinhard, Zwang zur Konfessionalisierung, pp. 236-7.
651
Ibid., pp. 241-2.
652
Schindling, Grenzen von Konfessionalisierbarkeit, pp. 13-4.
124
influence in the success of teaching and the choosing of schools as opposed to state policy or
confession.653
3. Ireland and the Paradigm
The confessionalization paradigm has commonly been discussed for the German territories
although references to other countries have been made and the paradigm should be applicable
to the whole of early modern Europe. Parallel to the German controversies the Reformation in
England and Ireland has been questioned for several past decades. The question for the
success and failure of the English Reformation as Christopher Haigh put it is of elementary
importance for the following research on Restoration Ireland.
Although the final success of the Reformation in England cannot be doubted, Haigh outlined
that many Catholic elements remained in the popular Protestant belief. In this he contradicted
John Bossy who declared that the English Catholicism had already been extinguished in 1534
and had been replaced by a reformed Catholicism from the continent since 1570.654 According
to Haigh it would be wrong to see the Reformation in England as an abrupt and radical
change rather than a slow and complex process. Older historians would have believed too
much in the sources left mainly by the Jesuits who wanted to exaggerate their influence on
English Catholicism.655 Moreover it had to be admitted that the triumphant success of English
Protestantism was indeed only the minimum standard considering the little progress that was
achieved in educating the common people thus transmitting the new confessional doctrines.656
In this Haigh relied on the analyses made by English contemporaries. In 1602 Josias Nichols
realized that among 400 communicants in Kent only one of ten disposed of sufficient
confessional knowledge.657 Little surprise came with these results. In 1576 Archbishop
Grindal already visitated 250 parishes in Gloucester and summarized that in 84 of them there
were usually no sermons to be heard, in 72 parishes no catechism was taught, and in further
28 parishes there were classes but the parents refused to have their children attend. Only in
653
Ehrenpreis, Erziehungs- und Schulwesen, pp. 28-33.
Christopher Haigh: The Continuity of Catholicism in the English Reformation, in: Past and Present, No. 93
(Nov. 1981), pp. 37-69, pp. 37-8.
655
Ibid., pp. 39-40.
656
Ibid.: Success and Failure in the English Reformation, in: Past and Present, No. 173 (Nov. 2001), pp. 28-49,
pp. 30-1. According to Luc Racault the final success of the Elizabethan settlement was primarily valid for a
political and ecclesiastical minority that aimed at advancing themselves. Racault agrees with Haigh in that the
majority of the population remained in some grey area between traditional Catholicism and moderate
Anglicanism that was not essentially different to inner-Catholic reform tendencies on the continent such as in
Gallican France: Cf. Luc Racault: Anglicanism and Gallicanism: Between Rome and Geneva?, in: Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte, No. 96 (2005), pp. 198-220, p. 219.
657
Ibid., p. 31.
654
125
two parishes was the Archbishop satisfied with the quantity and quality of the teaching.658
Similar results came up from Chichester in 1579. In 58 of the 135 churches it was preached
only quarterly, in 46 churches even less frequent, and in 23 churches it was not preached at
all. The implementation of laws relating to education was equally disastrous. Only 23 of the
parishes sent any response at all and 13 of them only stated that there was simply no
teaching.659
These results have also been discussed by Strauss and Parker who tried to determine how
much of the reformed doctrines ever reached the common people. While Strauss was of the
opinion that most of the reformatory doctrines found little acceptance with the population,
Christopher Haigh proposed the theory that the research results produced by the bishops
should not be taken too seriously. Most likely the visitators in their reforming ambition had
too high of expectations mis-judging the advancements that were actually achieved. On the
contrary, they were determined to point out the negative aspects but never mentioned
anything positive.660 In fact, the biggest problem for the promotion of the Reformation was
the low literacy level of the majority of the population. To change this an enormous amount
of capable teachers was required but not at hand in the early decades of the Reformation
process. Parker pointed out that the profession of parish priest simply became unprofitable to
many former aspirants since many privileges were abolished and taxes had to be paid. He
estimated that of the approximate 9000 parish positions in England only 600 offered an easy
subsistence so that many were left vacant for several decades.661
In accordance with Kittelson, Haigh came to the conclusion that the level of confessional
education had improved significantly by the first half of the seventeenth century although this
was still not sufficient in the eyes of many clerics.662 The authority of the local parish priest
and schoolmaster increased because more of them had received a better substantiated
formation themselves. The élite returned to the periphery and was accepted by the majority
although a central disciplination through the state was still lacking in many parts as Heinrich
Richard Schmidt and Robert von Friedeburg showed in their analyses.663
But the main concern here shall be the confessional development in Ireland, one of the
countries identified by Schilling as those where nation and state became increasingly
658
Ibid., p. 35.
Ibid., pp. 37-8.
660
Geoffrey Parker: Success and Failure during the First Century of the Reformation, in: Past and Present, No.
136 (1992), pp. 43-82, pp. 46-7.
661
Ibid., pp. 54-5.
662
Haigh, Success and Failure, p. 47.
663
Schmidt, Dorf und Religion, p. 374.
659
126
contradictory in the course of the early modern period, developing in assignment towards
each other.664 Ute Lotz-Heumann agreed with Schilling speaking of a double
confessionalization that generated two completely independent and separated confessional
groups.
These approaches share a common view of a radical confessional process based on the
assumption that the confessionalizing politics were explicitly applied in areas where
confessional borders were to be found. Schools and qualified personnel needed to be
established there in order to fortify the adherents of one’s own confession and to attract
potential converts of the other. Anton Schindling on the other hand pointed out that especially
in the poorer rural areas Protestantism had a much more difficult standing since Catholicism
seems to have been more acceptable to the common people whose beliefs were dominated by
local traditions and superstition that were contradictory to the new doctrines.665 The following
chapters will review if one or more of these assumptions are congruent with the situation in
Ireland.
Education was identified by Reinhard as one of the central elements in the process of
confessionalization, although he admitted, that without the participation of the local
population no restructuring of the educational infrastructure could have been successful and
the question had to be asked what financial and structural means were available to any
government that aimed at a new confessional education.666 Basically the starting position for
the Irish government should have been the same as in England. Since the Church of Ireland
and the government lay in the same hands it could have been assumed that a quick progress
could have been achieved if it was the government’s intention. But the Reformation in Ireland
as well as its promotion through education was not as successful as in England, although this
leaves out the question outlined above if the English Reformation could be called successful
during the sixteenth century. Brendan Bradshaw and Nicholas Canny started the discussion
about the successful or failed implementation of Protestantism in Ireland in the late 1970s.667
664
Heinz Schilling: Die Konfessionalisierung von Kirche, Staat und Gesellschaft – Profil, Leistung, Defizite und
Perspektiven eines geschichtswissenschaftlichen Paradigmas, in: Ibid./Wolfgang Reinhard (eds.): Die
katholische Konfessionalisierung, Gütersloh 1995, pp. 1-49, p. 12.
665
Schindling, Grenzen von Konfessionalisierbarkeit, pp. 28-9.
666
Wolfgang Reinhard: Was ist katholische Konfessionalisierung?, in: Ibid./Heinz Schilling (eds.): Die
katholische Konfessionalisierung, Gütersloh 1995, pp. 419-452, pp. 429-431.
667
Although the question if and how the Reformation failed in Ireland is not the main concern of the present
work it needs to be mentioned that the discussion is still going on. An interesting approach of international
comparison with a helpful summary of the previous discourse has been followed by Ute Lotz-Heumann and Karl
Bottigheimer. Cf. Ibid.: The Irish Reformation in European Perspective, in: Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte,
No. 89 (1998), pp. 268-309. The most fundamental works on the question are certainly Nicholas Canny, Why
the Reformation failed in Ireland, Brendan Bradshaw: Sword, word and strategy in the Reformation in Ireland,
127
Bradshaw argued that it had been a mistake of earlier historians focusing too much on the
inner-English debates since the Reformation in Ireland was fundamentally an independent
process that had to face completely different circumstances. Radical reformers such as Adam
Loftus actually received comparatively little attention and their proposed strategies should not
be taken as the major excuse for the failed Irish Reformation.668 Similarly it was always
attributed a certain tendency for brutality to the Irish reformers who wanted to implement the
Reformation with the sword. Bradshaw was of the opinion that on all sides of the discussion
there were the same peaceful and politically moderate views as in every other country of the
Reformation, apart from the radicals and it would be wrong to explain their failure with the
brutality for anachronistic reasons.669
In general Bradshaw identified two groups of reformers that differed in their methods as well
as their targets. While one position demanded to attain religious discipline by force in order to
posteriorly create internal conviction, the other direction preferred to achieve inner
conformity first which would automatically create outward discipline in consequence.670
These debates were limited to a small group of intellectuals since the source material coming
from public sermons like in England were very scarce. It would seem as if the mass of the
faithful had little or no participation in this controversy.671 Different to England the plans of
the reformers soon met with difficulties even among the English controlled part of Ireland
where the lower clergy as well as lay lawyers opposed the intervention of the state.672 The
process gained vitality only when Adam Loftus became new Archbishop of Armagh in 1563.
Loftus was a supporter of the party that preferred disciplination above persuasion being of the
opinion that sermons were not sufficient to convert the people that were not willing to hear.
First of all the population would have to be forced to listen before confronting them with the
content.673 Nevertheless, Bradshaw emphasized in his analysis that there were different
groups of support for the disciplination policy. Adam Loftus as well as Edmund Spenser
supported the idea of disciplination but demanded the conversion of the Irish with as little
violence as possible. Others such as Richard Bingham and Barnaby Rich would have
preferred the permanent application of force to achieve conversion at every cost.674
in: Historical Journal, No. 21 (1978), pp. 475-502, and Karl Bottigheimer: The Failure of the Reformation in
Ireland. Une Question Bien Posée, in: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 36, No. 2 (1985), pp. 196-207.
668
Bradshaw, Sword, word and strategy, pp. 475-6.
669
Ibid., p. 476.
670
Ibid., pp. 476-7.
671
Ibid., pp. 477-8.
672
Ibid., p. 478.
673
Ibid., pp. 480-1.
674
Ibid., pp. 483-4.
128
On the other hand, those who adhered to the concept of persuasion followed a threefold
strategy. First of all conversion should be achieved by direct sermons and the instruction of
the catechism. Secondly general education should be amplified to broaden the understanding
of the scripture and thirdly the Church of Ireland should make use of Irish-speaking preachers
to translate the prayers, the catechism, and the liturgical texts.675 But these differences
outlined were not as fundamental as it might seem. Most of the reformers of both parties were
convinced of the importance of education, only they differed on when to bring in more
teachers. Loftus would have preferred a larger scheme, waiting until he disposed of the means
to guarantee access to education to the majority of the population.676 In the end these
discussions consumed too much time, especially when it came to education. It took the
reformers until 1571 to pass the Act for the erection of diocesan free schools and this only
occurred thanks to the personal initiative of a few bishops – not because of a general strategy
of the Church of Ireland.677
Nicholas Canny agreed in his starting point with Bradshaw that it had always been presumed
that a reformatory movement had come to Ireland as it did to England.678 From the start Irish
reform was considered to be the intention of a colonizing power to bring its own confession to
the island. These ambitions failed naturally because of the heroic resistance of the Catholic
population which consequently gave way to the repressive enactments of the penal laws thus
paving the road for the suppression of the Irish people by a foreign power.679 This
nationalistic approach accepted the determined failure of the Irish Reformation for too long
and was sure that the English Protestant intervention had been defeated as early as 1556. Such
an interpretation left out most of the reform process under Elizabeth I and did not do justice to
a process that did not end until the end of the seventeenth century, regardless of its success.680
Pursuing Bradshaw’s argument Canny showed that the élitist group of reformers of the 1530s
and 40s in Ireland was isolated after the short reign of Queen Mary and was mostly reintegrated into Catholic reform movements before a second group of Protestant reformers
under Elizabeth was established.681 The different reform influences created a mixed
confessional culture that did not abruptly fail in the 1550s but survived well into the 1590s
when Protestant services and Catholic beliefs were often times combined. Protestant clerics
675
Ibid., pp. 584-5.
Ibid., pp. 485-6.
677
Ibid., p. 501.
678
Canny, Why the Reformation failed in Ireland, pp. 423-4.
679
Ibid., p. 424.
680
Ibid., pp. 424-5.
681
Ibid., p. 426.
676
129
who were not allowed to perform Catholic ceremonies employed Catholics to perform them
in their stead and it would be wrong to assume that the majority of the population had by then
already turned over to a Catholic church in a reformed Tridentine way. Instead, the Church of
Ireland still had every opportunity to win them over.682
Contrary to Bradshaw’s interpretation, the division among the Protestant clergy was not as
radical according to Canny. When it came to education and preaching in the Irish language
both parties were mostly of the same opinion. By 1573 enough money was raised to acquire
300 catechisms in the Irish language and to establish an Irish University, it was just not clear
of what land the newly established college should subsist.683 If all these efforts were to be
seen, the question of why the Reformation failed in Ireland became even more complex. For
Canny it was not the lacking activities of the Irish reformers but the insufficient interest in
London to support their reforms that was to blame. The Irish Church and government had the
means for repressive actions against Catholics but were unable to provide for the beneficial
aspects of Protestantism, most of all on the teaching sector.684 Ute Lotz-Heumann supported
Canny’s argument in her work on the double confessionalization of Ireland. Since the 1560s
the lack of education and the need for more schools in order to implement the Reformation
was generally accepted by most of the reformers. Adam Loftus admitted in a letter to Sir
William Cecil in 1565 that “the want of a common place of learninge in this rude and ignorant
country (...) hathe browght a generall disordre in this and, so the hauinge, will bringe godly
quieatnes withe good ordre.”685 Loftus was definitely of the more radical party but in the
question of education he was of the same opinion as a moderate reformer such as James
Stanihurst. The latter’s closing speech of the 1569-71 parliament became a manifest of
educational policy in early modern Ireland:
“Suerlye, might one generation sip a little of this liquor, and so be enduced to longe for more,
both owre cuntrymen that live obeysante woulde ensue with a corage the fruites of peace,
wherby good learning is supported, and owre unquiett neighbores would finde such swetnes
in the taste therof as it should be a readie waye to recaime them. In mine owne experience, I
am hable to saie that our realme is at this daie in halfe deale more civill then it was, since
noble and worshipfull and other of habilitye have been used to sende their sonnes into
Englande to the lawe, to universities, or to schools. Nowe when the same schools shall be
brought home to their doares that all that will maie repaier unto them, I doubte not, this will
682
Ibid., pp. 433-4.
Ibid., pp. 435-6.
684
Ibid., pp. 436-7.
685
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 319. Adam Loftus to Sir William Cecil, 8th Oct. 1565,
in: Evelyn Philip Shirley (ed.): Original Letters of the History of the Church in Ireland, London 1851, pp. 225-6.
683
130
forster a yonge frie likelie to prove good members of this commonwealth and desirous to
trade their childrein the same weye. Neither weare it a small helpe to the assurance of the
Crowne of Englande when babes from their cradells should be enured under learned
schoolemasters with a pure Englishe tonge, habite, fashion, discipline (…).”686
Education was considered a crucial element not only for the promotion of the reformed
confession, but also as a means for acculturation and Anglicization of the old Irish population,
its main task being to teach the English language.687 However, even though the Irish
reformers could agree on the importance of education and their wish to be successful in the
whole of Ireland and not just the English controlled parts of the island, they still did not
dispose of the necessary finances. Consequently an official Protestant Irish Church developed
in the seventeenth century that lacked all necessary support from England. This was partly
due to the fact that the Protestant English reformers had come to the conclusion that
widespread teaching could be dangerous as well. Using the example of the English
Reformation, Jean-Francois Gilmont demonstrated how eager the Protestant reformers were
to limit the access to the written word. The lecture of the Bible was the essential aspect of the
reformed church but the capacity to read the Bible at home made the institution of the Church
consequently superfluous. But a superfluous church limited the disciplining capacities of the
state. In England the lecture of the Bible was therefore restricted to three groups. While
women, servants, and peasants were not allowed to read it at all, citizens and noble women
were permitted to read the Bible privately. Only the nobility was allowed to read the Bible in
public. This explained the main educational focus on the élite that would afterwards be
allowed to spread the word themselves. Such a confessionalization ‘from above’ also explains
the little emphasis put on the education of the Catholic Irish after the Reformation. Politically
the state had little interest in a popular reform movement promoted by lettered former
Catholics that were supposedly politically uncontrollable.688
Nonetheless, Canny denied a triumph of the Tridentine reformed Catholic Church as well.
The majority of the population remained indifferent towards confession preserving a
traditional kind of popular belief that would have been able to accommodate itself with both
confessions if necessary.689 Since the beginnings of this controversy a variety of historians
has been working on the Irish Reformation, further developing the theories of Bradshaw and
686
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 319. Cf. Campion, Two Bokes, p. 144.
Ibid., pp. 326-7.
688
Jean-Francois Gilmont: Die Protestantische Reformation und das Lesen, in: Roger Chartier/Guglielmo
Cavallo (eds.): Die Welt des Lesens, Frankfurt a.M./New York/Paris 1999, pp. 313-349, pp. 323-330.
689
Canny, Why the Reformation failed in Ireland, pp. 448-450.
687
131
Canny. Aidan Clarke dedicated much of his work to the question of what happened during the
first century of the Church of Ireland that turned from an inclusive structure to an exclusive
one, leaving out the majority of the Irish population and embracing only a privileged
minority. Following Canny’s approach he described the weakness of Protestantism and the
strengthening of Catholicism in this period as reciprocal conditions but not as the mutual
reason.690 According to Clarke, the main problem for the reform process was that the
implementation of Church reform by law was largely impossible in Ireland; three quarters of
the dioceses lay in territories where the English state held no monopoly of power. Clarke
divided the country in three zones of Reformation. In the first and most distanced zone the
state would not even require the oaths of supremacy and uniformity. Since he had no power to
enforce the Reformation he could only rely on the hope that some of the clerics acted in
accordance with the law. In the second zone the oath of supremacy was required but no actual
liturgical changes were expected. For example the Archbishop of Tuam still followed the old
liturgy and no one was able or willing to restrain him from it. It was only in the third zone
which was mostly situated in the dioceses of Dublin, Meath, and Kildare, that the new laws
could actually be implemented and the basic belief of the people could be changed.691
Clarke disagreed with the argument that the internal divisions amongst the Irish reformers
were mostly responsible for the failure of the Church of Ireland, though it certainly delayed it.
But the controversy only considered how to dispose of means that were nonexistent.692 Most
of all, the Church of Ireland lacked the adequate personnel. Until the establishment of Trinity
College, Dublin reformed clerics had to be recruited in England and the Irish posts outside the
Pale were not very attractive to highly qualified preachers who rarely spoke any Irish. Even
after Trinity College had been established its output of clergy was never enough, although
normally half of the alumni chose a clerical career. An investigation in 1622 revealed that of
the 2492 Irish parishes only 380 disposed of a certified preacher of the Church of Ireland and
the vast majority of them had their parishes in the better financed dioceses of the Pale. The
rest of the territory was left to uneducated and unapproved preachers who, of course, would
do little to promote the reformed confession.693
This comparative liberty for Catholic confessionalization in Ireland was not limited until the
first half of the seventeenth century. The Nine Year’s War changed the political landscape of
Ireland and tightened the governmental grip of many territories that had been nearly
690
Clarke, Varieties of Uniformity, pp. 105-6.
Ibid., pp. 109-10.
692
Ibid., p. 111.
693
Ibid., p. 118.
691
132
impenetrable for the Protestant authorities in the years prior. This allowed a more aggressive
proceeding against Catholic priests, especially the Jesuits that settled Ireland in the second
half of the sixteenth century.694 Additionally, the 1613-15 parliament passed a more severe
legislation against Catholics similar to what already existed in England and the oath of
supremacy was required of all members of Parliament.695
But such measures came too late for their confessionalizing purpose as Lotz-Heumann and
Helga Hammerstein emphasized. The state authorities did not manage to establish a Protestant
school system that could have extended into the old Irish territories. The only schools that
existed were built to supply new English settlers with education in the cities along the Eastern
coast which increased the effects of the double confessionalization.696 This process was
described by Ute Lotz-Heumann in order to integrate the Irish situation into the
confessionalization paradigm. The early failure of the Reformation in Ireland soon produced a
Protestant church that had no further interest in converting but wanted to secure and define its
own Irish position. This created a situation of co-existence with two separated exclusivist
confessional groups that developed without the interconfessional or transconfessional
elements described by Kaufmann.697 Lotz-Heumann defined the lack of Protestant educational
initiative since the Reformation as the basis for these isolated processes. Since the 1560s a
second generation of potential Protestants returned to the confession of their grandparents
because they expected no personal benefit from the Church of Ireland.698 Colm Lennon
explained that the radical anti-Protestantism that developed in the first half of the seventeenth
century seemed more prospective to many in order to sustain or to regain their property.699
Similar to Clarke, Lotz-Heumann agreed that these second and third post-Reformation
generations could have been convinced to join Protestant side had there been an adequate
supply with schools. Instead, the originally hostile ethnic groups of old English and old Irish
joined in their confessional identity and isolation until they finally allied on a political level
after the rebellion of 1641.700
The adherence to Catholicism was eased by the continued presence of Catholic teachers who
did little to hide their confessional identity and were openly supported by the local authorities.
694
Colm Lennon: The Counter-Reformation in Ireland, 1542-1641, in: C. Brady/Raymond Gillespie (eds.):
Natives and Newcomers. Essays on the Making of Irish Colonial Society, 1534-1641, Dublin 1986, pp. 107-114,
pp. 87-8.
695
Ibid., p. 89.
696
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, pp. 320, 334.
697
Ibid., pp. 15-6.
698
Ibid., p. 330.
699
Lennon, The Counter-Reformation in Ireland, pp. 77-8.
700
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 331.
133
As an example, the mayor of Waterford denied the Protestant schoolmaster, John Shearman,
the payment in 1585 and in 1596 the Protestant Bishop of Cork realized that the new English
grammar books were used by the Catholic teacher in town, but the students had removed the
pages where Elizabeth I was denominated as head of the Church.701
While the Irish Church reformers were internally divided, the reform of the Catholic Church
was achieved rather quickly, at least officially. The Tridentinum was formally accepted on the
provincial synod of Armagh in 1568 and proclaimed for a second time at the synod of
Clogher in 1587. But the announced reforms were usually not applicable given the
underground status of the church hierarchy. According to Lotz-Heumann the Tridentine
reforms were not actually observed until the provincial synods of Armagh and Dublin in
1614.702
Because of the huge lay influence on the Catholic Church in Ireland, the realization of the
reforms remained a delayed process. The clergy relied on the financial support of relatives
and friends which made them subject to their personal interests. Additionally, the regular
clergy disliked the establishment of parochial and episcopal structures that disputed their
influence over the faithful.703 For Lotz-Heumann the antipathy against the old Irish was a
common feature shared by old English and new English alike. Both saw the necessity of a
second Christianization only starting from different confessions.704
The state of Irish Catholicism before the Reformation, however, is still controversial. John
Bossy characterized the whole Irish Catholic society at the eve of the Reformation as a highly
clan-based, traditional community where the implementation of new rules and structures was
very difficult.705 In conclusion Lotz-Heumann tried to amplify the narrow perspective of the
confessionalization paradigm along the example of Ireland. The confessionalization ‘from
above’ was combined with a movement ‘from below’ that developed considerable dynamics
and frustrated the attempts of the Irish reformers.706 Along with Bradshaw, Canny and Clarke,
she outlined that the English and Irish Reformation processes were parallel movements and
701
Ibid., p. 332. Cork an Lord Hunsdon, 6th July 1596, in: Ernest George Atkinson (ed.): Calendar of State
Papers relating to Ireland, 1596, July – 1597, December, reprinted Nendeln 1974, pp. 13-20.
702
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, pp. 381-2. Compare the decrees of the provincial synod
at Armagh, 1614, in: Daniel McCarthy (ed.): Collections on Irish Church History by Laurence Renehan, Dublin
1861, pp. 116-146.
703
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, pp. 389-391.
704
Ibid., pp. 393-406.
705
John Bossy: The Counter-Reformation and the People of Catholic Ireland, 1596-1641, in: Historical Studies.
Papers read before the Irish Conference of Historians 8, Dublin 1969, pp. 155-170.
706
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, p. 9.
134
no successive developments as the confessionalization paradigm already demonstrated for the
German territories.707
The Irish case was in many respects different since theoretically the central combination of
state and church could reach a higher level of social disciplination, but the contrary was the
case. The majority of the Irish population remained Catholic which indicates Protestant
disinterest in reform as well as a continuous presence of promoters of the Catholic confession.
The fact that the Catholic Church was not able to confessionalize Ireland was based on the
deep internal divisions between secular and regular clergy as well as old Irish and old English
identities. Education was a key aspect of confessionalization and disciplination but it was
never wholly implemented by the Church of Ireland, due to the lack of funding and personnel.
On the other hand a number of underground Catholic schools soon flourished and fulfilled a
task for which the government had no means. In the end, Lotz-Heumann identified a situation
of double confessionalization where each confession retained sufficient power to control their
own adherents but not enough to intrude in the spheres of the opponent. While the state was
still limited in its central influence and dependent on the willingness of its subjects, the
Catholic confessionalization ‘from below’ was too heterogeneous in its intentions and
approaches to consolidate its power.708
Along the example of Catholic education the following chapters will analyze the state of
confessionalization and social disciplination in Restoration Ireland. It will be aimed using
Lotz-Heumann’s parallel approach ‘from above’ as well as ‘from below’. First the grand
designs of the king, the Irish government, and the Church of Ireland will be reviewed for this
time period in order to point out the powers and interests that were attempted to be imposed
on the subjects. In a second step the local implication of these powers and interests will be
considered and juxtaposed with the communal circumstances of early modern Irish life.
707
708
Ibid., pp. 10-1.
Ibid., Erziehung und Bildung, pp. 133-135.
135
VI. The Crown and Education
1. State, King and Government, 1660-1685
The confessional situation in Ireland depended on a variety of factors both external and
internal. Confessional politics might have been completely different if the Irish government
had to consider only the Irish aspects of their decisions. But since the king of Ireland was also
king of England the confessional ambitions in Ireland and the political circumstances in
England had become intertwined, especially since the 1641 rebellion. In the following chapter
the most important political themes that influenced confessional policy in Ireland will be
reviewed in order to classify English influence in Ireland in contrast to the local Irish
authorities.
The seventeenth century witnessed a shift in the English political discourse and the
assessment of Stuart government. The European developments and the English civil war led
to an equalization regarding the content of the terms ‘absolute’ and ‘arbitrary’ during the
1640s and generated a public fear for the idea of an ‘absolute monarchy’ especially amongst
the Protestants. Contrary to the early Stuart reign where obedience to an ‘absolute monarch’
was required of every honest subject, the restored Stuarts faced a public concept of ‘absolute
monarchy’ that was synonymous with popish, French, and arbitrary.709
John Miller
summarizes that according to the Whig interpretation “Catholicism was morally, intellectually
and politically inferior to Protestantism, which was as inseparable from political and religious
freedom as Catholicism was inseparable from tyranny and subjection.”710 Such changes
implied not only criticism in a specific political context but questioned the rightfulness of
royal authority implying the right of the subject to oppose one’s own monarch if he trespassed
the limits of his power.711 Not even staunch royalists refused the change of terminology
during the 1640s but developed a divided definition of absolutism, promoted chiefly by Henry
Ferne, later Bishop of Chester. According to Ferne the power of the English monarch was
absolute in relation to his title and resistance against this power was unlawful. But he agreed
with the negative connotation of the word ‘absolute’ which came to imply an arbitrary
government that would be unjust. It was the first task of the English monarch to prevent such
709
Glenn Burgess: Absolute monarchy and the Stuart constitution, New Haven 1996, p. 213. James Daly: The
Idea of Absolute Monarchy in Seventeenth-Century England, in: Historical Journal, No. 21 (1978), pp. 227-250,
pp. 234-5.
710
John Miller: After the Civil Wars. English Politics and Government in the Reign of Charles II, Harlow 2000,
p. 116.
711
Daly, The Idea of Absolute Monarchy, p. 235.
136
a situation from occurring even if this meant that he would deliberately renounce some of the
powers that were lawfully his.712
The Restoration of Charles II encouraged those who refused the coincidence of ‘absolute’ and
‘arbitrary’. The English monarchy was absolute but not despotically arbitrary. In 1660 Robert
Sheringham declared in his work The King’s Supremacy Asserted that the characteristic of an
arbitrary government was that it did not respect the law. But since the absolutist king of
England was totally subdued to the laws, the fear for arbitrariness was unfounded. In
conclusion the power of the English monarchy was absolute but the exercise of its power was
limited by laws and parliament and thus not arbitrary.713 Charles had been restored to the
throne without any preconditions by parliament but he was expected to act in a settled
parameter. The first such parameter was established by the 1660 Convention and
substantiated by the Cavalier Parliament in 1661. Generally the assemblies returned to the
constitution of 1641, parliament renounced its right to appoint the king’s advisors and the
monarch once again became supreme commander of the army. Parliament thus resigned from
the executive functions it had assumed during the 1640s which officially made the king head
of state again. Nevertheless, some rights were refused to the king such as his demand for a
larger standing army or an augmentation of the personal income that was granted to him by
parliament. The question of the personal income of the monarch turned out to be of crucial
importance for the question of absolute power when Charles became increasingly financially
independent during the last years of his reign thus escaping the direct control through
parliament.714 The evaluation of the absoluteness of the government of Charles II is still
controversial and will not be central to this work.715 Theoretically, he disposed of the
necessary basis for an authoritarian government following continental ideals. After the Militia
Act (1661) he even had his own small standing army. But the fact that he made so little use of
712
Daly, The Idea of Absolute Monarchy, pp. 239-241.
Ibid., pp. 241-2.
714
John Miller: Bourbon and Stuart: kings and kingship in France and England in the 17th century, London
1987, pp. 184-5. Tim Harris outlined the rhetorical combination of absolutism and economic disaster. In the eyes
of his contemporaries absolute and arbitrary power could only be exerted by a large standing army. Such an
army posed an enormous financial burden on everyone and thus contradicted the English perception of liberty
and property. Tim Harris: “Lives, Liberties and Estates”: Rhetorics of Liberty in the Reign of Charles II, in:
Mark Goldie/Tim Harris/Paul Seaward (eds.): The Politics of Religion in Restoration England, Oxford 1990, pp.
217-241, pp. 219-222.
715
Gary de Krey argues that Charles as representative of the Episcopalian Church was seen characterized by
contemporary Dissenters as only one form of diocesan episcopacy that reached its apex in the Roman Catholic
Church thus producing an ‘unchristian tyranny and arbitrary government in church and state alike: Gary de Krey:
Restoration and Revolution in Britain. A Political History of the Era of Charles II and the Glorious Revolution,
New York 2007, p. 81. Cf. Tim Harris: Restoration. Charles II and his Kingdoms, 1660-1685, London 2005, pp.
85-135. Miller, After the Civil Wars, pp. 118-123/200-202. A striking summary of the contemporary thought
relating to ‘absolutism’ is given by Mark Goldie: Restoration Political Thought, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The
Reigns of Charles II and James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 12-36.
713
137
his theoretical power suggests that he was continuously afraid of the consequences that could
be beyond his control. Additionally he lacked the ministers and advisors that were ruthless
enough to support an authoritarian policy, except for the time periods between 1667-72 and
1683-85.716
While a detailed evaluation of the concept of power of Charles II cannot be made here, it will
be of importance to outline the tightrope walk of English and Irish royal authority in the
Restoration period in order to be able to classify any disciplinatory or confessionalizing
approaches of the crown in Ireland. The popular fear of ‘absolute’ governance by the king
surely limited the monarch’s chances to intervene directly in Irish confessional politics which
made the local aspects of toleration and cohabitation even more important as suggested by the
confessionalization paradigm.717 Irish confessional politics could have turned out differently
and this became apparent in the short phases where the king actually attempted to make use of
his theoretically absolute power trying to exert a confessional policy immediately ‘from
above’.
The first and most revealing phase of Charles’ ‘absolute rule’ culminated in the Declaration of
Indulgence from 15th
March 1672 posing an elementary problem of conscience for
parliament.718 It came along with the king’s alliance with France which was identified by
most of his contemporaries as the most threatening absolutist power in Europe. Moreover,
Charles envisaged joining Catholic France in a war against the Protestant United Provinces.
Charles’ intention may have been to appease the Dissenters amongst the parliamentarians who
obtained exactly what they had asked for by the Declaration. However the price for it was that
they had to tolerate the fact that the king claimed for himself the right to abolish the previous
confessional laws thus putting his own authority above parliament’s.719 At no other point of
716
J.P. Kenyon (ed.): The Stuart Constitution, Cambridge 1986, p. 360.
The etatistic approach in the confessionalization paradigm was criticized by a variety of historians. See for
example Freitag, Missverständnis eines Konzeptes, pp. 530-538 and Schmidt, Etatismus in der
Konfessionalisierungsforschung, p. 1.
718
According to de Krey the Indulgence was promoted by Charles in order to appease the dissenting population
in face of the upcoming treaty with France. Most penal laws against Dissenters and Roman Catholic passed by
parliament were suspended. While Dissenting clergy was allowed to register their congregations for worship
Catholics were at least allowed to worship in private. Ronald Hutton emphasized on the other hand, that the
Indulgence policy with regards to Irish Catholics was still extremely reserved. De Krey, Restoration and
Revolution, p. 92. Ronald Hutton: The Triple-Crowned Islands, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The Reigns of Charles
II and James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 71-90, p. 82. Catholics were further allowed to buy or lease property in
corporate towns, admitted as freemen or restored to the privileges and freedoms of their ancestors: Harris,
Restoration, pp. 100-1.
719
Douglas R. Lacey: Dissent and parliamentary politics in England, 1661-1689: a study in the perpetuation and
tempering of parliamentarianism, New Brunswick 1969, pp. 67-8. Miller, Bourbon and Stuart, pp. 203-4.
Despite the common criticism concerning king’s prerogative among the parliamentarians, English Dissenters did
make use of the liberties granted by it. Around 1500 licenses for ministers and meeting places were issued within
717
138
the Restoration period, the question for the absolute power of the king and his right to
interfere with confessional politics became more controversial. The king’s position was
additionally weakened by the upcoming rumors that his brother and heir, the Duke of York,
had converted to Catholicism. The perspective of an alliance with absolutist France and a
future Catholic king of England was too much to accept in the end.720 The terms of
Catholicism and absolutism as well as arbitrariness became even more synonymous than they
had before which was of crucial importance for the confessional situation in Ireland as
well.721 This congruence was expressed by a member of parliament who stated in the House
of Commons that “Papists are enemies not because they are erroneous in religion but because
their principles are destructive to the government. (…) Popery in a great measure is set up for
arbitrary power’s sake; they are not so forward for religion.”722 For the Irish Catholics this
discussion became increasingly problematic. In this special case, the intention of the
Protestant king was not to confessionalize his Catholic subject but to allow them a certain
degree of toleration. But since he could only achieve this by an authoritarian policy he
became more threatening to English and Irish Protestants. Hence the combination of the fear
for absolutist government ‘from above’ and toleration for Irish Catholicism as well as an
alliance with the Catholic superpower France resulted in one of the fiercest anti-Catholic
political phases in Restoration Ireland. But the Indulgence policy of Charles II also revealed
the important role the Catholic population, especially in Ireland, could play in the absolutism
controversy between king and parliament. While the Whigs and possible Dissenters were the
main political threat to the royalist faction and the rule of Charles II, the Irish Catholics were
excluded from parliamentarian politics and thus posed no threat to the king’s government. To
appease them with the Indulgence came cheap to the king who gained a loyal group of
subjects because all the rights that they enjoyed came directly from the king. Charles could
short time. John Spurr: Religion in Restoration England, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The Reigns of Charles II and
James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 90-125, p. 93.
720
Miller, Popery and Politics, p. 93.
721
The synonymy of Catholicism and arbitrary government was underlined by a statement of the Protestant
Archbishop of Dublin Michael Boyle in October 1672. Boyle himself tried to implement the king’s new
Declaration with the local Corporations but came to realize that in consequence he stood accused of being a
papist only because he was obedient to the king: CSP, Dom. Series: October 1672 to February 1673, London
1901, p. 74.
722
John Miller: The Potential for “Absolutism” in Later Stuart England, in: History, No. 69 (1984), pp. 187-207,
p. 187. Quoted from A. Grey (ed.): Debates in the House of Commons, 1667-94, London 1769, vol. 6, p.
330/vol. 8, p. 158.
139
have hoped that this group was much easier to control than the dissenting factions in
parliament.723
Notwithstanding all these internal disputes between the king and the English parliament, the
situation in Ireland following the revocation of the Indulgence documented the little influence
that the English government had in Ireland. Even though the anti-Catholic policy was legally
intensified, the political circumstances hardly changed. While in April 1673 the Catholic
Bishop John Brenan still feared the consequences of the renewed restrictive parliamentarian
politics in England, he wrote shortly afterwards to the secretary of Propaganda Fide that
Catholics “enjoy perfect peace at present, and ecclesiastical functions are discharged with
great freedom and without any annoyance, except when some of ours overstep the limits of
discretion.” According to Brenan, the Irish viceroy was responsible for this tolerant policy; he
had declared not to execute the anti-Catholic legislation as long as no serious problems with
the Catholic clergy arose.724
An important aspect of the absolutism debate formed the confessional identity of the
monarch. Political enemies had accused the king of being secretly Catholic ever since his
confessional affiliation became a source for general public concern by the end of the 1660s
during the upcoming alliance with Catholic France. As has been shown, the fear of a Catholic
monarch was not primarily based on confessional resentments but on the rhetorical equation
of Catholic and absolute.
Until today the real motives of Charles II to seek an alliance with France and offer his
personal conversion to Catholicism remain uncertain.725 Different factors have to be
considered, many of them explain certain aspects but in general no true reason or explanation
can be given and are in any case not the task of the present analysis.726 After three years of
war against the United Provinces, the external political standing of the English crown as well
as the financial supplies had reached a minimum in 1667. Parliament was not willing to
723
William Gibson: The Limits of the Confessional State. Electoral Religion in the Reign of Charles II, in: The
Historical Journal, vol. 51, No. 1 (2008), pp. 27-47, p. 30. The king’s expectations were correct. The expressed
loyalty among the Irish Catholic clergy was immense. In the very year 1673 Bishop John Brenan of Waterford
and Lismore explained that “for it is to his clemency we owe all the liberty that we enjoy.” Power, Archbishop
John Brennen, p. 463.
724
Ibid., pp. 363-4.
725
De Krey characterizes him as “soft on Catholicism” while Anna Keay comes to the conclusion that “he was
certainly not seized by a passion for proselytizing and had no innate desire to persecute those who posed no
obvious threat”. She argues that perhaps the king was deep in his heart more a Catholic than a Protestant but hid
his personal beliefs for reasons of state: de Krey, Restoration and Revolution, p. 93. Anna Keay: The
Magnificent Monarch. Charles II and the Ceremonies of Power, London 2008, pp. 145-6, 162, 206. Cf. John
Miller: Charles II, London 1991, chapter 2.
726
Ronald Hutton: The Making of the Secret Treaty of Dover, 1668-1670, in: The Historical Journal, vol. 29,
No. 2 (1986), pp. 297-318, pp. 297-8.
140
support the king any longer. Ronald Hutton’s presumption for the following Treaty of Dover
was that Charles II was simply left without other alternatives and that the king’s concessions
to Louis XIV should not be understood as aggressive royal policy but as the only viable
option.727 Charles negotiated as well with all other possible enemies of the United Provinces
but was declined until he offered the king of France in 1669 his conversion in exchange for
the payment of 200.000 pounds. This sum would have guaranteed the political survival of
Charles II.728 On the other hand, the precondition of the French king was an alliance of both
powers in a French attack on the United Provinces which not only was unacceptable to the
English public but also would have aggravated the political pressure on the king instead of
relieving him.729 However when there was an increased risk that France and the Provinces
might approach each other Charles reconsidered and agreed to the terms under further
conditions. For each year of war France would pay the enormous sum of 230,000 pounds to
England in addition to 160,000 pounds for Charles in case of his conversion.730 But since a
declaration of war was only to follow the king’s conversion he was able to theoretically
prolong the treaty for an unlimited time.731
For Hutton it was the aggressive policy of France that was responsible for Charles’
negotiations. According to him, the pressure put on the Triple Alliance of Sweden, England,
and the United Provinces was so substantial that it was only a question of time when the first
of them would make a separate peace with the Bourbon monarchy. And it was the diplomatic
isolation and strained financial situation of Charles that made England the first to act
accordingly. That the destruction of the Triple Alliance and not the conversion of Charles II
727
Ibid., pp. 298-9. De Krey, on the other hand, is of the opinion, that the Triple Alliance was only formed by
Charles with the intention of breaking it for an alliance with Louis. Only in a position as continental player in a
Protestant alliance he could appear as the powerful ally Louis sought after: De Krey, Restoration and
Revolution, p. 93. In his analysis of Restoration finance and crown funding Lionel Glassey pointed out on the
other hand, that at least financially, parliament’s unwillingness to agree to further financial reinforcement of the
crown at the end of the war left Charles in no other condition but to seek for other irregular and intermittent
subsidies which he found in France: Lionel Glassey: Politics, Finance and Government, in: Ibid.: The Reigns of
Charles II and James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 36-71, p. 44.
728
Hutton, Secret Treaty of Dover, p. 301.
729
Ibid., p. 301.
730
J.D. Davies emphasizes in his analysis of Charles’ foreign policy, that it was not alone the financial reward
for the conversion that made the treaty so attractive for the king. Once the war against the United Provinces was
won England should receive several Dutch towns while William of Orange, the Duke of York’s son in law, was
to be installed as a ruler of a highly reduced Dutch rump state. The eventual outcome of the war and the
promotion of William of Orange by the Dutch themselves were political developments Charles could not have
expected. Cf. J.D. Davies: International Relations, War and the Armed Forces, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The
Reigns of Charles II and James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 211-233, pp. 225-228.
731
Hutton, Secret Treaty of Dover, pp. 303-4.
141
was the main target of Louis XIV was revealed by the fact that the war between France and
the United Provinces finally took place without the king ever converting officially.732
If the king converted or at least seriously aimed at a conversion is hard to say. Generally, his
internal politics changed between 1668 and 1670. Changes were arranged in key positions
although the most important, the Lord Chancellor and the Captain-General, were not occupied
which strengthened the independent position of the king in a certain way. But still, if the king
had wanted to prepare the circumstances for his conversion, nothing indicates a new devotion
to Catholicism. None of the newly promoted officials were Catholic, neither in civil offices
nor in the army. If the king had seriously planned to convert such nominations would have
made sense in order to prepare the public for Catholics in higher offices.733 This theory is
supported by the decreasing enthusiasm for the conversion expressed in letters to Louis XIV
once the king had received the promised payment.734
The personal piety of Charles II has been the motive for controversial interpretations. Many
historians have characterized him as a non-religious man who might have gravitated towards
Catholicism and was generally interested in confessional tolerance. Others such as John
Miller outlined the king’s fickleness when it came to long-term decisions and suggested that
his confessional preferences usually came out of a spontaneous mood and could change
drastically within a short time.735 Hutton outlined that Charles did have some Catholic
contacts, especially during his years of exile, but that the existing sources have to be doubted
and it would be exaggerated to speak of a Catholic conviction with certainty.736 It was not
until the alliance with France that his private convictions obtained a political dimension and
Charles had no problem satisfying Catholic interests in order to gain new political friends. In
the face of diplomatic isolation as in 1670, the king was willing to turn towards Catholic
interests even if this caused him internal political difficulties.737 In conclusion the available
source material does not allow an ascertained statement if Charles II converted in 1670 nor
what his political intentions were. For the confessional situation in Ireland, his potential
conversion was problematic enough although no pro-Catholic policy can be identified there.
Similar to his personnel policy in London, no alleviation for Catholics was to be endured.
When Lord Robartes became new Lord Lieutenant in 1669 his instructions concerning the
732
Ibid., p. 304.
Ibid., p. 312.
734
Ibid., p. 313.
735
Ibid.: The religion of Charles II, in: Robert Malcolm Smuts (ed.): The Stuart court and Europe: essays in
politics and political culture, Cambridge 1996, pp. 228-46, pp. 228-9.
736
Ibid., pp. 229-233.
737
Ibid., pp. 233-4.
733
142
Irish Catholics were in no way more tolerant than those of his predecessor. The Catholic
clergy was to be divided, offering certain tolerance to those who submitted to the crown. This
political program improved the circumstances of Catholic life in Ireland until its culmination
in the Declaration of Indulgence, but it did not look like the policy made by a man who
planned to convert to Catholicism soon.738 In the end, Charles II was realistic enough that the
English public would not accept a convert king and his Irish Catholic subjects, sympathetic
though he might have been towards them, did not make him risk his crown.739
Another aspect of particular importance in the context of the French alliance was the personal
commitment of the English king as head of the Anglican or Episcopalian Church. The alliance
with France and the speculative conversion of the king was especially problematic since he
was also head of the Church. In this function he revealed his tendency towards confessional
tolerance in exchange for political benefits in England as well as in Ireland. His church
politics were ambivalent and aimed at the political survival of the monarch more than the
promotion of the Protestant faith. Charles II realized that a tolerance policy of the king
secured him the personal gratitude of all non-conformists and thus backed his political
standing. But if the general political circumstances changed and public opinion was against
confessional tolerance he had no problem returning to an orthodox Protestant policy either.740
The main confessional concern in these circumstances was not the Catholics but the
Dissenters who were theoretically part of the state Church.741 While Catholicism was clearly
outside the laws of the state, Charles demanded in the Worcester House Declaration in
autumn 1660 that the Protestant Church needed complete unity in order to stabilize the
confessional as well as political situation in England. It was his premise that all political
representatives of the kingdom conformed to the Anglican Church because the Church of
England constituted the institution most loyal to the king. Consequently his innerconfessional policy was dominated by non-tolerance when it came to dissent. The king’s
position towards Catholicism was much easier because they could not hold any offices and
posed no internal political threat as long as they retained their unconditional loyalty towards
the king. If he wanted to reward them for their loyalty while in exile as promised, he needed
738
Ibid., Secret Treaty of Dover, p. 316.
Edward Kenrick: Reports to Rome of Irish Education in the Reign of Charles II, in: The Catholic Historical
Review, vol. 43, No. 1 (1957), pp. 1-19, p. 3.
740
Hutton, Secret Treaty of Dover, pp. 313-315.
741
Spurr is of the opinion, that the Episcopalian Church was heavily threatened in its very existence by royal
prerogatives (1662, 1672 and later in 1687) as well as by parliamentary comprehension schemes (at the end of
the 1660s, in 1673 and 1680-1). Cf. Spurr, Religion in Restoration England, pp. 97-104.
739
143
to extend confessional tolerance to them while excluding the Protestant Dissenters.742 On the
other hand tolerance towards Catholics was unacceptable to parliament. On December 26,
1662 Charles attempted to resolve this difficulty with a declaration to obtain the concession
from parliament to offer tolerance to all those who did not conform with the Anglican
Church, including Catholics. But the attempt failed because of the self-interest and different
expectations that dissenting groups in parliament had and their united hostility towards
Catholicism.743
Although his attempt failed the dissolution of the old parliament opened up a new attractive
possibility for the king that clearly underlined his political position. With a dissenting
majority in the new parliament he could achieve confessional tolerance because that was what
the Dissenters asked for while at the same time he could petition for an increase of his
personal income as a reward for his confessional concessions. The king, however, opted for a
third option in 1668 when a successful war against the United Provinces promised to increase
the trade income along with the financial support offered by the king of France as has been
discussed above.744
The difficult question of confessional tolerance was of superior importance in Ireland where
the majority of the population was Catholic but other larger communities of Protestant
Dissenters had settled as well. In 1673 Lord Lieutenant Essex (1672-7) reported in a letter to
Secretary Arlington that the most dangerous threat in Ireland were the Scottish Presbyterians
with an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 men in arms. Although these numbers were likely
exaggerated, they emphasized that Essex did not have the political backing to act against
these Protestant non-Anglican confessional groups. If the king’s official policy was restrictive
against Dissenters and favorable towards Catholics, then the situation became insoluble for
the Lord Lieutenant.745
In conclusion, the role as the head of state and church was of great importance for Charles II
since it gave him the opportunity to create a confessional state where he was the most
important intellectual and moral authority. Even more important was his capability to make
use of the excommunication which allowed him to exclude internal political enemies from
election because of confessional disagreements.746 Even though Charles was not a promoter
of Protestant thoughts, his position in the church was one of his most important advantages in
742
Gibson, Limits of the Confessional State, p. 28. Lacey, Dissent and parliamentary politics, p. 47. Worcester
House Declaration in: Journals of the House of Lords, vol. XI, p. 179.
743
Lacey, Dissent and parliamentary politics, pp. 52-3.
744
Ibid., pp. 59-60.
745
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 125.
746
Gibson, Limits of the Confessional State, p. 28.
144
the political struggle. If he ever wanted to convert openly to Catholicism he would have
risked this position which made it less probable that he would have ever acted in accordance
to the treaty with France. While Charles was able to occasionaly make offers of tolerance
such as with the Declaration of Indulgence in 1672, it was parliament that could not accept
them, although many of its members desired nothing more. In the case of the Indulgence even
men such as Shaftesbury and Buckingham supported the king’s policy thus accepting the
political superiority of the monarch. On the contrary this made Charles appear more
‘absolute’ and ‘arbitrary’ so that the Indulgence was not acceptable after all.747
The way to the Popish Plot
All these former aspects of absolute power and confessional politics of Charles II culminated
in the Popish Plot and the Exclusion Crisis between 1678 and 1683. According to Jonathan
Scott the crisis should not be seen as an isolated event but in the context of the monarchy
crisis in the first half of the seventeenth century. It was mainly a continuation of the crisis
between 1640 and 1648.748 The potential conversion of the king and his successor was a
threat to English Protestants that has to be seen in a European context more than merely an
English one, thus continued the anti-Catholic fears of the English Protestants that had started
with Charles I’s journey to Madrid. In this context, Charles II did everything to be understood
as an agent of the Counter-Reformation rather than a protector of the Anglican Church.749 In
addition Malcolm Smuts underlined that the confessional credibility of the king was highly
diminished by 1672 but that his policy of religious toleration expressed in the Declaration of
Indulgence might still have been successful. Yet similar to his father, Charles II lacked
political success. The restored monarchy was extremely unlucky in terms of economy and war
and left the king without much backing when his moral authority came into question. With
economic prosperity and successful military engagements, the political circumstances would
have been completely different. But since this authority was damaged, the Indulgence was
revoked and the king lost the potential support of those who would have benefitted from it.750
747
Tim Harris: Introduction. Revising the Restoration, in: Mark Goldie/Tim Harris/Paul Seaward (eds.): The
Politics of Religion in Restoration England, Oxford 1990, pp. 1-24, pp. 13-4.
748
Jonathan Scott: England’s Troubles. Exhuming the Popish Plot, in: Mark Goldie/Tim Harris/Paul Seaward
(eds.): The Politics of Religion in Restoration England, Oxford 1990, pp. 107-131, pp. 111-2. A similar position
was supported by Tim Harris who would rather see the Popish Plot as a result of innerconfessional dissensions
amongst the Protestants and thus a continuation of the disputes after 1637: Harris, Introduction, pp. 9-10.
749
Scott, England’s Troubles, pp. 115-6. Lionel Glassey emphasized that the general arguments of Popery and
arbitrary government presented against the later Stuarts by their contemporary critics were not as responsible for
their crises as their mismanagement in politics and government. Cf. Glassey, Introduction, p. 8.
750
Robert Malcolm Smuts: Culture and power in England, 1585–1685, New York 1999, pp. 147-8.
145
After the war against the United Provinces had ended in defeat in 1674 all that remained in
public memory was the alliance of the head of the Anglican Church with a Catholic king. And
after the conversion of the king’s brother and heir, the Duke of York, became public in 1673
the threat of a Catholic-ruled absolutist England after French fashion became all the more real
to English Protestants.751 Until 1678 the king did everything to appease the frightened public,
requiring his brother to marry the daughter of William of Orange and preparing a new alliance
with the United Provinces, this time against France. But the political shift gave occasion to
new rumors in England concerning a potential Catholic-French conspiracy incorporating the
Irish Catholics and especially the Jesuits’ secretly practicing in England.752
Although modern historians such as John Gibney emphasized in their work that the Irish
dimension of the Plot was completely fictive, the concept of the Plot itself certainly did
involve Irish politics and the confessional differences. The Irish part in the Plot did not end
and begin with the execution of Oliver Plunkett in London but it documented the linkage
between Irish and English confessional policies. There was never solely an Irish or English
dimension of the Plot but only a combined one although the threat was never real and Irish
politicians were fully aware of that.753
2. The King, the Viceroys, and their relation to Ireland
To examine the official attitude of the Protestant authorities towards Ireland it must be strictly
distinguished between the court in London and the Lord Lieutenant’s administration in
Dublin. As has been outlined above, the personal ambitions and options were in any cases
limited if not dominated by the respective parliamentary factions. But while the king’s
position in England was highly controlled by parliament, the personal regime of the Irish Lord
Lieutenant was of a more independent nature.754 Since the appointment of the Lord Lieutenant
was the personal right of the king without parliament’s interference, the political post of the
Irish Lord Lieutenant was the king’s best instrument to exert immediate political influence.755
Thus the confessional and political stand of the Lords Lieutenant is particularly revealing
751
John Gibney: Ireland and the Popish Plot, Basingstoke 2009, pp. 5-6.
Ibid., p. 6. Miller, Popery and Politics, p. 49.
753
Gibney, Ireland and the Popish Plot, pp. 1-4.
754
The Irish parliament was generally subordinated to the English parliament through Poynings’ Law. Since it
voted for a too generous financial settlement in the early 1660s it lacked most of its potential influence and was
not recalled in Charles’ lifetime after its dissolution in 1666. Cf. Grant Tapsell: The Personal Rule of Charles II,
1681-85, Woodbridge 2007, p. 161.
755
Cf. Ciaran Brady: England’s Defence and Ireland’s Reform. The Dilemma of the Irish Viceroys, 1541-1641,
in: Brendan Bradshaw/John Morrill (eds.): The British Problem, c. 1534-1707. State Formation in the Atlantic
Archipelago, Basingstoke 1996, pp. 89-117.
752
146
about the personal ambitions and preferences of the king although it was limited by external
events as outlined in the previous chapter.
The direct influence of the king is of importance since by the middle of the 1660s the Catholic
population in Ireland as well as the king himself realized that the promises of confessional
toleration expressed in the Declaration of Breda could not be fulfilled. Despite the king’s
indebtedness to the Irish Catholic community that had supported him in exile and played an
important role in the process of his Restoration, no complete toleration of the Catholic
confession would be achieved. But the king lacked the political power and influence to revoke
anti-Catholic legislation and all he could do was order the non-application of the unchanged
laws.756 What remained of Charles’ toleration policy were his attempts for the Indulgence
which ended with his military defeat in 1673 and left him without any means to fulfil his
given promises.757 Consequently, if the king’s purpose was to improve the situation of the
Irish Catholics, the only direct option was his influence on the nomination of the Lord
Lieutenant. In fact, the personal and political nature of the Lords Lieutenant shifted
remarkably from the early Stuart kings to the later monarchs. While the office holders before
the Civil War came into their office as administrators that gained their political importance
through the office, the viceroys of the post-Restoration period were all important characters
already prior to being promoted.758 Since the office of the Lord Lieutenant was apart from that
of the English Lord Treasurer, the most powerful in the English monarchy of the sixteenth
and seventeenth century759, the downfall of one Lord Lieutenant could cause major
disruptions in English politics as happened in the case of Wentworth. Thus to dismount the
Lord Lieutenant was a helpful instrument of parliamentary factions to underline their
756
The anti-Catholic legislation in Ireland was of a different nature as in England. While the English legislation
was mainly focused on religious aspects, anti-Catholic legislation in Ireland aimed chiefly at the economical
weakening of those who supported the Catholic faith. In fact, anti-Catholic legislation in seventeenth century
Ireland never even intended to eradicate Catholicism as for example Louis XIV schemed with the French
Protestants. The Irish legislation was of a more regulative kind as to threaten the population and outline that
economic growth was limited by adherence to the Catholic confession. As John Morrill pointed out it was quite
difficult for an Irish Catholic priest to be severely punished. This changed after 1690 when the new legislation
was more strictly designed to economically eliminate those that did not want to convert, especially since the
number of Irish catholic peers had increased between 1603 and 1685 from 24 up to 38.: John Morrill: The causes
of the Popery Laws: Paradoxes and Inevitabilities, in: John Bergin/Eoin Magennis/Lesa Ní Mhunghaile/Patrick
Walsh (eds.): New Perspectives on the Penal Laws, Dublin 2011, pp. 55-73, pp. 58-69. Hutton, The religion of
Charles II, pp. 237-8. Kenyon, The Stuart Constitution, p. 337.
757
Hutton, The religion of Charles II, pp. 237-8.
758
J.C. Beckett: The Irish Viceroyalty in the Restoration Period, in: Ibid. (ed.): Confrontations: Studies in the
Irish History, Plymouth 1972, pp. 69-70.
759
G.E. Aylmer characterizes it pointedly as “the most prestigious, if also the most hazardous office at the
King’s disposal”: The Crown’s Servants. Government and Civil Service under Charles II, 1660-1685, Oxford
2002, p. 51.
147
power.760 As a result it is understandable that Charles II promoted only the individuals who
were personally loyal to him and disposed of a sufficiently strong power base to resist the
usual court intrigues. At the same time the office was very lucrative. The Earl of Essex had an
estimated yearly income of about 40,000 pounds.761 Hence the appointment as Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland was the king’s best option to assure himself of the unconditional support
of an important political player. Nevertheless, the political involvement of the appointees
proved to be difficult. While the office holders from before the Civil War were concerned
with Irish affairs, the later Lords Lieutenant were always concerned with English and court
politics at the same time. Nearly all of the recalls from office under Charles II and James II
were based on court and parliamentary intrigues while Irish aspects were only randomly taken
into consideration.762
This involvement at court was of crucial importance for the political standing of the Lord
Lieutenant in Ireland itself. The different political factions in Irish politics made it nearly
impossible for the viceroy to exert his power. Without sufficient military and financial help
from England, his position was comparatively weak as long as he was not considered the
needle eye one had to pass in order to gain the king’s favor. Once the Lord Lieutenant’s court
position weakened, his influence in Ireland drastically decreased.763
The post of Lord Lieutenant was seemingly attractive, however these circumstances made the
job extremely difficult. He needed to deal with a Catholic majority that had no official
political voice but demanded protection from the king, a Protestant minority that feared for
their privileges because of the king’s hypothetical tendencies towards Catholicism or at least
confessional tolerance, court factions that planned his downfall in order to demonstrate their
power and to weaken the position of the king, and, of course, the king’s personal interest. All
of these aspects have to be taken into consideration when analyzing the Lords Lieutenant’s
attitude towards Irish Catholicism and Catholic education in particular.
When James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormond, resumed his office as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in
November 1661 the fear for a second Catholic rebellion was still great among the Protestant
760
Clement Pike: The Intrigue to Deprive the Earl of Essex of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, in: Transactions
of the Royal Historical Society, Third Series, vol. 5 (1911), pp. 89-103, pp. 91-2.
761
Ibid., p. 91.
762
Beckett, The Irish Viceroyalty, pp. 70-1. Despite the growing personal involvement of the later Stuart kings
in the appointment of Irish Lords Lieutenant their repeated downfall usually arose from English troubles already
under Tudor and early Stuart government as Brendan Bradshaw emphasized: Ibid., Irish Viceroys, p. 90.
763
The importance of a good standing at court was manifested by Lord Lieutenant Essex in a letter to his
brother. Speaking of his predecessor in office Berkeley, Essex wrote: “If you did but know wth what contempt &
scorne my Lord Berkeley was used by all people here, after they found He was not supported at Court.”: Airy,
Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 224. Gibney, Ireland and the Popish Plot, p. 22. Beckett, The Irish Viceroyalty, pp. 80-1.
148
settlers. The upcoming land question and the hope for confessional toleration made the
Catholics even more dangerous in the eyes of many Protestants who feared for their lives,
property, and privileges. Ormond did not consider the Catholics threatening from the outset
and believed they were largely appeased apart from those few dispossessed whom “nothing
but change and confusion can amend their case.”764 The land settlement and the satisfaction of
the multitude of justified or unjustified claims were of greater importance for him in the
beginning than the Catholic clergy that returned to the country or had even persisted therein.
His means were limited and the apprehension of the numerous clerics was too large and
fruitless a task as to deal with it.765 As early as January 1661 a proclamation had been
published forbidding assemblies of Catholics as well as other Protestant groups that were
different than the Church of Ireland. The proclamation also ordered the apprehension of
priests and their banishment from the country. However, little was done to implement the
order. In February 1661 the Earl of Orrery confided in a letter to Ormond that “I thought to
publish such orders was the certainest way not to have them executed” and that the best that
could be hoped for was to deter any more priests from coming over from the continent.766 The
letter illustrates that neither Orrery nor Ormond were expecting the order to be observed but
thought it necessary to have it proclaimed. By November 1662 the incumbent Lord
Lieutenant repeated the proclamation since it had been neglected and “Popish masses have
even been said close to Dublin. A Papal jurisdiction is attempted to be introduced, and heavy
charges are laid upon the King’s subjects. The law will henceforward be strictly enforced
against all who break it.”767 It would be surprising if Ormond believed this time that the order
would be obeyed. Instead he intended to improve the fate of the Church of Ireland by
promotion of Protestant education. It seems that in this he agreed with the king’s instructions
from June 1662 where it was demanded that “You shall see that the funds given for school
maintenance by James I, Charles I and ourselves shall be preserved for that purpose. We
desire that you endeavour by all possible means to win the people of that our Kingdom to
send their children to be educated in the college near Dublin, for whose good the same was
chiefly erected and is bountifully endowed from the Crown.”768 Until 1665 the legislation for
schoolmasters in Ireland was refined by the Act of Uniformity according to which “every
person instructing or teaching youth in any house or private family as a tutor or schoolmaster”
764
Ormond to Arlington, 5 May 1666. Southwell to Sir John Perceval, 16 May 1682. Sean Connolly: Religion,
Law and Power, Oxford 1992, p. 30.
765
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 1, pp. 94-98.
766
Ibid., pp. 94-98.
767
CSPI, 1660-1662, p. 615.
768
Ibid., p. 556.
149
had to subscribe a declaration that he conformed to the liturgy of the Church of Ireland.
Further he had to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy which was to be administered by
the ordinary.769 But whatever intentions the king and his Lord Lieutenant may have had
concerning education in Ireland, the lack of money persisted as the major problem and with
other difficulties, such as the pending land settlement, very little was done to establish new
schools. In a letter to the king in August 1666 Ormond summarized that the economic
situation for most Irish peasants was devastating and that without any income they were “not
[...] able to subsist, or pay their taxes, or hold their wonted correspondence and traffick with
England, or send their youth thither to be trained up in the Universities or Inns of Court; that
want whereof might occasion the relapsing of too many of the people to barbarism, and bring
the whole Kingdom to desolation (...).”770 It seems his expectations for winning over the
Catholics by means of educational integration had faded by the middle of the decade.771 In
order to limit any danger that might arise from the Catholic clergy in Ireland and their wellorganized networks Ormond had early pursued a second strategy that went hand in hand with
his approach of partial connivance and competition with the Catholic confession. If the
Catholics would not convert, their numbers were a threat which he decided to discard by
dividing the clergy and thus separating ‘good Catholics’ that could be tolerated in the country
from ‘bad Catholics’ that had to be expelled.772 To achieve this goal Ormond was willing to
cooperate with Catholic clerics as long as it served his purpose. It was such a cooperation
with the Franciscan Peter Walsh as the strongest supporter of the Remonstrance773 although
Ormond intervened in Walsh’s activities the moment he feared the Franciscan friar might be
successful in convincing the whole Catholic clergy to sign.774 A letter Walsh wanted to send
769
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 84-5.
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, p. 330.
771
This concerns only the Duke’s political expectations. Especially when it turned out that the means of the
crown were not sufficient for the development of general educational strategies, Ormond took his own initiative
by establishing one of the best Protestant schools in Ireland on his own land in Kilkenny at his own expense. For
a more detailed analysis see chapters VI.III and X.III.
772
Anne Creighton: The Remonstrance of December 1661 and Catholic politics in Restoration Ireland, in: Irish
Historical Studies, vol. 34, No. 133 (May 2004), pp. 16-41, pp. 35-6. Cf. Ormond to Bennet, 5. Feb. 1663, MS.
Carte 221, ff. 203-4. For his contemporaries Ormond’s scheming was plainly visible and considered an
appropriate measure. In December 1666 the Earl of Orrery asked the Lord Lieutenant in a letter “whether this
may not be a fit season to make that schism you are sowing amongst the popish clergy publickly to breack out,
so as to set them at such open difference, as we may reap some practical advantage thereby.”: Morrice, Letters of
Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, p. 101.
773
The so-called Remonstrance was an initiative of Irish Catholic clerics as well as prominent landowners to
assure the king of their unrestricted loyalty towards him. After lengthy debates in Ireland, at the Sorbonne and in
Rome, the subscription to the Remonstrance was declared as damnable by the Pope while alternated
formulations were no longer acceptable to Charles II. For further detail compare chapter VII.I
774
For a more detailed account of the Remonstrance affair and the Catholic perspective on it see chapter VII.I.
770
150
to every Irish county was stopped by the Lord Lieutenant for this same reason.775 In the end,
Ormond’s policy was successful although the immediate consequences were not as rigorous
as many fellow Protestants in Ireland hoped. Ormond wanted to divide the clergy, expel the
‘worst’ of them, and arrange himself with the remaining group. In a letter to Secretary
Arlington from January 1667 he pointed out that his measures were in no way comparable to
what the Catholic clergy had suffered under Cromwell. In his own words he said that this was
“a persecution of another kind than ever I shall advise to be brought upon them or willingly
become an actor in.”776 This last sentence was quite revealing about Ormond’s opinion about
the Catholics in Ireland. To Arlington he emphasized that the confessional question in Ireland
could not be compared to England, where the Catholics were a dwindling minority. But in
Ireland he estimated that four out of five people were Catholics and thus he could not ignore
them as a political factor although they had no official representation. His difficulty was more
that he had to satisfy the Protestant minority without upsetting the Catholics too much which
he hoped to achieve by his division policy. In conclusion he expressed his hopes to Arlington
that “by this means the animosity all the Protestants have contracted against the generality of
the Romish clergy will be in some measure complied with and mitigated.”777 Generations of
historians have tried to analyze the personal convictions of the 1st Duke of Ormond and
especially authors of the nineteenth century have tended to characterize him as a fundamental
anti-Catholic politician. E.A. D’Alton was of the opinion that it was the moment when
Charles II showed willingness to come to terms with the Irish Catholics in the context of the
1666 Remonstrance affair that his alliance with the radical Ormond came to an end.778 The
goal of this work is not to judge this affair but at least in the very concrete case of the
Remonstrance it seems plausible that Ormond’s strategy aimed at appeasing every faction a
little bit. In the first part of his Lord Lieutenancy repressions were necessary to a certain
degree to satisfy the Protestant élite and to minimize the risk of rebellion. But the solution of
the problem could only be achieved through confessional education that led the Catholics to
conversion. His private activities in Kilkenny also suggested this.
After a short intermezzo of Lord Lieutenant Robartes, Ormond was substituted with Lord
Lieutenant Berkeley who was soon praised by the Irish Catholics as a friend of the Catholic
Faith or at best a Catholic himself. John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton, had been a
775
Creighton, The Remonstrance, p. 35. A list of the subscribers is printed in Peter Walsh: The History and
Vindication of the Loyal Formulary or Irish Remonstrance, London 1674, pp. 99-100.
776
CSPI, 1666-1669, p. 265.
777
Ibid., p. 265.
778
E.A. D’Alton: Ireland after the Restoration, in: Dublin Review, vol. 136, No. 53 (1905), pp. 64-86, p. 79.
151
loyal supporter of Charles I during the Civil War in England and proved his diplomatic
abilities by arranging himself with Cromwell and Ireton in later negotiations. As a friend of
the Queen Mother and the Duke of York he was tolerated by Charles II who never had a very
high opinion of the Baron. He was usually described as an unreligious man, but as a follower
and friend of the Duke of York during the years of exile it could be that he developed certain
sympathies for the Catholic confession. At the very least he was used to confessional
tolerance being married to a Catholic.779
He arrived in Ireland at the time of political and confessional relaxation with the official
instruction to strengthen the position of the Church of Ireland by continuing in Ormond’s
divisive policy. Those Irish Catholics that supported the Remonstrance should be granted
connivance but any establishment of episcopal hierarchy as well as exercise of papal
jurisdiction should be severely punished.780 After these regulations were set, numerous
historians have questioned why his proceedings were the complete opposite of these orders.
D’Alton suspected that a second paper of secret instructions from the king may have existed
because at the time Charles II had a secret alliance with France offering his own
conversion.781 A repressive anti-Catholic policy in Ireland would have been detrimental to
him in the context. Moreover, Berkeley was a personal friend of the Duke of York, a potential
convert, and Colonel Talbot, a Catholic and the future Earl of Tyrconnell. Colonel Talbot was
not only a protégé of the king’s brother but also brother of Peter Talbot, Catholic Archbishop
of Dublin since 1669. Considering these aspects of Berkeley’s personal network, D’Alton’s
argument of a secret instruction seems quite plausible.
The years of Berkeley’s comparatively short governance (1670-2) were those of most
Catholic liberty and structural expansion which was, of course, not only Berkeley’s doing but
part of the king’s connivance policy that culminated in the Indulgence of 1672. While the
leading Catholic Irish Bishops were full of praise for the viceroy’s open and tolerant way782
the Protestant élite of the kingdom led by the Earl of Orrery felt surrounded by potential
779
D. W. Hayton: Berkeley, John, first Baron Berkeley of Stratton (bap. 1607, d. 1678), in: Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2217, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
780
CSPI, Sept. 1669 – Dec. 1670, pp. 78-81.
781
D’Alton, Ireland after the Restoration, p. 79.
782
The letters from the Archbishops Brenan and Plunkett express the constant delight for Berkeley’s sympathy
towards Catholicism. Berkeley even visited the Bishops personally or invited them to Dublin to correspond with
them. In an early letter from August 1670 Plunkett informed Brenan that the Lord Lieutenant “was convinced
that they were men of moderation. He also said to me that if the king wished to start a persecution of the
Catholics, that in this he would never obey him.” Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 127-8. It is to
be doubted if Berkeley really would have opposed the king but it clearly shows that Berkeley was willing to find
a way of cooperation that was considered new and welcome by the Catholic hierarchy.
152
enemies and made Berkeley responsible.783 The resulting difficulties for the Lord Lieutenant
were even perceived by Oliver Plunkett when the Earl of Orrery published a decree in
September 1671, banishing all Catholic ecclesiastics and laity from the cities of Munster. To
Airoldi in Rome the Archbishop annotated that Orrery’s purpose might be to provoke the
viceroy whom he despised: “If the viceroy rescinds these decrees, Orrery will proclaim him a
sympathizer with the Catholics – on other occasions, in various assemblies, he even said that
he was a Catholic – in order to bring upon him the hatred of sectarians who detest
Catholics.”784 Plunkett’s worries proved speculative because the situation was resolved by the
king who ordered in a letter to the Lord Lieutenant on 26th February 1672 that all expelled
Catholics who were willing to take the Oath of Association “shall be restored to their
accustomed privileges, freedoms and immunities, and be peacebly admitted to inhabit and
trade in the said respective cities and towns without disturbance or molestation (...) without
making any distinction or any pretence of difference or judgment or opinion on matters of
religion (...).”785 This intervention, of course, must be seen in the context of the upcoming
Declaration of Indulgence Charles II was about to publish on 15th March 1672. The
implementation of the Indulgence in Ireland, however, was the last act of Berkeley’s
governance as Lord Lieutenant since he was dismissed in May 1672 by the king who never
personally favored him.786 To assess Berkeley’s reign is difficult because of the lack of source
material787 and the short time period he was actually in Ireland. It is unknown if the toleration
policy was Berkeley’s intention or if it was primarily the wish of the king or the Duke of
York. Richard Bagwell judged him as an able military commander and administrator but he
never really understood the mechanics of politics in Ireland such as Ormond did. For the
chronically indebted Berkeley the office of Lord Lieutenant was above all a welcomed source
of revenue that he willingly exploited along with his highly corrupt secretary Ellis
783
Connolly, Religion, Law and Power, p. 29. Orrery had always felt threatened by the Irish Catholics and
demanded more vigilance of all Irish Lords Lieutenant of the Restoration period but in the years of Berkeley’s
governance he felt increasingly personally constricted as he expressed in his letters. As President of Munster he
was particularly concerned by the Catholic clergy’s advance into the cities and military strongholds of the South:
CSP, Dom. Series, January to November, 1671, p. 411.
784
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 253-4. Berkeley himself was not in Ireland at the time when
Orrery followed the earl of Kingston ordered the expulsion of the Catholics of Cork, Limerick and Galway:
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, p. 261.
785
CSP, Dom. Series, December 1671 to May 17th 1672, p. 166.
786
For a last time Plunkett expressed to Airoldi in Rome his satisfaction with Berkeley since all of the king’s
orders were put into operation without delay: Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 300-302.
787
Contrary to his predecessor Ormond and his successor Essex as well his opponent Orrery Berkeley did not
leave behind any relevant amounts of letters, autobiographical notes, etc. In consequence, the analysis of
Berkeley’s politics is always based on the assessments of his supporters or enemies and the official documents of
the State Papers.
153
Leighton.788 The benevolence of the Catholic Leighton was particularly highlighted by
Plunkett in several letters, though it remains speculative if Leighton supported the Archbishop
because he was paid or if Leighton was accused of being corrupt by others because he was a
Catholic.789 In any case Berkeley’s time as Lord Lieutenant was above all characterized by
the changing political parameters in England and less by his personal concepts for Ireland.
Contrary to Ormond who had been deeply involved in Irish politics and depended personally
on the balanced status quo between the confessional and ethnical groups, Berkeley was
merely an outsider. His non-affiliation with any of the Confederate War or Commonwealth
factions clearly distinguished him from Ormond and characterized him more as a personal
representative of Charles II. When he was replaced by Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, in summer
1672 the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland feared the worst while the implementation of the
Indulgence was still not revoked.790 By then the gap between the fear of the Protestant élite as
well as the Church of Ireland, the Catholic community, and the government in Dublin had
become hardly bridgeable. Different to Berkeley’s instructions that generally confirmed the
Protestant privileges in Ireland, the orders for Arthur Capel adjusted to the Act of Indulgence.
For example, Catholics were to be permitted to reside in the towns even without taking the
Oath of Supremacy, a complete contradiction to the intentions of Orrery and other leading
Irish Protestants.791 As a result, the years between 1672 and 1675 were characterized by an
anti-stance of the Protestant settlers represented in Church and parliament that made any sort
of government impossible.792
In the general political questions of the 1660s Essex had held a comparatively neutral stance.
As a Protestant beyond doubt, he was more concerned with the economic improvement in
788
Political assessments of Restoration Ireland usually quickly pass over Berkeley’s term of office. Ronald
Hutton summarised his governance in the one maybe quite fitting sentence that he repeated “Ormonde’s mistake
of making an enemy of Orrery, while adding a further one of financial corruption.” Hutton, The Triple-Crowned
Islands, p. 82.
789
Bagwell, Ireland under the Stuarts, vol. 3, pp. 98-100. The accusation of corruption in the context of
Berkeley’s governance was also used against Oliver Plunkett. His opponents among the Catholic clergy in
Ireland were of the opinion that the annual pension of 800 scudi Plunkett reported to receive from the king as
reward for his help with the Ulster tories was in reality paid by the Dublin court and that Plunkett was bought by
the viceroy as an informer: Moran, Rev. Oliver Plunket, p. 139.
790
Oliver Plunkett wrote to Airoldi as early as January 1672 that Essex would replace Berkeley and that
although he was a wise and prudent man it was difficult to assess his attitude towards the Irish Catholics: Hanly,
The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 287. In May 1672 John O’Moloney, Bishop of Killaloe, reported to
Propaganda that the Catholic clergy was afraid of the new Lord Lieutenant whom he considered to be
Presbyterian and thus radically anti-Catholic: Millett, volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”,
Part 1, ff. 1-200, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 18/19 (1976-77), pp. 40-71, p. 54.
791
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 336.
792
Gibney, Ireland and the Popish Plot, pp. 22-25. The failure of the Indulgence in 1673 and the ensuing
confessional and political conflicts of the 1670s provoked by older historians ever more subjective judgments of
Essex’ and Ormond’s second Lord Lieutenantcy. For the assessment of Essex’ reign see for example: D’Alton,
Ireland after the Restoration, pp. 64-86.
154
Ireland. Without increasing the government’s income no improvement could be achieved.
Consequently he was perpetually conflicting with the Earl of Ranelagh, Orrery’s nephew who
was commissioned by the crown to collect and increase its revenue.793 Thus the confessional
controversies in the context of the Indulgence were further increased by growing economical
and personal conflicts with Orrery’s family and made a consistent Protestant Irish policy
extremely difficult in the middle of the 1670s.
Whatever Essex’ personal convictions in confessional matters were he soon realized that
Orrery’s expulsion policy was doing harm to the Irish economy and it was from this point of
view that he defended the Indulgence before its revocation. At the same time the threat of an
Irish Catholic rising was considered irrelevant to him, contrary to Orrery who vehemently
complained about the Indulgence with the king for safety reasons. In June 1672 Orrery
received a letter with the king’s response written by the Earl of Arlington in which the king
showed himself surprised by Orrery’s warning since the Lord Lieutenant and his predecessor
had given him no notice of any troubles because of Catholics living in Irish towns.794 Essex’
economical argument is confirmed in the following passage when it is written that “the
benefits, meanwhile, are most notorious, because it brings home from foreign parts the stocks
and industries of many of his subjects, who wholly employed them abroad, not only to the
impoverishing of the nation, but to support and animate them against the government,
whenever any of our neighbors should design us mischief.”795 No matter if Essex wanted the
Catholics to be educated in Protestant schools or convert to Protestantism in the end, his main
objective was to make economical use of their strength since it was the easiest way to increase
the crown’s revenue. Essex knew that with more money generated by Irish tax-payers he
could afford to pay for soldiers thus guaranteeing the security of the Protestant settlers and
government. In this economical paradox the whole complexity of Restoration confessional
politics becomes evident.796
Meanwhile Essex continued Berkeley’s strategy of confessional cooperation by dialogue. In
August 1672 he first met with the Catholic Primate Oliver Plunkett in Dublin. According to
Plunkett the Lord Lieutenant asked him to advise him beforehand if new bishops were to
arrive or clerical meetings were held “so that he might not be caught on the wrong foot when
793
Richard L. Greaves: Capel, Arthur, first earl of Essex (bap. 1632, d. 1683), in: Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4584, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
794
Essex was glad to report in various letters that although multitudes of Irish Catholics by then assembled
within Irish towns celebrating mass their meetings were peacefully and most of all expressed loyalty towards the
king: Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 36.
795
CSP, Dom. Series, May 18th to September 30th, 1672, p. 269.
796
Cf. Clare Jackson: Restoration to Revolution, 1660-1690, in: Glen Burgess (ed.): The New British History.
Founding a Modern State, 1603-1715, London/New York 1999, pp. 92-114, p. 102.
155
informed by our adversaries intent on giving it a wrong interpretation.” Plunkett assured him
that all of their meetings were of a purely spiritual matter and that the Catholic clergy would
not interfere in matters of politics.797 Certainly this agreement was still conditioned by the
Indulgence and lost much of its relevance only a short time later with the revocation of the
Declaration but it generally outlined Essex’ disposition to dialogue as long as no political
matters were concerned. But the relaxation period of the early 1670s ended abruptly with the
military defeat against the United Provinces in 1673 when the English Parliament finally
forced the king to revoke the Indulgence.798 Essex had already been under domestic pressure
by the Protestant élite in Ireland before and the political changes in London led to a dramatic
shift of power. Since February the complaints about the application of the Indulgence in
Ireland notably increased. Essex reported to Arlington in London that he was tired of the
constant animosities of both confessional sides while he tried to maintain his position as
neutral arbitrator and representative of the law. In his own words he preferred “only to take
care that the offenders be punished according to law, as I shall constantly on the other side be
very strict in seeing his Majesty’s pleasure observed, in all such indulgences, as he intends to
those of the Roman persuasion (...).”799 Similar to Berkeley Essex was not personally
involved in Irish affairs. He was more concerned with the court in London and the particular
tasks given to him. He considered the confessional dissensions an annoying side-effect thus
under-estimating the explosive power inherent to it. Under the aspect of education his
confessional attitude was fatal since he thought the confessional context could be completely
left out as the Indulgence demanded. His task was an economical one and consequently the
improvement of Protestant education in order to rival the illegal Catholic schools was
absolutely secondary.
Essex’ moderateness when dealing with anti-Catholic legislation and the Catholic hierarchy
was underlined when in May 1673 a larger inner-clerical scandal arose. The Archbishop of
Dublin Peter Talbot stood accused of exercising papal jurisdiction through the
excommunication of one priest named Byrne. What would have meant fierce prosecution for
Talbot in England, was mostly ignored by the Irish Lord Lieutenant who did not arrest the
Archbishop as Byrne demanded but allowed him free travel to the continent if he desired.
797
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 322-3.
Connolly, Divided Kingdoms, pp. 150-1.
799
CSP, Dom. Series, October 1672 to February 1673, pp. 581-2. He affirmed this position in a second letter
from June 1673 when another alleged Catholic conspiracy was discovered to him. To Arlington he wrote how
bored he was by the reciprocal accusations, especially against the Catholics that planned an universal
insurrection to murder all the Protestants in Ireland “but yet I have lived to see several of these days pass over
without trouble.”: CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October 31st, 1673, p. 400.
798
156
However, if he remained in Ireland there was no guarantee that he would never have to stand
a trial for his actions.800 While several members of the Catholic clergy were fiercely accusing
each other in the context of Byrne’s accusations, Essex did not further interfere. As long as
Essex was Lord Lieutenant, Talbot was never arrested nor severely persecuted and continued
acting as openly as he wished since his activities were not directed against Essex and his
political and economic agenda. On the contrary, the dialogue with the Catholic Bishops under
Berkeley and Essex led to a remarkable level of self-censorship as revealed during the Byrne
scandal. In the clerical bill of indictment against Byrne composed by leading Irish Catholic
clerics, among them most certainly Talbot himself, it was emphasized that “the moderation of
the Government in not prosecuting the Roman Catholic clergy for exercising their functions
might not be abused by our indiscretion in being too public therein, it was ordered by our
spiritual superiors that those thought guilty of that fault should moderate their zeal, so that the
neighboring Protestants might have no cause of complaint.” Byrne was only excommunicated
because he refused to act as quietly as the bishops desired, wearing his monastic habits and
inviting people to Masses by sounding a horn.801
Many of his Protestant neighbors, however, were not contended by such degree of selfrestriction and the protests against the Indulgence did not cease until the edict was revoked on
September 26, 1673. Catholics were no longer allowed to reside within the cities, nor to hold
public or military offices. Further, Peter Talbot in particular and all other bishops and
members of the Catholic episcopal hierarchy, abbots, regular priests, and all those exercising
papal jurisdiction were to leave the country while all convents, seminaries and schools were
to be dissolved and suppressed.802 Although this decree mainly aimed at the Irish Catholics,
the revocation of the Indulgence in September 1673 was as well directed against all other
nonconformists that resided in Ireland. The Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster posed a much
greater threat in the eyes of the Lord Lieutenant than the Catholics with whom he had dealt
with peaceably until then. In a letter to Arlington on 12th October he referred to this problem,
estimating the number of armed nonconformists in the North at about 80,000 to 100,000 men.
Of course these numbers were highly exaggerated, but they underline the perceived threat and
point out why a peaceful arrangement with the Catholics was so desirable for Essex. Most of
the Irish Catholics and their clerics did not ask for much, therefore they could be easily
appeased. As the example of the friar Byrne portrayed, the Catholic clergy was disciplining its
800
Ibid., pp. 244-251.
CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October 31st, 1673, pp. 248-9.
802
Ibid., pp. 558-9.
801
157
own adherents more fiercely than the crown authorities could in order not to provoke anyone.
The Protestant non-conformists on the other hand asked for total equality and the Church of
Ireland’s élite demanded the conservation of their privileges while Essex could satisfy neither
of them completely.803 But even the revocation of the Indulgence did not completely appease
the conforming Irish Protestants. On the contrary, they were even more afraid than before as
the Earl of Orrery pointed out in a letter to the viceroy shortly before the revocation: “I cannot
say this they will doe, but I can say to yor Exce only, that tis likelyer they should doe
something now than yt they should atempt what they did 1641; & what they did then atempt
we shall not easily forget. Then they had noe Provocation; now they will beleeve they
have.”804 Consequently the revocation of the Indulgence left the Lord Lieutenant in an
impossible position concerning confessional policy. Considering the newly revived antiCatholic sentiments stirred up by Orrery, Essex feared for his agreements with the Catholic
bishops. Although he had no personal sympathy for the Catholic confession as Berkeley had,
his silent agreement with the Catholic hierarchy secured him a tranquil majority of the
population as long as they were not further provoked. In a letter from October 1673, he
confided to his brother Henry Capel that he feared especially for the Catholic Primate Oliver
Plunkett. “Tho’ I doubt not but he is industrious enough in promoting his own religion, yet I
could never finde but he was of a more peaceable temper & more conformable to ye
Goverment then any of their Titular Bps in this Country.” In order to protect the Archbishop’s
life he further asked of his brother that “I should be glad for ye reasons above-mentioned you
would yr selfe, & some of our Friends, secure this Gentleman from any such severitie, wch
should be singly & and personally inflicted on him.”805 This unique expression of personal
esteem points out a variety of revealing aspects of Irish Restoration politics: The Lord
Lieutenant was an influential man but he was constantly under pressure from various sides.
Being attacked by parliament and the Irish Protestant élite he was not in the position to
803
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 125. The fear for the non-conformists in the North of Ireland continuously
appears in Essex’ letters, fueled by concerned reports from the Church of Ireland bishops. Unlike the Catholics
whose peaceful assemblies he praised the Presbyterians expanded very visibly during the year of the Indulgence.
In August 1672 the Bishop of Derry Robert Mossom warned the Lord Lieutenant that the Presbyterians meeting
inside the city walls consisted “for the most part, of indigent and bold persons, whose numbers often make them
so insolent as to revile his Majesty’s peacable and good subjects, who conform (...).”: CSP, Dom. Series, May
18th to September 30th, 1672, pp. 513-515.
804
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 66. Essex himself disagreed with Orrery’s opinion. He thought most of the Irish
Catholics would even welcome the banishment of many of the clergy who were a financial burden to them. He
manifested this view in letters to his brother (13 October 1673), Arlington (28 October 1673), Ormond (14
November 1673) and Harbord (25 January 1674) printed in the Essex Papers: Bagwell, Ireland under the Stuarts,
vol. 3, p. 115. Until the end of his administration Essex continued to deny that any danger for Protestant rule
could arise from the Catholic community in Ireland. Neither was such a rising planned by the Catholic clergy
according to his various informers among the clergy: Edwards Pike, Correspondence of Arthur Capel, p. 66.
805
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 126.
158
protect a man such as Plunkett even if he wished. On the other hand Essex’ letter underlines
his strong connections with English politics, especially through his brother. In some matters
Irish politics were English politics and vice versa, therefore it was a necessity for the Irish
Lords Lieutenant to be informed about what happened in England and to anticipate the effects
that any decision might have in Ireland. Last of all the letter indicates of how great of an
importance the Catholics were to the Protestant authorities. In the person of the Primate
Oliver Plunkett the episcopal hierarchy had a contact the government could deal with in hopes
to control at least a part the majority of the Irish Catholics. To gain any control or influence
on the Irish Catholic clergy was far more difficult for the viceroy with the Primate in prison or
exile. Since Essex had no intentions of rooting out Irish Catholicism and to proceed as
radically as Orrery demanded, the dialogue with the bishops was the most valuable instrument
to maintain the public order.806
But while he tried to secure the personal safety of Oliver Plunkett he could not generally
resist the political pressure to proceed according to the decision of the English parliament. On
27th October he published the edict commanding that all Catholic clerics apart from the
secular parish priests were to abandon Ireland until 1st December.807 Any kind of Catholic
education was to be suppressed, namely all convents, schools, and all people attending such
institutions after the assigned date were to be persecuted according to the law.808 The fears
expressed by Orrery concerning a following Catholic rising were met by Essex in a decree
published the 8th November, ordering all Catholics to hand over their weapons within one
month.809 Nevertheless it soon turned out that this confrontation policy was not as successful
as Essex hoped. Similar to Ormond’s government in the early 1660s the Lord Lieutenant had
to realize that the decree itself did not mean its application and that the crown had little
authority to enforce the implementation of the new rules. By the end of November Essex
806
The subsequent question to this observation is, of course, if the Protestant authorities over-estimated the
influence of the Catholic hierarchy since Irish bishops were under a similar pressure from various sides as the
Lord Lieutenant and usually disposed of even less money than the government. For the episcopal perspective on
Irish politics see chapter VII.
807
Benignus Millett: Survival and Reorganization, 1650-1695, Dublin/Sydney 1968, p. 51. The Irish Jesuits
expressed in the Litterae Annuae their surprise of the fact that the secular parish priests were allowed to remain
in the country. Essex commented on the topic to William Harbord in March 1674 that he hoped that no
discontent would arise as long as the parish priests were tolerated. Most of the other clerics were only an
additional financial burden to the common people. Cf. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae
Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 283. Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 193. In fact, the
expulsion of the clergy posed a difficulty for Essex himself who wrote to Ormond in November 1673 that there
were several Irish priests who worked as his informers and who could not be forced to return to the continent. In
consequence the paradox situation arose that the well-connected Ormond procured several posts as household
priests among his friends where the named collaborators could be hidden: Ibid., pp. 137-139.
808
CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October 31st, 1673, p. 597.
809
Ibid., November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, p. 12.
159
published a second proclamation affirming the previous one of 27th October additionally
admonishing all judges and magistrates to “consider the most effectual means of putting the
laws in execution for preventing the growth of Popery.”810 Apparently the response to all
these decrees was limited. When the month for the delivery of arms had passed in December
Sir George Rawdon informed Viscount Conway that “I hear of no arms delivered up
anywhere by any Roman Catholics, especially in these parts, and believe it is so in other
provinces, nor of any priests, &c., transported, nor is there shipping to carry them into foreign
parts, so what his Excellency will do next I foresee not.”811 Generally the revocation of the
Indulgence changed little in Ireland apart from the larger cities where Catholics and priests
were expelled for some time. The reference to the lack of ships by Rawdon is particularly
telling. By publishing the decree the government allowed all Catholic clerics free travel to the
nearest harbor and free transport to the continent on the next ship. But considering the
chronicle lack of funding, no means were available to pay for the passages and as a result,
most of the few priests812 that were willing to go into exile were sent back to their parishes for
the lack of transporting means. Thus the implementation of the decrees became meaningless
as well as the repeated command signed by the king to the Lord Lieutenant on 31st March
1674 that all Catholic clerics should be banished from the island immediately. In the letter it
was admitted that those concerned “cannot be removed by legal and fair means” and therefore
the Lord Lieutenant should “use all such ways as he should think best”.813 Such letters reveal
the futility of the written word without an adequately supplied and manned crown authority
that could exert it by force if necessary. No matter how many proclamations were issued, as
long as the government needed to rely on the voluntary delivery of the clergy and proved not
even capable of transporting them according to their own decrees nothing could be
achieved.814 Consequently Essex proclaimed on 27th April the king’s renewed order, offering
another twenty-one days for every Catholic clergyman to leave the country. The Proclamation
810
Ibid., p. 27.
Ibid., p. 62.
812
It is hard to assess the number of clerics that complied with the decree in 1673. Of the 35 members of the
Jesuit mission in Ireland two went into exile according to the Litterae Annuae while the others went into hiding
for some time: ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni
1674, fo. 283v. In January 1674 Sir Henry Ingoldsby reported to Lord O’Brien that in the Southwest of Ireland
“a pretty large pack of bishops and friars have been shipped from hence lately, amongst them your friend
Mullony” but only few weapons had been collected. Through the example of Moloney it can be seen that even
those that went into exile could easily return shortly afterwards since Moloney resumed his post as Bishop of
Killaloe once the persecution abated: CSP, Dom. Series, November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, p. 120.
813
Ibid., p. 215.
814
In Galway the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam James Lynch had agreed to transportation but waited more than
three months in the city until a passage on board a ship to Spain could be found: Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar
of volume III (1672-75) of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda” in Propaganda Archives, Part 2, ff. 201518, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 21/22 (1979-80), pp. 7-81, pp. 64-5.
811
160
was only extended by the supplement that all magistrates, justices, and other representatives
of the king’s authority should be “more diligent and active in executing these his Majesty’s
commands than formerly (...).”815 It is clear that absolutely nothing transpired.816
Until the outbreak of the Popish Plot and the ensuing increase of anti-Catholic sentiments
especially in England, the prosecution of Catholics in Ireland returned to a status quo that was
not as officially tolerant as during the early 1670s, but Essex’ government minimized the
implementation of anti-Catholic laws. As long as the Irish bishops and their clergy remained
quiet and did not stir up any political dissensions Essex saw no use in proceeding against
them always considering the hard-pressed resources of the crown and the important role
growing Catholic trade and productivity played in the Lord Lieutenant’s policy for Ireland.817
The continued silent co-operation between Essex and the Catholic clergy became apparent.
For example in 1675 a number of Catholic parish priests voluntarily proposed to help Essex in
the question of the tory raids in the area. The priests drew up a list of suggestions how to
cooperate. In the parish assemblies they wanted to read aloud the names of the tories to
discredit them publicly. Furthermore they would compile lists of all those members of their
flock for twelve years who did not attend the Easter communion since they were morally
suspicious. They even offered to elect a contact person among them in case the government
wanted to assemble all the local priests at once thus giving up their hidings. But they also
pointed out that many of their flocks were not likely to help them since the government would
do little to protect or support them. If they denounced a tory, the crown refused to pay them a
recompense for the day that they needed off to attend the court.818 This example well
characterizes the government-clergy relationship in the middle of the 1670s. Essex continued
in Berkeley’s liberal dialogue policy concerning the Catholic clergy after the revocation of the
Indulgence. His primary objective was to strengthen the position of the crown authority and to
promote the Irish economy. The cooperation with the Catholic majority was an important
815
CSP, Dom. Series, November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, p. 231.
In May Essex wrote to his brother about the difficulties implementing the decrees, given the multitude of
exceptions. Noblemen were still permitted to have Catholic chaplains in their houses as long as they did not
exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Most of them, however, did not “content themselves with any other chapleins
than such as are banished persons”. If he wanted to proceed against these illegally protected clerics the Justices
of the Peace often appeared useless and he had to send common soldiers for what he usually lacked the means.
Consequently many noblemen asked him to dispense with their chaplains in order to avoid further difficulties
but Essex was aware that “should I gratify them in this, all the tumultuous dangerous priests would by that
means be harboured in these noblemens’ houses, and not a mischiefous fellow would ever be sent away.”:
Burke, Penal Times, pp. 46-7.
817
The only reference to further prosecution under Essex comes from a Roman decree exempting the Irish
bishops from for the next 25 years from their duty to visit the Catholic capital because of the travelling
difficulties in 1675. But this decree seems more a regular formality than a reference to current dangers: Millett,
Survival and Reorganization, p. 53.
818
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, pp. 306-309.
816
161
aspect for this policy. Since the government lacked the means to actually implement the antiCatholic decrees of 1673/74 interconfessional co-operation was without any real alternative.
Despite the rationality of Essex’ proceedings his connivance made him a constant target to his
political enemies at court as well as those Irish Protestants who still feared for their property
and their privileges. Without an appropriate power base in Ireland, Essex’ dismissal as Lord
Lieutenant was only a matter of time as it was before with Berkeley. By 1677 the changed
political circumstances at court vindicated the man that had already dominated Irish politics
for large parts of the seventeenth century and whose Irish power base was beyond questioning
– the Duke of Ormond.
With the Duke’s second assumption of the office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in 1677 which
was followed by the discovery of the Popish Plot in September 1678, the period of
confessional relaxation under Berkeley and Essex came to an end for a short time. However
the impact of the Plot in Ireland was actually limited and did not exceed the anti-Catholic
measures that were taken periodically since the Restoration. The excessive results of the Plot
such as the execution of the Irish Primate Oliver Plunkett in London were mostly the results
of particularly English development and should not distort the view on the situation in
Ireland.819 In accordance with Essex Ormond did not believe in a Catholic rising in Ireland
and thus the official reaction to the discovery was the ‘usual’ decree banishing all Catholic
clerics from the country on 2nd November and demanding the delivery of firearms by the
Catholic population. Additionally all Catholics were formally expelled from Dublin Castle
until the political situation calmed down in Spring 1681.820 The fact that the Catholics were
again required to hand over their firearms only underlined once more the crown’s failure or
lack of concern in implementing Essex’ decree from late 1673. In most other Irish cities the
situation of the Catholics remained much the same. By proclamation of 20th November 1678
Catholic merchants were denied access to the cities of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, Cork,
Galway, Drogheda, Wexford, Youghal, and Kinsale but the mayors of these cities largely
ignored the order. Consequently on 31st March 1679 a second proclamation ordered the chief
magistrates of the named cities to prohibit Catholic reunions within the city walls and to
819
Gibney, Ireland and the Popish Plot, pp. 1-4. While in December 1679 a proclamation was published “that
defending the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome in England is Praemunire and high treason” as well as the
relieving or maintaining of Jesuits, and any persons sending their children to Catholic schools on the continent
were dispossessed no such orders were implemented in Ireland, Catholic schools closed only for a short time and
any Jesuits arrested were soon released or at worst deported to the continent: CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st,
1679, to August 31st, 1680, p. 315.
820
Connolly, Divided Kingdoms, p. 152.
162
finally prevent the celebration of Catholic masses.821 If religious ceremonies were not
interdicted, it would seem improbable that Catholic trade was stopped or the Catholic
population actually banished. In the case of Galway, it became clear how counterproductive
such a banishment actually was for the government and the crown. Early in 1679 the Duke of
Ormond was informed that much of the old trading city was abandoned and ruined since the
small number of Protestant inhabitants was in no way sufficient to keep the city alive.
Although the report was probably exaggerated to attract more attention to the problem,
Ormond reacted accordingly allowing those Catholic families who were traditional citizens of
Galway to return.822
But Ormond’s conciliatory policy during the Popish Plot soon made him the target of political
accusations.823 As a convert he was perpetually suspicious to many and his good relations
with leading Catholics caused further distrust.824 The Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot, and
his interconfessional activities were applied appropriately in this situation. Ormond’s enemies
declared he was visiting the castle regularly and was welcomed by Ormond who did nothing
to arrest him even though Talbot was among those primarily accused in the context of the
Popish Plot.825 Since Ormond was no personal friend of Talbot the Archbishop was
immediately arrested on 11th October 1678. He died in prison two years later in November
1680. A similar fate awaited the Archbishop of Armagh Oliver Plunkett. The much protected
Primate was finally brought down by false accusations of Catholic clerics. His execution at
Tyburn on 11th July 1681 marked the climax as well as the maximum involvement of Irish
affairs in the generally English Popish Plot.826
By then the situation in Ireland had already calmed down again. Many of the clerics returned
to their abandoned monasteries and the Catholic population returned to the cities as if they
were never expelled.827 In a letter from Ross in County Cork a Protestant settler affirmed that
many of the locals were still afraid of a Catholic rising. The author, however, saw “no reason
for it, nor could they do any great hurt, for, as the militia is now, they would drive as many
821
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, p. 271. Cf. Burke, Penal Times, pp. 52-3. Cf. Tuckey, Cork Remembrancer, p. 108.
Hardiman, History of Galway, p. 149.
823
Despite the politically exaggerated rhetoric Protestant settlers in Ireland did not feel more threatened during
the Popish Plot than otherwise. Accordingly a Limerick man wrote in 1680: “As to the Irish plot, we believe
more is spoken of it there than we hear of it here.” Connolly, Religion, Law and Power, p. 31.
824
Letters of complaint collected in the State Papers accuse Ormond of not taking matters seriously enough since
nothing was done against the alleged plotters and Catholics still assembled freely in the Irish towns: CSP, Dom.
Series, January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, p. 18.
825
HMC, The Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, preserved at the Castle, Kilkenny, vol. 2, p. 282.
826
Millett, Survival and Reorganization, pp. 54-5.
827
In Athenry the resident Dominicans acted absolutely visible again in 1681 when one the Duke of Ormond
was informed that they were erecting a monument or burial place for Dominic Burke: Pochin-Mould, The Irish
Dominicans, pp. 149-50.
822
163
more Irish as are in this county into the sea. I believe there is no danger of them, unless they
have French or other foreigners with them.”828 The letter underlines that the Catholics were
not seen as a great threat anymore, divided and weakened as they were.829 Step by step, the
situation started to normalize and in March 1681 Ormond was happy to point out in a letter
that there was no danger of a Catholic rising nor did the Protestant population seem afraid of
one.830
The remaining years of Ormond’s government were characterized by comparative tranquility.
While Ormond was never seen as positive by the Catholic bishops as his predecessors
Berkeley and Essex, the Duke was not very repressive either. In a letter to his son from
Summer 1683 he discussed the difficult confessional situation of Ireland as well as his
personal one and came to the conclusion that he knew “no reason why opinion should take
away a man’s birthright, or why his goods or lands may not as well be taken away, since
money misemployed is for the most part a more dangerous thing in disaffected hands than a
word in his mouth.”831 The Protestant Ormond well remembered the 1641 rebellion and he
knew how difficult it was for the Protestant government in Ireland to defend itself against a
united Catholic rising. But he was sure that the Irish Catholics could be better controlled
through economy than confessional repression. As long as the leading Catholic landowners
had to fear for their property, they would not rise again. Since he did not feel politically
threatened by the Catholics he connived at them as long as their activities were not too
daring.832 Contrary to Berkeley and Essex the Duke of Ormond was highly involved in Irish
domestic affairs and widely connected through his Catholic family. On his own lands in
Counties Kilkenny and Tipperary he was explicitly tolerant in questions of confession and
education although his actions as a Lord Lieutenant were sometimes the contrary.
The confessional policy of the Protestant authorities concerning Ireland represented by the
king as well as his viceroys and lords lieutenant in Dublin has caused a fierce and
controversial debate for more than a century. While some historians have been eager to
828
CSP, Dom. Series, September 1st, 1680, to December 31st, 1681, p. 188.
The constellations of power and confession, however, varied immensely from region to region. For detailed
analysis see chapter VIII.
830
From various parts of the island Ormond received notice during the Spring of 1681 that if any danger had
existed it was over and the people got along well with each other, despite their different confessions. In a letter
from the Justices of Assize for Munster John Keating and Arthur Turnort emphasized in April that the city and
County of Cork were again in a peaceable and flourishing condition, enjoying a good relation between them, the
Protestant bishop, the king and the government. Several were even conforming to the Church of Ireland: CSP,
Dom. Series, September 1st, 1680, to December 31st, 1681, pp. 153/211.
831
HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series,
vol. 7, pp. 92-3.
832
When in 1683 in Galway the admission of some nuns was publicly celebrated in the city he acted rapidly and
ordered their prosecution as far as the law could reach: Ibid., p. 119.
829
164
completely ridicule and deny the legislative influence anti-Catholic laws had in Ireland, others
have tried to characterise Restoration Ireland as a country of ruthless religious persecution.833
In fact, it is difficult to summarise the confessional policy of the Restoration era and its actual
influence on all Ireland. A variety of laws were passed and added to the already existing ones.
Timothy Corcoran summarised quite pointedly, that the final anti-Catholic legislation
manifested in the penal code on education (1695-1733) was nothing else than the bundling
and organisation of all previous anti-Catholic laws and initiatives since Elizabeth I.834 Modern
historians tend to agree with this argument. It was the emergence of Catholic national
historiography in the middle of the nineteenth until late into the twentieth century that
romanticised the version of strict “Popery Laws” whose only political aim was to destroy
Irish Catholicism. This unilateral view is just recently changing.835
Different characters involved had different opportunities and interests in applying or not
applying anti-Catholic legislation and oftentimes the responsible authorities appointed from
London saw a tacit alliance with the Irish Catholics as an attractive alternative to resist the
hostility of the different Protestant parties. In no way it can be spoken of a general royal
confessional policy or at least a general strategy of legal application.
3. Official Protestant Education
While much has been said about the government’s failure to implement Protestant education
in Ireland after the Restoration it must not be forgotten that Protestant education was not
completely absent from the island either. Generally, three sorts of educational initiatives can
be identified in Ireland during the Restoration period – those started by the Church of Ireland,
by the government, and due to private engagement. The third factor played the most important
role during the establishment of Protestant education in England in the sixteenth and
seventeenth century and it could well be that the crown authorities hoped for a similar interest
among the Irish Protestant settlers. The private initiatives were of special importance since
Protestant education initiatives concentrated mostly on the formation of the new élite and not
widespread basic teaching as Stefan Ehrenpreis has outlined for the continental territories of
the Reformation. Crown and Church authorities needed high performers to strengthen their
position while mass teaching was not desired and was often left to those who took a private
833
Burke was of the opinion, that anti-Catholic laws were at all times and with all severity applied throughout
the Restoration period, only with the exception of Berkeley’s reign. In those years he saw a complete political
shift that guaranteed confessional tolerance wherefore it was so soon abolished. Burke, Penal Times, p. vi/1.
834
Corcoran, State Policy, p. 27.
835
James Kelly: The historiography of the Penal Laws, in: John Bergin/Eoin Magennis/Lesa Ní
Mhunghaile/Patrick Walsh (eds.): New Perspectives on the Penal Laws, Dublin 2011, pp. 27-52, p. 51.
165
interest in it.836 Additionally elementary schooling had to confront the difficulty that many
peasants did not have any interest in learning. Following the theory of Gerald Strauss,
Ehrenpreis underlined the problematic of Protestant schooling that the rural population often
times resisted the “indoctrination” exerted by reformed authorities. Resistance against
Protestant teaching in Ireland was similarly frequent. Consequently, any initiative was costly
and needed the most qualified personnel. The hard-pressed government gladly left this
challenge to private individuals.837
The question if crown and church should have more involvement in basic education was
controversially discussed in England as in Ireland. John Dury outlined in his 1651 published
The Reformed School that the few schools established in England could be reformed as they
liked if they were not more in numbers they would remain “an inconsiderable matter, in
respect of a whole Nation, and have no great influence upon the youth thereof, where so many
Schools remain unreformed, and propagate corruptions.”838 According to Dury basic
education was necessary to confront even the most common people with the ideals of the
Reformed Church such as Comenius demanded on the continent. If the task of teaching was
left to others, the youth would be corrupted since their family background did not provide
them with a solid Protestant faith. Only if the children were taken away from their families
and educated at an early age it would be possible to have them “trained up from their Infancy,
to a course of Reformation, both of Virtue and Learning”.839 Other intellectuals followed
Dury’s criticism in the following fifty years, complaining overtly about the lacking
commitment of the crown. Amongst the educational theorists of the Restoration period was
most prominently Christopher Wase who outlined in his Considerations Concerning Free
Schools that basic education for poor people guaranteed more stabilized families and thus
added to the peace and wealth of crown and church.840 He admitted that some peasants would
be distracted from their daily work if they were sent to school but no man could ever learn too
much about his responsibility towards God and crown; this is exactly what was taught in the
schools.841 Wase openly criticized the official educational policy that limited access to higher
education to the rich. He claimed that the government was afraid of a society where the poor
were lettered and that such a state could not be a godly one.842 Only a lettered man would be
836
Stefan Ehrenpreis/Ute Lotz-Heumann: Reformation und konfessionelles Zeitalter, Darmstadt 2002, pp. 47-49.
Ibid., pp. 48-9.
838
Dury, The Reformed School, p. 4.
839
Ibid., pp. 3-4.
840
Wase, Free Schools, p. 3.
841
Ibid., pp. 4-5.
842
Ibid., p. 1.
837
166
able to understand why obedience towards authority was necessary and thus free education
would create a strong bond between the ruler and the ruled.843 All these aspects were of even
more importance in Ireland where crown authority was limited and Catholic educational
activities were more openly displayed than in England. Wase’s arguments outlined the
general difficulty of Irish Protestant politics in the Restoration period, which culminated in
the question: would an educated Irish Catholic be willing to adopt Protestantism and behave
as a loyal subject, or if he would become an even more uncontrollable anti-English Catholic
as he was in prior years?
In order to understand the importance of Catholic education it will be thus indispensable to
have a closer look at these Protestant initiatives that may have rivaled the success of the
former. Since Catholic education was unable to subsist in most parts of Ireland without the
political connivance and the financial support of many Protestants, it must be asked why
Catholic teaching was so attractive to them. Nonetheless, a total evaluation of the Protestant
teaching facilities in Ireland cannot be the task of this work therefore an overview of those
initiatives started after the Restoration must suffice in order to compare them with the reestablishment of their Catholic counterparts. Of course, such a comparison wholly applies
only to the restored diocesan schools that had been closed during the Commonwealth or
handed over to others while the private initiatives had flourished under Cromwell although
never in a scale comparable to England. According to the incomplete list of Protestant
teachers compiled around 1659, there were 34 teachers resident in Ireland, nearly all of them
in the larger towns. As has been outlined elsewhere their income varied immensely and so did
their teaching.844 A valuable document for the availability of Protestant teaching in
Restoration Ireland are the matriculation documents of Trinity College Dublin, the only Irish
institution for higher education at the time. Most of the new students gave the names of their
former teacher when matriculating so that the compiled list offers an interesting impression of
the quantity and distribution of Protestant teaching. Certainly not all Protestant teachers in
Ireland sent their students on to college and many others would have sent them over to
England or the continent. But still, it can be assumed that the list includes most of the active
teaching personnel. Those teachers have been counted whose students entered the College
between 1662 and 1687 making allowance of a time period during the Restoration in which
the students attended the classes. Those matriculating in 1660-1 would have attended only
Commonwealth schools and are thus irrelevant for the analysis.
843
844
Ibid., pp. 10-1.
Evans, Cromwellian Civil List, pp. 618-619.
167
In total 165 teachers were personally named but this number includes 129 teachers who only
forwarded five or less students to the College. In many cases these were identified as the
student’s father or another relative. Their irrelevance as Protestant teachers for the present
analysis is underlined by the fact that they only taught a total of 225 later students of Trinity
College so that most of them taught no more than two students, most likely their own sons.
Accordingly a fifth of the 1201 matriculants received their education at home or at least in
private teaching facilities. On the other hand nearly a quarter of the students, 282, attended the
classes of only four teachers, Mr. Torway in Dublin, Mr. Wilson in Charleville near Cork, Mr.
Jones in Kilkenny, and Mr. Ryder first in Dublin and later in Kilkenny as the successor of Mr.
Jones. All of this results in the perception that only 36 Protestant teachers acted in Ireland
during the Restoration period leaving out all private and parental teachers. Additionally some
of those 36 only succeeded to others as happened in the case of Kilkenny so that the number
of different schools was even lower although, admittedly, other schools might have existed
that brought forth no later students of Trinity College. Consequently, the number 36
represents an adequate average and interestingly does not differ significantly from the 34
named teachers in the Cromwellian list of the end of the 1650s.845
An overview of the situation of Protestant teaching during the Restoration period was also
compiled by the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, James Margetson, sent in a letter to Lord
Lieutenant Essex on 28th August 1673. According to his investigations there was one public
school in the diocese of Meath whose schoolmaster was supposed to earn an annual salary of
40 pounds contributed in equal parts by the clergy, the bishop and the local landowners but
“few of the Impropriators pay any thing, which neglect tends to the disencouragement of the
Schoolmaster” as Margetson pointed out.846 Additionally there had been a school at Trim in
Co. Meath but it no longer disposed of a public building. The teacher was responsible for
renting an adequate building thus reducing his meagre salary which made the job even more
unattractive. Co. Westmeath as part of the diocese of Meath did not have any school
whatsoever although the Protestant population would have welcomed it. The Grand Jury of
the County even offered to build a schoolhouse on their own expense in order to transfer the
schoolmaster at Trim to Mullingar.847 The financing situation for Protestant teaching was
better in King’s County where 200 acres were reserved for the support of a school. But
despite these preparations the income of the land went to a school at Birr or Parsons Town in
845
For the matriculation documents cf. Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublineses.
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 113.
847
Ibid., p. 114.
846
168
the diocese of Killaloe which was closer than Mullingar or Trim and thus more accessible to
the local Protestants.848 The diocese of Kilmore disposed of a school at Cavan with associated
lands worth an annual income of 40 pounds. Notwithstanding the local schoolmaster James
Sheridan lived most of the time in England leaving the teaching to his usher, James Maxwell,
who was not adequately qualified for the task.849 The situation in the diocese of Ardagh was
considerably better where two schools were noticed by Margetson at St. Johnstown and
Jamestown in the County of Leitrim. But since the yearly income of the St. Johnstown school
was only 4 pounds it was doubtful that proper teaching methods were assumed, if offered at
all, presuming that it was not further augmented by private funding.850
The diocese of Clogher disposed of a school at Enniskillen where Thomas Dunbarre led one
of the most successful Protestant schools in the whole country. His high quality was well-paid
with 120 pounds a year making him not only one of the best teachers but also one of the bestpaid teachers in Ireland.851 Raphoe had a school as well, led by one Richard Ayton who had a
yearly income of 45 pounds but no public schoolhouse.852 He likely had to provide the facility
himself as was the case at Trim. At least his income was higher therefore the post might have
been more attractive. In general the Northern dioceses were more or less well-supplied with
Protestant schools. Another one was established at Lifford in the diocese of Derry where the
schoolmaster Mr. Shortall earned 30 pounds and the usher who assisted him earned 20
pounds. A second schoolhouse was erected on private initiative at Derry city where the local
teacher was financed by the Society of London. Protestant teaching in the North may have
been strong in order to rival the local Presbyterian schools or similar establishments financed
by dissenting confessional groups. For example Margetson reported that there was “a Schoole
att Strebane taught by a Fanaticke person, which tends to the further perverting of the
people.”853 Not only was the rivalry a relevant factor but also the private engagement of
wealthy Protestants. On private account the Earl of Donegal raised a school at Belfast where
one Edward Fisher taught for 40 pounds a year. Additionally there was a school at Lisburn
financed by Lord Conway and the public schools established at Carrickfergus and
Downpatrick.854 In the metropolitan diocese of Armagh the situation was likewise good.
Francis Fletcher taught a public school at Dungannon annually worth 60 pounds and Thomas
848
Ibid., p. 114.
Ibid., p. 115.
850
Ibid., p. 115.
851
Ibid., p. 115.
852
Ibid., p. 115.
853
Ibid., p. 115.
849
854
Ibid., p. 116.
169
Mabb acted as a schoolmaster at Armagh city for 40 pounds a year while a third school was
being established at Tredagh financed by the Alderman Erasmus Smyth.855 Only the small
diocese of Dromore was without any school but Margetson had no complaints about the lack
of teaching from there either.856 Compared to the incomes averages produced by Lorna
Weatherill and J.M. Ellis on Restoration Britain outlined in chapter II.I it can be stated that
the financial situation for Protestant schoolmasters in Ireland slightly improved between 1657
and 1673. Most teachers earned 40 pounds and more this being considered the necessary
minimum for a middling lifestyle. Nevertheless, several Protestant teachers still earned less
and the 40 pounds were certainly not as attractive for English academics compared to the
income from similar posts in England. In summary, Margetson listed 17 Protestant schools in
the Archdiocese Armagh alone. Since the total of Protestant schools can be estimated at about
34, half of them were located in only one of the four archdioceses of Ireland. These were the
areas where most Protestant settlers lived so it can be assumed that the majority of the
remaining schools were located in the Archdioceses of Dublin and parts of Cashel while the
areas with small Protestant numbers along the West coast were left without Protestant
teaching at all.
While the offering of Protestant teaching remained nearly unchanged during to Restoration
period in comparison with earlier times, the necessity of it was continually discussed.
Especially the Duke of Ormond considered education as the most important means to secure
the loyalty of the young Irish generations that would avoid future rebellions and decrease the
interconfessional tensions. On 27th September 1662 he said in front of parliament that “the
advancement and the encouragement of piety and learning” were the most appropriate tools to
prevent foreign invasion and rebellions at home.857 Such expressions were not new to Irish
politics but apparently the number of schools did not change significantly in the aftermath.
The proceedings against Catholic teaching introduced by Cromwell were adopted and
consolidated in the 1665 Act of Uniformity where it was outlined that “any schoolmaster
keeping any publique or privat school, and every person teaching youth in any house or
family, shall subscribe the declaration (...) that I will conform to the Church of Ireland as it is
now by law established (...) and take the oath of allegiance and supremacie, and shall not
instruct any youth before license obtained by his Ordinarie.”858 But since little was done to
guarantee a supply with schoolmasters who were willing to have themselves licensed, the Act
855
Ibid.
Ibid.
857
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, Appendix, p. 27.
858
Corcoran, Lists of Catholic Lay Teachers, p. 15. Act of Uniformity, 1665, 17 and 18 Car. II. c. 6.
856
170
was as worthless as its predecessors. Catholic schools were not the only problem Protestant
teaching had to face. Most of all the Scottish Presbyterians in Ulster set up their own schools
and cared little about licensing. The same Act of Uniformity commanded all Presbyterian
teachers to have themselves licensed by an Anglican Bishop and similar to the Catholic
teachers, little actually changed. Presbyterian teaching remained an unsolved problem in 1673
as Archbishop Margetson revealed in his report.859 Ormond saw the origin of the problematic
in the lack of career perspectives for Protestant teachers in Ireland. As long as vacant
bishoprics were filled with English candidates and the alumni of Trinity College were passed
by a career in the Church of Ireland that implemented teaching was not attractive to the most
capable students whom he needed if he ever wanted to break the teaching monopolies of
Catholics and Presbyterians. In 1667 he complained about this mismatch to London
demanding that higher church posts in Ireland should be filled with Irish alumni first. If his
request would be granted “the promotion of fitting persons, already dignified or beneficed,
will make room for, and consequently encourage, young men, students in this University.”860
Ormond’s intentions were sincere as he demonstrated in Kilkenny where he financed the
building of a public school but he alone could not make up for the general lack of support for
Protestant teaching in Ireland.
Government Initiatives
The intervention of the Restoration government in Irish education was merely limited to
utopian demands. In September 1662 the king sent a draft to the Lord Lieutenant and Council
concerning Protestant schools in Ireland complaining about “the small number of Colleges
and Schools are there at present” and stating “what advantage it will be to all our Irish
subjects as well in what relates to the education and instruction of their children in the true
religion as other good literature that there be more colleges and public schools erected in
convenient places and competently endowed.” In order to ensure that such an improvement
was made he suggested in all seriousness that “you engage all the adventurers and officers
who are to receive any advantage by the Act of Settlement, as well those who served before
1649 as other, to contribute everyone out of his arrears or estate some such portion as they
themselves shall think fit towards accomplishment of this good work.”861 It’s not surprising
that such an order was never put into effect. The Church of Ireland was usually not even able
to collect the monetary dues from clergy and landowners, which in accordance with the laws
859
Connolly, Religion, Law and Power, p. 26.
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, pp. 340-1.
861
CSPI, 1663-1665, p. 496.
860
171
of Elizabeth I and James I, were initiated to contribute to the financing of schools and
teachers. Much less did the crown dispose of the power to force all those who profited from
the Act of Settlement to spend a part of their income on Protestant education because many of
those restored were not even Protestant themselves. A deliberate offer may have happened in
few cases but was never the rule. The Irish government had to deal with the problem of too
many people demanding restoration of property that was legally theirs and it had soon
become obvious that the island did not dispose of enough land to compensate all of them.
Since the satisfaction of these demands was crucial for the preservation of the restored king’s
power, any restriction for the benefit of schools was simply impossible. In any case, the
king’s draft demonstrates how the actual position of the crown and the desires of the
authorities had drifted apart and therefore little was done to deal with the actual situation. If
the government exerted influence on the educational sector, it was usually about details and
not general strategies. As for example in 1662 the Dublin government ordered the translation
of the already existing free schools at Mountnorris, Mountjoy, and Donegal to Armagh,
Dungannon, and Raphoe respectively thus adapting the foundations from James’ I reign to the
changed distribution of population.862 To complement the existing schools with new ones was
never even discussed. Given the chronic shortage of coin and lack of adequate teachers, the
outcome of such a discussion was certain beforehand anyway. Lord Lieutenant Ormond was
aware of the difficulties but had to rely on private initiatives where the government was
incapable of acting. All he could do was to further the advancement of Trinity College,
Dublin. Soon after his return to Ireland he restored several of the College’s endowments in
County Kerry that had been confiscated under Cromwell although such interventions cannot
be considered more than a drop in the ocean.863
If the government started educational initiatives it was due to the personal intervention of
individuals and not because of a general policy that can be identified. While the Duke of
Ormond was mainly preoccupied with Trinity College, the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir
Maurice Eustace, saw for the construction of a parish church with an adjoined schoolhouse
and teacher in the town of Baltinglass. King Charles was so pleased by this venture that he
personally intervened writing to the Lord Lieutenant on 10th January 1663 that “for the
encouragement of that good work we direct that Baltinglass (...) shall be made into a
corporate town and be henceforth governed by a sovereign.”864 The exuberance with what
862
Auchmuty, Irish Education, p. 49.
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, pp. 208-9.
864
CSPI, 1663-1665, p. 4.
863
172
Eustace’s project was welcomed, underlined how exceptional it was and that the government
authorities were totally aware of the necessity to act however that most of them either lacked
the interest or the private means since the government could not procure them. The king
himself was not inactive either although his educational engagement cannot be compared to
that of his grandfather. In 1671 he ordered the construction of a new free school in Dublin for
which he offered to provide the annual payment of 80 pounds to the schoolmaster until
regular endowments could be arranged by the city. In a letter to the Lord Lieutenant he
underlined the dire necessity of more schools as otherwise “parents are obliged to send their
children to remote parts, and sometimes beyond the seas, to the great hazard of their being
infected with evil principles in religion”865 But while the king’s intentions may have been
sincere, the outcome of the project clearly shows why government initiatives concerning
Protestant education failed in Ireland. Ten months after the king’s letter the city of Dublin
informed that it had decided to dismiss the already employed Master of Arts, Matthew Spring,
since the king had passed letters patent for a new free school and maintenance of an able
schoolmaster. Consequently the dean of Christ Church cathedral had contracted a
schoolmaster in England who would be paid for by the king’s allowance. It is not completely
clear if Matthew Spring had already taught at a free school in Dublin before January 1663 but
it is obvious that the city welcomed the possibility to save the salary for the schoolmaster and
exchange him for a better suited candidate provisioned for by the king.866 Government
initiative for education was very limited due to the scarcity of available funding and relied
mainly on the private commitment of several government members. But the example of the
king’s free school in Dublin underlines that government intervention concerning education
could never be successful as long as the local Protestant communities were not willing to
contribute their own part.
Private Initiatives
Non-governmental private initiatives of Protestant education were similarly rare. The school
project run by the Butler family in the city of Kilkenny where it was especially designed by
the Duke of Ormond to rival the local Catholic schools was considered outstanding. In his
financial support of the school Ormond continued the family tradition. The institution was
founded by Piers Butler, Earl of Ormond and Ossory, and his wife Margaret, sister to the Earl
of Kildare, at the beginning of the sixteenth century still under Catholic supervision.867
865
CSP, Dom. Series, January to November, 1671, p. 146.
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 59-60.
867
Ledwich, Antiquities of Ireland, p. 422.
866
173
Prominent Catholic teachers such as Peter White soon made the school famous but it took
until the early seventeenth century until the school came under Protestant control. During the
1640s it was handed over to the Jesuits before it was returned to the Duke in 1660. Ormond
employed the renowned teacher Dr. Edward Jones who was followed in 1680 by the no less
famous Dr. Henry Ryder. When Ryder became Bishop of Killaloe in 1684 Ormond expanded
the school once more under the new guidance of Edward Hinton whom he paid the
considerable annual sum of 140 pounds. The school obtained a new building on John’s Street
and additional property in Counties Kilkenny and Tipperary to provide for the staff.868
Apparently Ormond understood his school as a model for Protestant teaching in Ireland while
it underlined at the same time his outstanding position in and association with the town of
Kilkenny that had been seat to the Butler family for so long. That the charity aspect of the
school as representative of Protestant education played an important role in the Duke’s design
was manifested by his order that all children of employees in the Duke’s household should be
taught for free in the school while all children of Kilkenny citizens only paid half the regular
fees. Additionally, the best students of each year were to receive scholarships for Trinity
College which guaranteed the long-lasting success and further promotion of the Church of
Ireland.869
Apart from the unique case of the Butler’s grammar school at Kilkenny, only the private
initiative of Erasmus Smith is worth mentioning. Smith started under Cromwell to provide for
the education of his tenants on his vast landed property that he had gained as an adventurer.
After the Restoration much of his land was returned to the Earl of Clancarty but considering
his social projects Charles II allowed him recompense in other parts of the country in order
“to answer those public, pious uses, in incorporating five free schools within that our
Kingdom, for which he hath petitioned our license (...)”. By 1662 new land was found and
Smith was even freed of a half-year-tax as reward for the foundation of the five schools
mentioned above.870 Originally they were located in Sligo, Galway, Tipperary, Antrim, and
Drogheda. Three of the schools still existed in 1682 in Drogheda, Galway, and Tipperary.871
Smith’s intention was clearly confessionalizing and anglicizing. He considered it necessary to
educate the poor children “in the fear of God and good literature and to speak the English
tongue”. For that purpose he employed schoolmasters that were supposed to teach as well as
868
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 20-1. Ledwich, Antiquities of Ireland, p. 423. In another source the Duke himself
spoke of an annual salary of 150 pounds for the teacher and usher and announced that the building in John’s
Streets had cost him 2000 pounds at least: Carte, Duke of Ormonde, Appendix, p. 91.
869
Neely, Kilkenny, pp. 108-9.
870
Johnston, Drogheda, pp. 63-66.
871
Auchmuty, Irish Education, p. 57.
174
catechize the students and pray with them twice every day.872 Although Smith invested a lot
of money in his schools and qualified Protestant teachers, they were often not able to compete
with the local Catholic teachers. In 1680 the schoolmasters of Drogheda and Galway
complained that the schools were in existence but that “there are but few whose children are
taught there by reason that other schools are permitted in those places and that those who are
of the Popish religion will not suffer their children to be educated in those schools nor by the
schoolmasters; which seems a discouragement to them, and will in a great measure render as
well the charity of the donor, as the cost in setting and maintaining schools ineffectual, if it be
not soon prevented.”873 The fate of Smith’s initiative underlines how difficult it was to
establish Protestant education in Ireland, even if the necessary funding was secured and even
in the cities where sufficient Protestants resided. From these troubles it can be derived how
impossible such initiatives would have been in the countryside where fewer Protestants were
living that had a genuine interest in attending the classes of a Protestant schoolmaster. In the
places where he established his schools Smith fought for the dissolution of any Catholic
schools in the following years but had little success. Two years later in 1682 he repeatedly
concluded “why these schooles are so consumptive, which was, and is, and will be (if not
prevented) the many popish schooles, their neighbours, which as succers doo starve the
tree.”874 In conclusion, private initiatives for Protestant education in Ireland were near to
nonexistent. They only survived successfully in places where the schools were backed by old
family traditions as well as considerable funding from their supporters. The example of
Erasmus Smith and his schools shows that even adequately qualified teachers were no
guarantee for the acceptance of the schools as long as the crown’s authority could not or
would not prevent rivalling Catholic teaching. Perhaps the government did not have the
necessary means to provide an education network in Ireland, but it certainly did not pave the
way for any private initiatives either.
Church Initiatives
Several of the Acts referring to education passed under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I
concentrated on the Protestant clergy as the main carrier. Parish schools and Diocesan Free
Schools were supposed to be established and financed in large parts by the bishops and the
local clergy in cooperation with the local gentry. As has been shown elsewhere these laws
were poorly applied in many parts of Ireland and with the Church of Ireland under-staffed and
872
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 79-82.
Ibid., pp. 79-82.
874
Ibid., p. 26. (no quotation made)
873
175
under-financed another pillar for the promotion of education was shaking. Some clergycontrolled schools continued to exist after the Restoration as was outlined by Archbishop
Margetson above, but no new ones were added and the remaining had to confront the same
difficulties as crown and private initiatives. Similar to the complaints of Erasmus Smith, the
Bishop of Leighlin pointed out that although he sustained a free school in the town of
Mariborough it was to small purpose “if all the popish priests in the Kingdome, take that
course (as in all probability they doe) which a priest called Laghlin Oge took not long since,
after the celebration of his masse; for he taught the people first, that whosoever did send ther
children or pupils to be taught by a schoolemaster of our Religion, they are excommunicated
ipso facto, and should certenly be damned wthout they did undergoe great penance for ther so
doing.”875 Under these conditions Protestant teaching could achieve almost nothing even if
the schoolmaster was properly endowed. But adequate funding remained an irregularity and
was usually only allowed if church individuals took a personal interest in the promotion of
certain institutions as was the case for the government initiatives as well. John Hodson,
Protestant Bishop of Elphin, bequeathed several estates in County Cavan to the building of a
grammar school at Elphin in 1685. The school was especially designed for poor children that
were to be taught gratis since the bishop hoped to reach the Catholic inhabitants of the diocese
with such a generous offer.876 Similar strategies may have been a successful perspective but
they were rare. Other clergymen that possessed the necessary coin lacked the personal link to
their diocese or even the country. The English-born Archbishop James Margetson, for
example, preferred to donate a school to his English hometown at Drighlington instead of
improving Protestant teaching in the Archdiocese of Armagh.877
A particularly interesting insight into the difficulties of Protestant teaching and the different
perspectives on the schools offer the letters from Sir George Rawdon to the Earl of Conway
between 1680 and 1683. All started with a visitation of the diocese of Down&Connor by the
Protestant bishop who was supposed to construct a diocesan free school in his diocese in the
summer of 1680. In order to procure the means he held out the prospect of individually
paying an annual 10 pounds while another 20 pounds were to be paid by the rest of the clergy.
After long debates the clerics agreed that Lisburn “for air, accommodation, well-affected to
the government &c., is the fittest place”, especially since a schoolhouse was already built
875
Comerford, Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, pp. 242-3.
Burke, Loch Ce and its annals, p. 113.
877
Richard L. Greaves: Margetson, James (1600–1678), in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford
2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18054, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
876
176
there.878 In fact, the local schoolmaster, the famous Mr. Haslom, already received his payment
from the Earl of Conway as whose agent Rawdon acted in Lisburn.879 So to fulfil their legal
requirements, the clergy attached their future school to the already existing one in Lisburn
recruiting a former student of Mr. Haslom as his usher who was actually working as a
schoolmaster in the nearby city of Carrickfergus. As a result, Carrickfergus was left without
any Protestant school at all while Lisburn disposed of a diocesan free school as well a
privately financed school in one institution. Rawdon contacted Conway informing him of this
procedure and communicating the clergy’s desire that the Earl should establish a source of
income to guarantee the annual 40 pounds Mr. Haslom received from the Earl, so that even in
case of Mr. Haslom’s death the now transformed diocesan free school could dispose of the
money.880 After this letter the process was apparently delayed since the next reference to it
appears in February 1683. Again Rawdon wrote to Conway about the school that by then had
27 students, all “gentlemen’s sons already out of the country that are boarded in town” but
was not yet transformed into a county school or diocesan school as was originally intended by
the bishop. Rawdon pointed out that no such arrangement could be made until the Earl had
consented to the problematic question of the annual pension of 40 pounds. The problem
aggravated when the city of Carrickfergus pretended to be traditionally the seat of the
diocesan free school although according to Rawdon “they will neither build a school nor can
pretend it to be the shire town of that diocese”.881 By then Rawdon’s hope for a quick settling
of the disputes had vanished. He admitted it was likely that there was no solution that could
be found until the Lord Lieutenant returned and decided the matter though nobody knew
when this might be. By the 28th February Rawdon must have obtained the permission from
Conway to proceed with the project granting the 40 pounds and the site of the old
schoolhouse. This being settled Rawdon brought forth the point of repairing the building
which was much in decay. The necessary 50 pounds were to be collected from the vicars with
a contribution of ten pounds each to what they consented. Rawdon’s list of necessary repairs
comprised “seats, repairing the roof and covering it with shingles and planking the floor etc.”
which gives an impression of the miserable conditions of Protestant teaching even in
circumstances where private funding secured the payment of a regular teacher and sufficient
Protestant students who wanted to attend the classes. Rawdon came to the conclusion that the
878
CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, p. 518.
Between 1662 and 1681 not less than thirty former students of Mr. Haslom entered Trinity College Dublin
what made him one of the ten most important Protestant teachers in Ireland: Burtchaeli/Sadleir, Alumni
Dublineses.
880
CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, p. 518.
881
CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st to June 30th, 1683, p. 55.
879
177
construction of a new building at the cost of 100 pounds was more effective than to repair the
old one which required the additional payment of the remaining 50 pounds difference of the
Earl of Conway.882
After all this was arranged nothing happened. A month after Rawdon’s letter the Earl of
Conway received a note from Richard Mildmay who informed him that “as to the schoolhouse, I believe little or nothing will be done this year, no money as yet being scarcely
proposed, much less assured, to begin providing materials, which, when begun, will be a
weekly disbursement.”883 Conway had provided all that was required of him but the promised
money from the clergy was not yet collected and Mildmay had little hope that it would ever
come to this. Only a few days later Rawdon again contacted the Earl confirming the
difficulties. Of his proposition to build a new school he does not write a single word but only
speaks of repairing the old schoolhouse. Furthermore he had contacted the Archbishop of
Armagh concerning the final acknowledgment of the school as the diocesan school and it was
indicated that the request would be granted if the Earl of Conway kept paying his 40
pounds.884
If Rawdon was optimistic he was soon disappointed. In May 1683 he wrote another letter to
Conway explaining that now Lord Longford, the Governor of Carrickfergus, along with some
others disputed the translation of the free school to Lisburn and demanded to stop the repair
works or at least to delay them until the Duke of Ormond would decide the matter. Rawdon
feared that Ormond would decide in favor of Carrickfergus therefore he approached the Lord
Primate of Ireland to intervene as he was in favor of Lisburn as the place for the diocesan
school. The explanation for the translation of the school given by Rawdon was confessional.
When Carrickfergus was chosen as the site for the school “the Crown had conformable and
good subjects there and now sometimes a thousand Presbyterians meet to hear Scots
preachers within sight of the walls of the town”. Lisburn on the other hand stayed true to the
Church of Ireland and was therefore better suited for the school in order not to pervert the
scholars that came from all over Ulster.885 Given all rivalling ambitions around the school, the
Lord Lieutenant who was staying in London at that time, preferred not to interfere and waited
to see what happened. During May 1683 he exchanged several letters with his son and deputy,
the Earl of Arran, as well as with Longford and Conway. He had no peculiar interest in
relocating the school to Lisburn but decided to leave the decision to the Council which left
882
Ibid., p. 85.
Ibid., p. 123.
884
Ibid., p. 141.
885
Ibid., p. 249.
883
178
him in a neutral position.886 Ormond understood that the subordinate question of where the
school was located contained political, personal, and confessional aspects of different
influential groups and individuals in the North of Ireland, thus he preferred not to take any
part in the decision and to further delay the process instead of making new enemies for his
own person. All this happened, naturally, at the expense of the Protestant education in Ireland.
In the end, three whole years after the discussion began, the case came to nothing. On 26th
May, Sir George Rawdon summarized the agreements for the time being. It was concluded
that the city of Carrickfergus did not dispose of an adequate schoolhouse for the number of
students and that the Common Hall of the town was not fitting as it was used too often for
other purposes what made regular classes impossible. Since no attempt was made since the
Restoration by the corporation of Carrickfergus to establish a new building and given the fact
that the city was difficult to reach from many parts of the county and diocese, the bishop and
clergy decided to transfer the school to Lisburn which was also the residence of the bishop.
These instructions were provisional for one year and in this amount of what the corporation of
Carrickfergus should be allowed to build a good schoolhouse on their own. If they failed, the
school was to remain in Lisburn and receive an additional financial support from the Earl of
Conway for 30 pounds per year. This decision was not only favorable to the children but also
to the crown since Carrickfergus was crowded with Dissenters for which it was doubted
“whether it be for the King’s service to have the youth of the diocese educated in such a
neighbourhood.”887
This was the last reference made to the school at Lisburn and it cannot be said with certainty
if the compromise worked out in three years was ever put into effect. Instead it can be said
with certainty that the Protestant teaching in Carrickfergus as well as Lisburn decreased in
quality during these years while necessary repairs and investments were delayed in order to
wait for a final decision. The episode underlines that Protestant education failed to succeed in
Ireland because of personal interest as well as the lack of money. In no part of the
correspondence was it ever mentioned that no sufficient money could be raised, only that
nobody was willing to offer it. The competition between Lisburn and Carrickfergus, the Lord
Primate and the Lord Lieutenant, and most importantly between Longford and Conway,
overlaid the original problem that both towns had a school in 1680 and that one of the schools
was to disappear in the end only because the clergy tried to comply with the law with the least
cost. If the benefit of Protestant education had been the major concern of the clergy involved,
886
887
HMC: Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond, New Series, vol. VII, pp. 26/35.
CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st to June 30th, 1683, p. 271.
179
they could have opened a third school at their own expense in another place but this was
never even taken into consideration.
180
VII. The Catholic Church and Education
While the Restoration government was struggling to impose its own policy regarding social
disciplination and confessionalisation through education, the Catholic Church faced different
problems aiming at the same target. After 1660 the re-establishment of the Catholic Church
hierarchy and the application of Tridentine reforms became the central objective of Rome and
especially Propaganda Fide. Although the king was restored to the throne and Irish Catholics
enjoyed somewhat greater liberty than they had under Cromwell, anti-Catholic laws were in
no way abolished, assemblies of confessions other than the Church of Ireland remained
unlawful, and a Catholic Church reform was necessarily forced underground. Despite the
long-time accepted assumption that the time was ideal for a newly imposed Tridentine reform
after the total collapse of the old Irish church system under the Commonwealth that was
chiefly advocated by Patrick Corish and others before him, the Catholic clergy was only little
diminished during the 1650s. Corish pointed out correctly that the numbers of clerics
increased in the 1660s though they never reached the level of the 1640s. However he left out
that the years of the Confederation of Kilkenny cannot serve as a measurement.888 Only for
these few years the number of catholic clerics can be estimated more or less correctly while
for the following decades it has to be assumed that the numbers given by synods, bishops, and
others always included a guessing part.
In fact, the reports of the newly installed bishops and archbishops as well as the Jesuit
Litterae Annuae of the Restoration period draw the picture of an island that was largely
overflown by clerics and hardly able to sustain them.889 Of course, these descriptions were
anything but objective but they all concluded in having the same basic difficulties; the lack of
educated priests who were qualified according to the Tridentine reforms. While a vast number
of religious had never left the country during the 1650s, others who were exiled to the
continent returned home in great numbers despite the legal restrictions imposed by the
Protestant government.890 And not all of them were welcomed by those who were entrusted
with the task to confessionalise the Irish Catholic Church in a Tridentine way. Old traditions
characterised by superstition and popular belief were considered as problematic as the clerics
returning from France and the Spanish Netherlands where they might have been in contact
with Jansenist and Gallican ideas that were considered heretic by Rome.
888
Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 56.
Most of the letters of the Archbishops Brenan and Plunkett are filled with comlaints about the numerosity of
the unlearned clergy. Cf. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett. Power, Archbishop John Brennen.
890
Gallagher, Seventeenth-Century Clogher, p. 30.
889
181
The Catholic Church in Rome was so afraid of false doctrines within their own ranks that it
often restrained from acting at all for fear of making things worse. As a result, Tridentine
reforms were not promoted according to a general policy but depended chiefly on the personal
initiatives of individuals while the church authorities were careful not to support anyone who
might teach the common people anything unauthorised or considered dangerous and false.
This policy of paranoia inhibited the Catholic Church where it could have been more
successful during the Restoration period despite the official anti-Catholic policy of the
crown.891 The fear of Catholic heresy and disorder was greater than the hope to effectively
confessionalize the Irish population. In the following chapters the most characteristic events
and processes of Catholic Church policy in Ireland will be reviewed to outline the general
Catholic confessional circumstances under which teaching had to subsist.
1. The Fear of Catholic Heresy and Disorder
The Remonstrance
The foremost dilemma of the Catholic Church in Ireland was to express loyalty to a Protestant
king while at the same time exerting jurisdiction of the Pope. Since the excommunication of
Elizebath I the question whether a Pope was allowed to depose a monarch and to whom the
subjects owed their allegiance in the end dominated all confessional debates in Ireland during
the seventeenth century. Again and again attempts had been made to reconcile the genuine
loyal Catholic Irish with their king and to establish a status quo that sufficed both monarch
and Pope. These reconciling attempts reached their climax during the 1660s with the
Remonstrance affair. It was chiefly characterized by the will of many Irish Catholics to
arrange themselves with the restored king. The conviction of most of the clergy was that the
Pope stood above the monarch and the intention of the Irish Protestant government was to use
these tensions in order to divide the Irish Catholics thus making them politically less
dangerous for the Protestant minority.
Generally, the idea of an Irish Remonstrance or loyal formulary to achieve reconciliation with
the monarchy was not controversial. It was the expressed desire of the Catholic clergy to
express their support for Charles II after his Restoration to the throne and thus to promote
tolerance for the Catholic Church. In this desire the clergy agreed with the remaining Catholic
gentry and merchants that were out for an agreement with the Protestant authorities to secure
their property and business. The Remonstrance was considered the appropriate measure to put
891
Millett, Survival and Reorganization, p. 18.
182
an end to the internal quarrels of the 1640s and 50s.892 As early as January 1661 the Primate
of Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh, James O’Reilly, commissioned the Franciscan Peter
Walsh as his agent at the London court to promote these interests with the king. O’Reilly
drew up a document that assured the monarch of the loyalty of the Catholics of Ireland but it
was refused by the Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormond, to whom it did not go far enough.
Ormond demanded further assurances instead of a general declaration which O’Reilly tried to
formulate but it soon became obvious that the second version was not acceptable to the Pope
including too many aspects of Gallicanism. At this point of the debate the Catholic clergy was
finally divided between those who adhered to the orthodox demands of the Pope and those
who followed the promoter Peter Walsh who kept trying to find a formulary that would be
acceptable to both parties until 1666.893 Although the purpose to arrange themselves with the
existing circumstances was clearly visible in the early formularies drawn up by O’Reilly, the
Remonstrance would have changed the nature of the Irish Catholic Church forever. The
importance of Gallicanistic currents will be discussed later on but certainly a successful
Remonstrance would have created the fundament for an Anglo-Irish Church that was less
focussed on Rome.894
The situation was easier was for the Catholic gentry who drew up its own Remonstrance in
1660. Theological questions were of less importance to them but the expression of their
unconditional loyalty towards Charles II and the Stuart monarchy was significant. For the
subscribers it was incomprehensible how “some Persons (who are unwilling to understand
aright our Religion) cast upon it, as if it were not Consistent with all dutiful Obedience, and
Faith to the Supream Temporal Magistrate”. Hence the question of supreme power was either
clarified or secondary to them since Charles II was their “our only Sovereign Lord on
Earth”.895 Spiritual matters were of little concern. Instead the authors emphasised the civil and
temporal authority of the king denying any papal influence in matters of daily politics. In
conclusion it was summarised that “all absolute Princes and Supreme Governors, of what
Religion soever they be, are God’s Lieutenants on Earth; and that Obedience is due to them,
according to the Laws of each Commonwealth respectively, in all Civil and Temporal
892
Creighton, The Remonstrance, p. 17.
James Kelly: The Catholic Church in the Diocese of Ardagh, 1650-1870, in: Raymond Gillespie/Gerard
Moran (eds.): Longford: Essays in County History, Dublin 1991, pp. 61-91, p. 67. Connolly, Divided Kingdoms,
p. 147.
894
Creighton, The Remonstrance, p. 19.
895
Murrough O’Brien/et al.: The Faithful Protestation and humble Remonstrance of the Roman Catholic
Nobility and Gentry of Ireland, 1660, p. 2.
893
183
Affairs.”896 Since this Remonstrance only slightly touched the aspects of religion, it was
welcomed by the king and not further questioned. Thus it must be considered as a political
expression rather than a confessional one. That it was in no way as problematic or
controversial as the clerical Remonstrance is comprehensible when looking at the subscribers
who altogether belonged to the few surviving Catholic landowning families in Ireland; the
most prominent figures being Murrough O’Brien, Earl of Inchiquin, four members of the
Plunkett family, two Talbots as well as three Burkes.897 When it came to protecting their
privileges and property all of them demonstrated a certain confessional flexibility as will be
discussed elsewhere. In the political sense the gentry’s Remonstrance can be considered a
success. Many of the subscribers had participated in the 1641 rebellion and the Confederation
of Kilkenny and although they had come to peace with the king’s father in the end, the
acceptance of the Remonstrance by Charles II was a final proof of forgiveness.898
By 1662 Peter Walsh who was often accused as Ormond’s puppet by his clerical
adversaries899 drew up a Remonstrance of the clergy and started collecting support and
subscribers among the clerics. According to Walsh, the Catholic Church was enabled to teach
the king’s Irish subjects obedience “which for Conscience sake they are bound to Pay to your
Majesty’s Commands”.900 For Walsh as for the gentry the king’s superiority in all things of
civil and temporal affairs was not questioned at all. But Walsh did go as far as to proclaim
that even if the Pope or any of his authorities acted or demanded to act contrary to the king’s
laws “We will still acknowledge and perform to the uttermost of our abilities, our faithfull
Loyalty and true Allegeance to your Majesty.”901
The spiritual controversy culminated in a national synod in Dublin with official permission
from the Duke of Ormond in 1666. 100 clerics convened in the capital, among them
O’Reilley who had been forced to return into exile after 1661.902 The synod discussed the
propositions made by leading theologians of the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1663. The
896
Ibid., p. 2.
Ibid., p. 3.
898
Creighton, The Remonstrance, p. 29. Cf. Royal warrant to Sir Jeffrey Palmer (for Richard Bellings), 4th Feb.
1662 und Charles II to Anglesey, for Luke, Earl of Fingall, 7 th Feb. 1662, in: CSPI, 1666-9, pp. 560-3.
899
For the whole Restoration period the person Peter Walsh remained persona non grata for the reform-oriented
bishops and the internuntio at Brussels and whenever someone had to be made responsible for alleged
conspiracies or simple organisational mischiefs he was certainly named. For example: Millett, Calendar of
volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 140-142.
900
Peter Walsh: To the King's most excellent Majestie the humble remonstrance, acknowledgement,
protestation, and petition of the Roman Catholick clergy of Ireland, London 1662.
901
Ibid.
902
Ormond confided in a letter the Lord Chancellor of England on 9th June that he had agreed with Reilly that he
“may end his days (which are not like to be many) in his own country. By his coming I am convinced that no
invasion is intended. Another condition of his coming is that he shall subscribe to the remonstrance (...).” CSPI,
1666-1669, pp. 130-1.
897
184
propositions generally concluded that there was no higher authority to man than that of king
and God so that consequently, all subjects owed him the highest obedience.903 Since the
majority of the Catholic bishops eventually refused to sign the paper that was agreed on,
Ormond dissolved the synod proceeding against those representatives who refused to sign
thus distinguishing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Catholics.904 He allowed those who signed the
document to reside in Ireland taking their signature as guarantee that they would not adhere to
papal jurisdiction and thus would not pose any threat to the Protestant rule and the Protestant
settlers.905 Ormond’s part in the Remonstrance affair and the person of Peter Walsh are still
difficult to assess. Walsh’s engagement and the following devising policy of the Lord
Lieutenant certainly helped to increase Roman fears of Irish heresy and the spread of
Jansenist and Gallican ideals.906 Nevertheless, Anne Creighton pointed out consistently that
the division among the Catholic clergy already existed before the Remonstrance and that the
difficult political, confessional and economical circumstances in Ireland would have
guaranteed further dissensions even without Peter Walsh’s initiative.907
Taafe’s Mission
The debates about the Remonstrance clearly demonstrated how deeply rooted the fears of
heretic influences on the Catholic doctrine in Ireland were among the authorities in Rome. No
matter how real the influence of Gallican and Jansenist ideals on the Irish clergy was, it was
taken seriously by those responsible for the Tridentine reforms in Ireland. In order to set
things right and to identify those of heretic potential among the Irish clergy internuntio
Rospigliosi and Cardinal Barberini decided to send a special envoy to Ireland, the Franciscan
James Taaffe. If the Remonstrance controversy and Ormond’s scheming politics had not
sufficed to divide the Irish clergy already, Taaffe’s mission to Ireland would surely have.
Taaffe descended from an old English family of the Pale and showed so little disposition to
903
Walsh who composed his own relation of the history of the Remonstrance saw the debate from a point of
view that was different to the majority of the Irish clergy. Walsh received his education in France and was even a
personal friend of Cornelius Jansen. The Sorbonne propositions were nothing extreme as he saw it but a
necessary compromise. He misjudged that the position of the Irish Catholic clergy was in some way comparable
to the church in France since it was completely dependent on Roman support spiritual as well as financial while
no support support at all was to be expected from the king of England even if he acknowledged the
Remonstrance: Creighton, The Remonstrance, pp. 30-1.
904
Ibid., p. 28. In Ormond’s own words he informed Secretary Arlington on 16th June that “the end I think will
be that some will subscribe and others not; and that I think liberty and countenance should be given to those who
subscribe, and the others smartly prosecuted, till they be driven out of the kingdom (...).” CSPI, 1666-1669, p.
133.
905
Creighton, The Remonstrance, pp. 35-6. Cf. Ormond to Bennet, 5th Feb. 1663, MS. Carte 221, ff. 203f.
906
Luc Racault argues that the fear of Gallican ideas among the Irish clergy was actively encouraged by the
Stuart government that stressed the possible closeness of Gallicanism and Anglicanism thus dividing into
conforming and non-conforming Catholics: Cf. Ibid., Anglicanism and Gallicanism, p. 200.
907
Creighton, The Remonstrance, p. 38.
185
compromise with the old Irish clergy that his failure was predictable. When Taaffe returned to
Rome he left the clergy in a state of devastation at the end of the 1660s when originally the
political circumstances were never better to re-organize the Catholic Church in Ireland.908
The main difficulty for Taaffe proved the task to reveal to the clergy his special faculties that
he received from the Pope. Since what he was sent to do was nothing else than to secure a reestablishment of papal jurisdiction in Ireland he would have been immediately arrested if the
crown authorities had known of his arrival. But the fact that he refused or proved unable to
present the Pope’s papers to the clergy whom he wanted to discipline made his standing more
and more precarious. The sources about Taafe and what he did and what he was said to have
done are confused and only slightly reliable. Most likely other clerics pretended to possess
special faculties from the pope as well since the Superior of the Jesuits in Ireland Francis
White claimed to have unmasked at least one envoy whose papers were falsifications.909
In the end, the situation was opaque and produced ever more radical reactions. In his helpless
attempts to re-establish order Taaffe made more and more enemies by excommunicating
everyone who questioned his powers.910 Soon he was as despised by the common clergy as
Peter Walsh with whom he was said to have allied. Interestingly, all accusations that were
brought forth against him personally seemed a catalogue of clerical misbehaviour according
to the Tridentine rules he tried to enforce. In a very pointed report on him it is said that “he
turned days into nights and nights into days, very frequently in the company of young women,
so that those who lodged in the same house in Dublin could not sleep because of the music
and noise which he made dancing with Walsh and his companions; wherever he went after he
left Dublin he followed the same course and as the writer learned from a cleric most worthy
of credence who accompanied the commissary for nine days, during all that time the
commissary was never sober and never went to bed until after 2.00 or 3.00 a.m.”911
All the dissensions culminated when Taaffe demanded an assembly of representatives of all
the religious orders in Dublin in May 1668 only to excommunicate all members of the regular
clergy who administered the sacraments of baptism, marriage, and extreme unction. And
although he had promised otherwise, he laid special emphasis on the Jesuits in Ireland who
were the last to support him. Taaffe explained that he did so only to appease the other orders
908
Millett, Survival and Reorganization, pp.21-2.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad
exitum anni 1674, fo. 271-271v.
910
By doing so he reminded many Irish contemporaries of the papal nuntio Rinuccini whose excommunications
had led to a veritable civil war among the Catholic Confederates in the late 1640s thus causing further mistrust
among Rinuccini’s former enemies, the old English of the Pale.
911
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 157-159.
909
186
but he had gone too far already. The order protested vehemently to Rome against Taaffe’s
insolence until it was clear that the envoy’s position had become untenable.912
Taaffe’s mission that aimed at the Tridentine disciplination of the Catholic clergy in Ireland
ended with his alleged excommunication by the Pope early in 1669. However, a letter to
Rome informed on 4th March that the priest who was sent to deliver the papers had not done
so for fear that his activity might be discovered by the crown authorities and considered
exertion of papal jursidiction. Without ever being officially excommunicated Taaffe left
Ireland for London later to continue to the continent where he spent the rest of his life in a
convent.913 Only when his failure became obvious Rome adopted a new strategy in order to
implement Tridentine rules in Ireland by filling the vacant sees of the dioceses with
continentally trained bishops. Between 1669 and 1671 twelve of the fourteen Irish sees were
occupied again while only two of the old bishops remained in exile.914
Jansenism/Gallicanism
As has been outlined before, the fear of Gallican and Jansenist influences on the Irish church
and clergy was substantial although the real importance of these currents has been
controversially discussed in the past decades. James Brennan was of the opinion that the only
aspect of Gallicanism in Restoration Ireland could be discussed in the context of the
Remonstrance affair sbecause the subscribers were mostly those that had already opposed the
papal nuntio Rinuccini and his Rome-centred policy during the 1640s.915
Gallicanism was an especially French construct that questioned the papal influence on French
politics emphasizing the idea of a national Catholic Church with less dependence on Rome.
Its legitimization was founded on the particular situation and power of the French state during
the sixteenth and seventeenth century and was thus in no way compatible to the Irish position
in the Restoration era. Many members of the Irish clergy had been educated in Rome or at
least on the continent and supported the Tridentine reforms with a pronounced dependence on
the papal authority. On the other hand a national Irish Catholic Church did not even officially
exist so that as a result two fundamentally inherent aspects of Gallicanism were not given in
the Irish context.916 Elementary to the idea of Gallicanism was the aspect of the divine right of
912
Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in volume 15 of “Fondo di Vienna”, pp. 81-2. Ibid., Calendar of volume I of
the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 100-102/152-3.
913
Ibid. (ed.): Calendar of volume II (1669-71) of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda” in Propaganda
Archives, Part 1, ff. 1-401, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 16 (1973), pp. 7-47, p. 15.
914
Ibid., Survival and Reorganization, p. 22.
915
James Brennan: A Gallican interlude in Ireland, in: Irish Theological Quarterly, No. 24 (1957), pp. 219-37,
pp. 219-20.
916
Ibid., pp. 220-222.
187
kings based on the question whether the Pope was legitimized to depose a king if he was not
content with his earthly politics. According to the French Jesuit Bellarmine this was only the
case if the monarch’s rule endangered the salvation of his subjects since the authority of the
Pope was considered superior in spiritual matters. The Gallican theorists contradicted
Bellarmine’s point and believed that the king’s right of power was completely inviolable.
Consequently Gallicanism paved the way for a concept of Absolutism that was especially
designed for France and was well received in England, however it was not adaptable to
Ireland.917 Interestingly the divine right of king’s and the Pope’s authority to depose the king
were little discussed in Ireland itself. The only relevant document that engaged with the
subject was Conor O’Mahony’s Disputatio Apologetica published in Lisbon in 1647. The
radical pamphlet proposed that the people should be legitimized to depose their own monarch
if treated unjustly, if necessary without the authorization of the Pope. The fact that
O’Mahony’s tract was immediately prohibited and publicly burnt by the authorities of the
Confederation of Kilkenny underlines how little disposition existed among the leading Irish
Catholics to deal with the matter.918
While the national concept of a Gallican Church was difficult to apply to Ireland, Jansenist
ideas were more widespread among the Irish clergy, especially those who had spent some
years in France and the Spanish Netherlands. Jansenism and Gallicanism corresponded in
several aspects, most of all in its rejection of a Rome-centred Catholic Church. Jansenists
demanded more self-control of the local parish priest limiting the influence of the bishops and
representatives appointed by the Pope.919 Although Gallicanism and Jansenism must be
differentiated both currents were seen as a similar threat by the Roman authorities. It was
feared that such concepts would limit the Pope’s influence on the Irish clergy and thus – in
the long run – limited the hopes for a Restoration of the Catholic faith in England. Most
historians have tended to refuse a high influence of Jansenist ideas on the Irish clergy,
limiting it to a secluded group of individuals. A relevant influence on the Irish clergy was
never exerted by Jansenist thoughts and indeed scarcely changed the development of the Irish
Catholic Church. While the outcome of the Jansenist debate can be thus interpreted it is of
more interest to analyse it according to the perception by those who felt threatened by it. The
aspect of Jansenism as a threat for the Catholic Church in Ireland and the implementation of
Tridentine reforms was discussed by church representatives during the whole Restoration
917
Ibid., pp. 222-227.
Ibid., pp. 228-9.
919
Hersche, Muße und Verschwendung, vol. 1, p. 137.
918
188
period and although the real danger may have been marginal the perceived danger was
extremely high.920
Already at the first provincial synod in October 1660 held by Archbishop O’Reilly of Armagh
at Clonelly Jansenism was explicitly identified as a threat to the church that was as dangerous
as common misbehavior such as excessive drinking. To proceed against it was marked as one
of the fundamental tasks in order to restore the Catholic Church in Ireland according to the
Tridentine rules.921 The Jesuits became especially active against Jansenist currents among the
Irish clergy. Since Jansenist ideals aimed at a more ascetic and rigorous Catholic doctrine
they were less compatible with the Jesuit concept of an adaptable Catholic Church. Jansenism
and its orientation on the Augustinian grace ecclesiology was more often associated with the
Calvinist doctrine of predestination and thus further complicated the Jansenist-Jesuit
relations.922 In his recent assessment of Anglicanism and Gallicanism Luc Racault has
underlined similar overlappings apart from Jansenist ideal. He is of the opinion that French
Catholicism was much closer to the Anglican Church than to Tridentine Roman
Catholicism.923 Consequently Jesuit complaints about false teaching and preaching were
particularly insistent. Most of all during the early years of the Restoration period in the
context of the Remonstrance affair, the Litterae Annuae expressed the fear that Jansenist
ideals were spread among the Irish nobility. The number of people that had not received
proper Catholic instruction for more than a decade was high and so was the danger of
misleading instruction through those Jansenist priests that recently returned from the French
exile. The reports emphasized the problem that so many were willing to re-embrace
Catholicism and that it was nearly impossible to supervise those who administered the
Sacraments. The Jesuits feared the outcome that it would pose a greater difficulty to correct
the Catholics once falsely instructed than to convert any Protestants.924 Most of the
complaints dealt with the province of Munster as the area most threatened by Jansenist
priests. This evaluation could be true but it must be considered that Jesuit activities were
920
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, p. 269.
Millett, Survival and Reorganization, pp. 12-3. Decrees of the Provincial Synod of Armagh, 8th October
1660: “2. Statuimus et ordinamus ut omnes qui olent de Jansenismo aut quodmodolibet olere reperientur, aut de
haeresi alia quacumque a Sede Apostolica damnata, eo ipso inhabiles et incapaces eujuscumque praelaturae,
dignitatis et beneficii etiam minimi, in hac nostra provincia Ardmachana.”: Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol.
2, p. 197.
922
Hersche, Muße und Verschwendung, vol. 1, pp. 136-7. The closeness of Jansenism and Puritanism was even
seen by local Irish Protestants who considered Jansenist Catholics as less dangerous to their own cause as
Tridentine Catholics, most of all the Jesuits: Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, pp. 87-89.
923
Racault, Anglicanism and Gallicanism, p. 199.
924
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v./261.
921
189
mostly centred in the Southeast of Ireland as well. So that in conclusion it could well be that
Jansenist thinking was more widespread only that the Jesuits took no notice of it.925
The fear of Jansenist thinking was especially visible when it came to the promotion of bishops
since 1665. James Adamson outlined in a letter to Mario Alberici, secretary to Propaganda
Fide on 20th May that the former political and confessional integrity of the candidates during
the Confederation of Kilkenny should not be necessarily seen as a sufficient recommendation
since many may have been corrupted during their years in exile. And if a non-fitting candidate
once resumed his office in the diocese he would hardly be controllable by the Roman
authorities thus causing major difficulties.926 Following these judgements the preliminary
inquiries about the doctrinal attitudes of the candidates became one of the major aspects in the
context of promotions. First in April 1665 Archbishop O’Reilly emphasized in an assessment
of the candidate William Mergin that he was never in contact with any heretic doctrines,
especially not Jansenism.927 Mergin was not promoted, although two years later he appeared
again writing to the Archbishop of Pisa, Francesco Pannocchieschi d’Elia, that new bishops
were of fundamental importance for the restoration of the Catholic Church in Ireland. The
widespread sympathy with Jansenism among the people and the common clergy posed a
considerable threat to the mission that could only be defied by steadfast Roman educated
bishops.928
Similar concerns were expressed by the Jesuit Netterville and the exiled Bishop of Ferns,
Nicholas French, whose letters were discussed in the Congregazione Particolare for Irish
affairs in 1668. Both were of the opinion that the high number of unqualified Irish priests
threatened the church reform. They wanted to reduce their numbers while at the same time
those replacing them from the continent needed to be fiercely assessed in order to avoid
heretic tendencies.929 Their approach underlined the dilemma of the Catholic Church since the
Irish-based clergy seemed not sufficiently instructed while those who had studied on the
continent were considered a theoretical danger. In the same year the secretary of Propaganda
Fide was informed about the dangerous behavior of a group of Irish clerical students at Paris
that planned to introduce Jansenist thoughts to Ireland. Their target was the promotion of one
Malachy Kelly and Daniel Ryan to an Irish see who were both considered Jansenists.930
Especially Kelly repeatedly appears in the documents as an enemy of the Holy See and its
925
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 268.
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 15 of “Fondo di Vienna”, pp. 71-2.
927
Ibid., pp. 79-80.
928
Ibid., pp. 80-1.
929
Ibid., Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 58-67.
930
Ibid., p. 100.
926
190
reform policy although little concrete information about him was given.931 If he and his
friends in Paris actually were a threat is impossible to judge. In any case the quantity of
material presented against him suggests that he was taken seriously.
An Irish clergyman who was considered loyal to the Tridentine reforms and explicitly antiJansenist was John O’Moloney, later Bishop of Killaloe. His promotion can be understood as
a counter-measure against the Parisian Jansenist faction since O’Moloney informed about
them from the early 1670s onwards. His loyalty to Rome was first confirmed in 1671 when he
was characterized as an “enemy of the new doctrines and a sharp defender of the authority of
the Holy See.”.932 In 1675 O’Moloney composed a variety of letters and reports to
Propaganda Fide on the state of the Jansenist groups among the Irish community in Paris.
Most of all the influence of the Gallican church structures corrupted them according to
O’Moloney.933 In a letter to the cardinal protector in Paris from 8th November 1675 he wrote:
“Unum mihi memoria excidit quod hic insinuare liceat, estque circa virum Jansenistam (de
quo ibi copiosius) Malachiam Kelly”.934 Only a few days later he repeated this estimation in a
letter to Cardinal Altieri. Malachy Kelly and his friends were the center of Jansenist activities
in Paris instructing their students at the local Irish college in false doctrines. Controversally,
O’Moloney proposed to have them returned to Ireland as soon as possible since they could
cause less harm there than in Paris where they enjoyed a wider audience. They could easily be
distributed among the widespread parishes of Cashel where the newly appointed Archbishop,
John Brenan could have a close eye on them. The problem as O’Moloney saw it was that the
exiled priests had little interest in returning to Ireland voluntarily. In consequence O’Moloney
proposed that the Pope decreed the immediate return to Ireland of all those clerics who were
ordained only sub titulo missioni. Such a formula that avoided the mentioning of Jansenism
would cause little suspicion and could achieve the aimed target.935 Propaganda Fide came to a
different conclusion. In the proceedings of the session of 20th April 1676 it was decided “di
non dare alcuna dette chiese a Malachia Kelli, Patritio Efferman, Gio. Neuman, Pero Pero,
Cornelio Daly, Dermitio Illiderman, Edoardo Butler, Giacomo Corneo, David Malachai, e
Terentio Fiz Patrich, perché molti d’essi sono effetivamente Giansenisti, et altri assai sospetti,
aggiugende che il detto Malachia in Parigi ha ottenuta la carica d’istruire la gioventú
931
Ibid., Calendar of volume II of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, p. 25.
Ibid., Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 35-6.
933
Jennings, Ireland and Propaganda Fide, pp. 32-35.
934
Ibid., p. 31.
935
Millett, Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 2, pp. 76-7.
932
191
Ibernese”.936 Kelly and his friends remained in Paris and their activities were not further
discussed. It is unknown if they fell apart or distanced themselves from Jansenist doctrines.
None of them ever reached an influential post in the Irish Catholic Church and their real
influence on Irish clerics may have been small enough.937 Nonetheless, for five years their
circle kept Propaganda Fide worried and the general fear for Jansenist thoughts in Ireland
remained high.
Although Kelly’s group of Parisian Jansenists disappeared from the sources around 1676 the
Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, resumed O’Moloney’s complaints about Jansenist
currents in 1677. In a long and detailed account he pleaded to Cardinal Altieri to personally
inform the Pope about the spreading of Jansenist ideas and the problems it caused for the Irish
mission. The distribution of Jansenist pamphlets and the return of several ill-affected Irish
clerics from France were a greater “spiritual disaster” and “instil greater terror in Catholics,
and are threat to them” than the recently issued Protestant edicts that “aimed at despoiling the
faithful of property and lands”. Moreover many Catholics in Ireland that had persisted faithful
to Rome for so long were irritated by the fact that the Jansenists proclaimed a Reformation
within the Catholic Church and the Pope and his representatives did so little to prevent it.938
In summary, Jansenism was a perceived threat to the reform intentions of the Tridentine
clergy in Ireland. This was even more so since the parallel developments in England gave
reason to fear that increasing tensions between Jansenists and Jesuits might even lead to a
complete split of the Irish clergy in times when it needed unity. The leading Irish bishops
were well-informed on the still continuing divisions that Blacklo and his followers had caused
in England early in the seventeenth century. The interconnections between Blackloism,
Jansenism, and the Irish disputes over the Remonstrance were most explicitly pronounced in
two letters from the later Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot, to the internuntio in Brussels
from 20th January 1668. Talbot claims that the majority of the English Catholic clergy
gravitated towards Blackloism while they aimed at discrediting the Jesuits. In Ireland these
tendencies were supported by Peter Walsh who acted on Ormond’s behalf and whose only
target was to split the Catholic clergy as the Blackloites had done in England before. As a
result Rome would have to find an appropriate measure since a concerted action would
936
Jennings, Ireland and Propaganda Fide, p. 55.
In the Netherlands where Jansenism was originally rooted the movement remained similarly limited. Willem
Frijhoff characterises them as a group of “intellectuals, with very little impact on the common people.” This
verdict could have been equally true for for the Irish Jansenists. Cf. Frijhoff, Northern Netherlands, p. 259.
938
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 488.
937
192
eliminate not only the risk of division by the Remonstrance but also by the Jansenists as well
the Blackloites in England.939
The case of the English Blackloites as a precedence to the Irish occurrences in the 1660s and
70s underlines why Rome felt more threatened by inner-clerical dissensions than by
Protestant interference. The arrival of Thomas White alias Blacklo to England in 1623
coincided with a recovery of the Catholic Church in England because of the installation of the
chapter and the replacement of the archpriest by an official apostolic vicar from Rome,
William Bishop. A little earlier the expansion of the Jesuit mission in England had originated
the debate about how to cooperate with the Protestant government between the ‘national and
conservative’ representatives of the clergy that defined themselves above all as loyal to the
crown and those who aimed at an increasing Catholic influence personified by the Jesuits.940
The adherents of a concept of a more national Catholic Church were soon supported by
Bishop and his successor Richard Smith since 1624, who both had studied in France and were
influenced by the developing ideas of a French state church.941 When Smith became an enemy
to the Jesuits as well as the clerics supremely loyal to the Protestant king, he fled into exile
originating the English tradition of an absentee quasi-bishop in 1631.942 Consequently the
dispute ensued about who was to be considered the highest Catholic authority in England.943
The chapter as representative of the most influential Catholic clerics in England appointed
Blacklo as successor to Smith in 1634 ignoring any instructions from Rome, and the authority
of the surviving apostolic vicar in exile thus paving the way for a ‘civil war’ among the
English Catholic clergy.944 Blacklo created a new model of English church hierarchy where
English bishops were to be promoted by the chapter and not the Pope which established a
Catholic national church but left the Episcopal functions unchanged.945 Politically Blacklo
and his supporters pursued a policy of demand for complete religious toleration offering
loyalty to the Protestant government and a Catholic Church hierarchy that was not subject to
the legislation of the Pope in Rome.946 But Blacklo’s majority in the chapter was at best
939
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 142-3. Apart
from the letters Talbot even dedicated a whole work to the dangers of Blacklo’s proceedings. In 1675 he
published under the pseudonym M. Lomino his Blackloanae Haeresis olim in Pelagio et Manichaeis Damnatae,
nund denuo Renascentis, Historia et Confutatio.
940
R.I. Bradley: Blacklo and the Counter-Reformation, in: C.H. Carter (ed.): From the Renaissance to the
Counter-Reformation: Essays in Honor of Garrett H. Mattingly, New York 1965, pp. 348-370, pp. 350-353.
941
Ibid., pp. 356-7.
942
Bradley, Blacklo, p. 357.
943
Miller, Popery and Politics, pp. 42-3.
944
Bradley, Blacklo, p. 358.
945
Ibid., pp. 360-1.
946
Miller, Popery and Politics, pp. 43-4.
193
uncertain and his reforms were never completely put into effect. With the growing rejection
of Jansenism in France by the Roman authorities, his position became increasingly difficult.
Nevertheless, he and his supporters were still strong enough to prevent the election of a new
English bishop while they were too weak to have Blacklo elected by the chapter.947
To clearly define Blackloism is still difficult because of his personal embossing in the form of
Thomas White. To characterize the movement as an English Jansenism as several historians
have done is mainly based on the anti-Jesuit attitude of both concepts. In fact the hatred for
Jesuits can be identified as the main drive for Blacklo but his practical ideas for a reform of
the English Catholic hierarchy have little more in common with Jansenism than this
refusal.948
The lasting success of the Blackloites was limited. Most of all they achieved a fundamental
division among the English Catholic clergy that was still deeply felt for several decades. The
consequences for the church were so dramatic that the fear for a second Blackloite movement
in the wake of the Remonstrance affair in Ireland is quite understandable.949 After the
Restoration the old division lines between Jesuits and the chapter of the secular clergy became
more visible once more. In 1661 Bishop Smith petitioned to the restored king for confessional
toleration with exception and expulsion of the Jesuit order. The petition was declined but it
underlined long-lasting differences and further escalated the situation in Ireland.950 In
summary, the promotion of the Tridentine reforms and the implicit unconditional superiority
of the Pope and Rome were questioned by the national Catholic movements in France as well
as in England and Ireland. With the marking of Jansenism as heresy and the dispute between
bishop and Blackloites in England in the 1630s and 40s, the importance of these doctrinal
questions for Rome became clear. When similar movements appeared in Ireland during the
Remonstrance affair those possible threats were taken seriously by the Roman authorities
even if they were of little real influence. The divisions caused by Peter Walsh in combination
with Ormond’s scheming politics underline that the implementation of a Tridentine
Catholicism in Restoration Ireland was in no way a homogeneous process but had to face a
variety of inner-clerical interests that seemed more dangerous to Rome than the Protestant
authorities.
947
Bradley, Blacklo, pp. 362-3.
Ibid., p. 364.
949
Miller, Popery and Politics, p. 44.
950
McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 95.
948
194
2. Bishops, Regulars and Seculars
The election of Bishops
The main interest of the Catholic Church in Ireland was to implement and consolidate the
Tridentine reforms. The reinforcement of the episcopal hierarchy that had never been strong
on the island before 1618 was of crucial importance for this task.951 The internal differences
and fears of heresy among the own adherents delayed the reinstatement of the majority of the
Irish bishoprics that were left vacant during the decade of the Commonwealth. It took until
the end of the 1660s when finally a number of new bishops were promoted. And according to
the official Processus Datariae that documented the process of the appointment of bishops
only one such promotion occurred between 1660 and 1685 which is extremely surprising.952
There were two official appointments under Cromwell in 1657, 16 appointments between
1641 and 1649 and three alone in the years 1687 and 1688. The only explanation is the
secretive nature of these appointments since they were not made by the Apostolic Datary, but
often directly by Propaganda Fide in the case of Ireland. The secrecy was necessary in order
to secure the anonymity of the candidates so to avoid their discovery and apprehension before
they had even reached the country. Of the 80 bishops installed in Ireland in the seventeenth
century, only 47 were appointed by Apostolic Datary, the rest were elected by Propaganda
Fide.953 Consequently, the single official appointment during the Restoration period is not
surprising. Nevertheless, the consistent secrecy in times that often seem more confessionally
tolerant than the 1650s underlines the Catholic effort not to disturb the Protestant authorities.
But this secrecy made the elections even more complicated. First of all it needed to be assured
that the candidates were in no way affected by Jansenist thoughts which was extremely
relevant to all those candidates that had already studied in France. Second the candidates
needed to be accepted by the native inhabitants of the diocese. Ethnical differences, local
aversions, and family connections further complicated the task. Since the majority of the Irish
Catholics were poor and tithes had to be paid to the Church of Ireland as well, the income of
the dioceses was rarely sufficient to sustain the local parish priests, not to speak of an
951
Hugh F. Kearney: Ecclesiastical Politics and the Counter-Reformation in Ireland 1618-1648, in: Journal of
Ecclesiastical History, vol. 11, No. 2 (1960), pp. 202-212, p. 203.
952
The appointment mentioned was that of Daniel Macky as Bishop of Down and Connor in 1671: Cathaldus
Giblin: The Processus Datariae and the Appointment of Irish Bishops in the Seventeenth Century, in: Franciscan
Fathers (eds.): Father Luke Wadding Commemorative Volume, Dublin 1957, pp. 508-617, p. 587.
953
Ibid., pp. 516-7.
195
episcopal hierarchy.954 But the third and in many cases most important aspect during the
election process was the most surprising – it was the political acceptability of the candidate
for the Protestant authority and above all the king. This had not always been the case. The
first of the Irish bishops to return to Ireland was the Archbishop of Armagh, Edmund
O’Reilley. The source material on him is limited, the only contemporary accounts of his life
and work were composed by Peter Walsh and John Lynch, both of whom despised the
Primate.955 Most likely O’Reilly was born in 1598 and attended the Jesuit school in Back
Lane, Dublin during the 1620s.956 His promotion to the Archdiocese of Armagh in 1657 was
surprising and was taken as an affront especially by Ormond and the soon to be restored
Charles II. O’Reilly was an old supporter of the papal nuncio Rinuccini and refused the
revocation of the latter’s excommunications during the 1640s. This political standing made
him a suitable and reliable candidate for the Roman curia, most of all Dionisio Massari, the
chairman of the Congragatio de Propaganda Fide, and Cardinal Albizzi who was chairman of
the small group of Propaganda cardinals especially dedicated to Irish affairs since 1656.957
But Propaganda soon came to understand that O’Reilly was hardly communicable to many
Irish Catholics. To them O’Reilly was only a representative of the old Irish and since he
belonged to those who had tried to find some sort of peaceful arrangement with Cromwell
after the defeat of the Confederation many considered him a traitor. His denial of the Ormond
peace treaties as staunch follower of the papal nuncio made him disloyal in the eyes of the
king and his new Lord Lieutenant Ormond. Charles II even protested openly against
O’Reilly’s nomination with the internuncio at Brussels.958 Nonetheless, Propaganda abided by
O’Reilly’s nomination. Although the preamble of his first national synod held at Cashel in
1661 still expressed hope for a reconciliation with the king O’Reilly did little to appease his
opponents.959 The danger of political persecution, imprisonment, and even execution was
ridiculed by the Primate with the expression “Sanguis martyrum est semen Christianorum”
and he plainly saw no reason for ingratiating himself with the Protestant government. To
954
In 1624 Malachy O’Queely first had several members of the O’Brien family confirm to him in writing that
they were willing to support him financially if elected Bishop of Killaloe. Others soon followed this example as
a means to improve their expectations in the election. Although the financial dependence of a bishop on one or
more lay individuals could not be desirable for Rome the promotion of a bishop who had no financial support at
all proved contra-productive: Kearney, Ecclesiastical Politics, pp. 202-3.
955
Ò Fiaich, Edmund O’Reilly, p. 171.
956
Ibid., p. 174.
957
Ibid., p. 185. More detailed information in APF, Acta 1656.
958
Ibid., pp. 186-7. Protest by Charles II in: Nunziatura di Fiandra, vol. 44, ff. 273f.
959
The synod opened with the declaration: “Serenissimi Regis nostri Caroli 2, feliciter ad avita iura restituti,
sperantes nobiscum in posterum mitius agi (tametsi a malevolentia inimicorum, terroribus ac minis nequaquam
tuti) (...)” Cf. Benignus Millett (ed.): Statutes of the Provincial Synod of Cashel, 1661, in: Archivium
Hibernicum, No. 28 (1966), pp. 45-52, p. 46.
196
Propaganda he only commented succinctly: “Dicet alius Hoc offendet Regem. Vel Rex amat
fidem Catholicam, vel non. Si amat connivebit et inde a Puritannis redargui non potest quia fit
eo inscio et non consentiente. Si non amat non decet expectare illius consensum. Debemus
magis obedire Deo quam hominibus.”960
In the end, O’Reilly did not remain for long in Ireland and retired to the continent.961 By then
it had become clear that a Catholic underground church nonetheless needed the approval of
the Protestant government. A candidate would only have a prospect of success if a candidate
suited the king and his chief representative in Ireland, therefore the king’s attitude towards
one or more candidates consequently became more important in the election process than the
superior theological qualification. Thus the majority of the bishops appointed by Rome in the
last years of the 1660s were only those that were acceptable to the king, whose family could
support them financially, and whose ethnical identity was compatible with the majority of his
diocese. As if all these difficulties had not been enough, during the 1670s another serious
problem arose for the promotion of new bishops. The underground structures of the Catholic
Church in Ireland and the legal prosecution of papal jurisdiction by the crown authorities
made it complicated for appointed bishops to be acknowledged by the local clergy. Often
times the local representatives of the hierarchy elected bishops or vicars apostolic on their
own and it took years to solve the ensuing disputes once such a controversy was originated.962
In the case of the disputing vicars apostolic in the Diocese of Limerick the dissensions
culminated in the reciprocal excommunication of the candidates and their followers what
invalidated all of the administered sacraments of the previous years.963 Between 1667 and
1671 none of the candidates promoted by the local clergy of Limerick, the Archbishop of
Cashel, and since 1669 the official papal vicar apostolic James Dooley were able to restore
the order in the diocese. The quarrel underlines how difficult papal reforms were in Ireland
even if a general strategy and a resident bishop were existent. Communication about problems
was at best difficult, the transmission of letters scarce, and the reports on the dioceses could
contradict each other depending on the personal and political interests of the candidates. In
the case of Limerick the papal candidate Dooley composed a report on the diocese of
Limerick in 1670 completely different to the one written by another candidate, John White, in
960
A.P.F.: Fondo di Vienna, f. 110r.
The sources give only scarce information about what actually happened. Apparently O’Reilly’s statements
crossed a line at some stage and the Archbishop was forced or thought it wiser to retire to the continent although
he remained Primate of all Ireland. Cf. Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in volume 13 of “Fondo
di Vienna” in Propaganda Archives, Part 2, ff. 201-401, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 25 (1983), pp. 30-62, p.
33.
962
Ibid., Rival Vicars, pp. 279-80.
963
Ibid., pp. 284-5.
961
197
1669. According to White, 30 priests had to take care of about one hundred dioceses and of
those only a few were interested in teaching the catechism.964 Only a few months later Dooley
reported to Rome after his first visitation of the diocese that there were 71 parishes with
sufficient clerics most of whom were well-qualified.965 Until the diocese was settled again by
Dooley in 1671 the conflict about the promotion reached another level when Propaganda Fide
became suspicious about the intentions of the Archbishop of Cashel, William Burgat. Burgat
took active part in the dispute and got into conflict with the Archbishop of Tuam who tried to
act as a mediator between the different parties thus interfering in Burgat’s area of
responsibility. The way in which Propaganda tried to evaluate Burgat’s credibility portrays
the complexity of the communication channels between the Irish hierarchy, Rome, and the
internuncio in Brussels. Rome commissioned Internuntio Airoldi to inspect Burgat’s positions
who contacted the Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, to get in contact with Burgat. By
the end of 1670 Plunkett wrote to Brussels that he had a high opinion of Burgat and that more
importantly the viceroy was fond of the Archbishop of Cashel with whom he had met
personally in Limerick. Burgat’s only fault according to Plunkett was the miscommunication
with the internuncio. Nevertheless, Plunkett’s report shows that Burgat was willing and able
to communicate with the far away Archbishop of Armagh as well as the viceroy without any
problems while he excused his scarce reports to Brussels with the high postal charges that he
could not afford as frequently as he wished.966 The case was further delayed until the Bishop
of Waterford and Lismore, John Brenan, composed a second report on Burgat in 1673.
Apparently Propaganda Fide was still afraid that Burgat was not a hundred percent loyal to
Rome or did not exactly follow his instructions. Similar to Plunkett, Brenan came to the
conclusion that Burgat was a qualified man who was highly esteemed by the faithful of his
province. He was living in a house near Cashel where he received great numbers of people. In
addition to Plunkett, the Bishop of Waterford outlined Burgat’s good relation with the crown
authorities as of special value. Burgat’s actions were restrained when it came to daily politics
in order not to annoy anyone for what he was treated by the government as a “persona grata”
as Brenan put it.967
The case of Dooley and Burgat is revealing about the appointment of bishops and other
church dignitaries in the Restoration period. Once an appointment was made Rome’s
influence on the individuals was more than limited. Direct interference in Irish matters was
964
Ibid., p. 290.
Ibid., p. 296.
966
Ibid., p. 297.
967
Ibid., pp. 302-3.
965
198
hardly possible as the case of the rival vicars points out. Rome had to rely on its emissaries
which was even more difficult in combination with the fear of heresy among the Irish
Catholic clergy discussed above. But even if a bishop turned out not to be as reliable as Rome
had hoped like in the case of William Burgat, his political acceptability with the Protestant
government turned out to be of greater importance. Although it never happened during the
Restoration period Rome could have revoked Burgat and replaced him with a candidate more
suitable.968 But the fact that Plunkett as well as Brenan highlighted Burgat’s good standing
with the viceroy suggests that this was the decisive aspect in the discussion. While for
O’Reilly’s promotion, his loyalty to the policy of Rome was still crucial; the Holy See
adapted to the new circumstances and different requirements in the Irish dioceses when at first
it was thought about introducing a variety of new bishops. This change of mind was largely
based on the requests by the Irish clerics that were paradoxically represented at that time in
Rome through their envoy William Burgat. In 1664 Burgat presented a petition of the Irish
clergy to Cardinal Piccolomini asking for the appointment of new bishops but only under the
consideration of their acceptability by the locals on whom they would depend financially. But
above all Rome should be careful not to appoint candidates that were disliked by the Irish
government.969 In accordance with all these peculiarities the Holy See promoted bishops or
vicars apostolic to nearly all Irish sees between 1669 and 1671.970
But the problems in the Diocese of Limerick were by far not the only controversial decisions
in the case of succession. When Oliver Plunkett was executed in 1681 his diocese sank into
chaos since the legally appointed vicar apostolic, Edward Drumgoole, did not dare to produce
his formal letter of appointment in such critical political circumstances. Thus he was not
recognized by the vicar general Henry Hughes nor the vicar capitular Manus O’Quinn and it
968
The only case of such a dismissal was performed by Oliver Plunkett in 1670. His predecessor as Archbishop
of Armagh, O’Reilley, had named Thomas FitzSimons vicar general of the Diocese of Kilmore in 1669 but died
shortly afterwards himself. His successor Plunkett discharged FitzSimons again and replaced him with the
Bishop of Clogher, Patrick Tyrrell. In this case most likely financial aspects were of more importance than any
misgivings by FitzSimons since Tyrrell and Plunkett both complaint about the poverty of the diocese of Clogher
so that the additional post increased the bishop’s income: MacKiernan, The Diocese of Kilmore, p. 517.
969
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 3, p. 19. A similar statement can
be found in a letter from Patrick Conn from 8th August 1664: Ibid.: Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of
“Fondo di Vienna”, Part 4, p. 24.
970
Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 57. Ireland was not the only case where local and/or Protestant interests
were of more importance than those of the Roman curia. In the case of the Brandenburgian territory of CleveMark the local Catholic majority of the population was out of reach for the responsible archbishop of Cologne.
In case he wanted to discipline any of his clerics or to introduce new ones he could only do this with the consent
of the local Protestant authorities. Consequently Stefan Ehrenpreis comes to the conclusion that “Catholic
identity depended on local interests and regional affairs and not on Tridentine reforms.” Cf. Ibid., Catholic
Minorities, p, 181.
199
took Propaganda Fide four years to assure that Drumgoole was the actual vicar apostolic.971 In
the meantime several of the bishops of the Archdiocese of Armagh positioned themselves in
expectation of a promotion to the Primacy. The suffragan Bishop of Raphoe, Patrick Tyrrell,
demanded his appointment without restraint while another suitable candidate, the suffragan
Bishop of Meath, James Cusack, preemptively refused it by outlining his old English
association. Cusack preferred to be seen as a part of the Archdiocese of Dublin which he
underlined by dismissing several parish priests who were native of Armagh Diocese and thus
not acceptable to the locals.972 But despite all these personal, familiar, ethnical and regional
interests again another point turned out to be decisive for Propaganda Fide. Most tellingly the
Spanish ambassador in England, Don Pedro Ronquillo, wrote to the internuncio in Brussels in
September 1683 with regard to the originally unpromising candidate Dominic Maguire: “Let
him be preferred to the other candidates, because he enjoys the chief esteem and approbation
of the Duke of York, to whom I spoke, and who replied that he was well informed of the good
qualities and virtues of that religious. He not only highly approved of him but desired his
election to Armagh.”973 Without any further delay and even without any letters of
recommendation from other Irish clerics, Propaganda Fide named Maguire as successor to
Oliver Plunkett on 14th December 1683. Family support and interests as well as a good
standing with the Irish clergy was certainly of importance for the promotion of suitable
candidates but by the end of the Restoration period and in the expectation of the succession of
a Catholic king to the English throne, the support of the Stuart monarchs outweighed the local
influence of the traditional regional supporters of Catholicism in Ireland. On a local level the
parish priests and the religious orders could not survive without the support or connivance of
local magnates but on the higher political level Rome was above all interested in good terms
with the ruling authorities of whatever confession they might be.
In conclusion it can be stated that the king took an active part in the promotion or nonpromotion of Irish bishops even if he was not explicitly asked. But Propaganda Fide had a
vital interest in choosing candidates that were suitable to the king and his successor. And the
king’s expectations were definitely met since all of the bishops chosen in the late 1660s
pleased the Lord Lieutenant as well as the king and did their best to establish a Catholic
Church that disturbed in no way the Protestant governing élites. Restraint and the intention
not to attract too much attention were typical demands of those chosen such as Bishop Brenan
971
Hugh Fenning: Dominic Maguire, O. P. Archbishop of Armagh: 1684-1707, in: Seanchas Ardmhacha:
Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol. 18, No. 1 (1999/2000), pp. 30-48, p. 30.
972
Ibid., p. 31.
973
Ibid., pp. 32-3.
200
of Waterford and Lismore, later Archbishop of Cashel. He continuously complained about the
regular orders that were too public in their appearance, especially in times of little
persecution. Since they were not disturbed by the authorities they lived in community and
wore their habit in public which would finally entail the wrath of the government according to
Brenan.974 In another case Brenan directly interfered in the promotion process since he had
heard that Propaganda planned the promotion of one priest living in Germany to the
Archdiocese of Cashel. This man was particularly not liked by the viceroy and such a risk
should not be taken.975 This episode demonstrates on the other hand, that the favor of the
government was as well something indefinable that could be made use of by those whose
judgment was esteemed. Brenan acted regularly as an informer to Propaganda about the
circumstances in Ireland and the Irish clergy and even if the viceroy had nothing against that
priest from Germany, Rome had no other choice than to believe the bishop who most tellingly
became Archbishop of Cashel himself.
Usually the Irish clergy and Propaganda subjected themselves to a self-censorship when it
came to episcopal successions. As has been outlined above the acceptability of candidates to
the king, the Duke of York or the Lord Lieutenant was essential and could even lead to the
non-consideration of better qualified candidates. This is suggested in the case of the
succession to the Archdiocese of Dublin when it came to the choice between Peter Talbot and
John O’Moloney. In a variety of sources O’Moloney was highly praised for outstanding
quality and even the viceroy considered him the most intelligent and therefore dangerous of
all the Irish clergy.976 Nevertheless, Propaganda elected Peter Talbot whose difficult standing
among the Irish clergy and society will be discussed later.977 But different to O’Moloney,
Talbot was well-connected at court and was acceptable to the old English gentry of the Pale
where he had many relatives.978 But the self-censorship must not be over-estimated. In fact,
the king and the government in Dublin did not hesitate to make their wishes explicit, much
974
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 467.
Ibid., p. 464.
976
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 76.
977
See chapter IX.II.
978
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 83-4. That the
choice was wisely made proofed Talbot a few years later when writing from temporary exile in Paris to his
Dublin flock. After he had fled the country in the 1673 crisis it was his foremost interest to proof again his
loyalty to the crown and his usefulness in controlling the Irish Catholics. In The Duty and Comfort of Suffering
Subjects he exhorts the Catholic community “not to look with a maligning and spitefull eye upon your Protestant
Neighbours as Usurpers of Estates, but as placed in Possession of them by the King who is God’s Viceregent,
and consequently by God himself.” The fact that the king was a Protestant posed no serious problem in Talbot’s
eyes as comments elsewhere in the text: “Read the Holy Scriptures, and you will find S. Paul tells us that
Christians are bound in conscience to obey their Heathen Emperours; and that, who ever resisteth them, resisteth
the ordinance of God.” Cf. Ibid.: The Duty and Comfort of Suffering Subjects, Paris 1674, quoted from pages 13
and 6 respectively.
975
201
more as with the indirect interference through the Spanish ambassador in London mentioned
above. In the case of Peter Talbot an Irish Jesuit reported to Cardinal Rospigliosi on 25th
November 1668 that “the English Royal Court wishes that he be appointed; (...) with regard to
Peter Talbot, there is the very important consideration that the king has decided not to allow
any other archbishop to have the See.”979 It becomes clear that Rome’s caution with the
promotion was not exaggerated. The high level of communication between the Irish bishops,
Propaganda, and the Dublin government kept the Protestant authorities well-informed of all
leading Catholic clergymen that were to arrive in Ireland.980 If they displeased the king it was
easy to arrest them and send them back to the continent before they ever reached their
diocese. Similar concerns were expressed by Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh. When
Propaganda intended to promote one Father Duffy to an Irish diocese, Plunkett was
summoned by the viceroy and told “he would not allow Father Duffy to reside in this country,
and that he had had very bad reports of him even from those of his own communion.”981 The
viceroy did not discuss the matter nor was he willing to find a compromise in this case.
Instead he ordered Plunkett to “write to Monsignor Airoldi and to the archbishop of Caesarea
and tell them not to permit Duffy to come to these kingdoms”. In return the archbishop was
promised that the king did not intend to disturb any of the other Catholic bishops “since they
had never had a hand in any matter which displeased him”.982 These statements underline the
ambiguous role of the king and his Dublin representative in the promotion of Catholic
bishops. As long as Rome only promoted men who were liked by the king and maintained a
calmness within the Irish Catholic clergy he offered them his connivance. But if Rome
wanted to choose the candidates independently the government interfered and could threaten
to revoke all the connivance granted.
If the unwritten agreement was cancelled, however, nothing actually happened. The despised
candidate Duffy did become Bishop of Clogher in 1670 and he was not more or less disturbed
than any other bishop. Apart from him Rome did not promote unwanted candidates and apart
from the years of the Popish Plot, the Irish government did not proceed against the Catholic
bishops. On a macro-level it appears as if this agreement had been working to the mutual
benefit of all but it must be questioned if the Protestant government was in fact able to arrest
arriving bishops so easily once they had landed in Ireland. The local implementation of legal
979
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 200-1.
The Irish priest Patrick Conn suggested the Church should maintain a mediator at the court in London who
was specialized in these things and who should take care that all sides were satisfied once a new bishop was to
be promoted: Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in volume 13 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 2, p. 33.
981
Plunkett to Airoldi, 29th September 1671. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 258.
982
Plunkett to Airoldi, 2nd October 1671. Ibid., p. 268.
980
202
prosecution was different as will be analyzed later and the crown proved itself unable to
prevent the Catholic episcopal succession.983 But since Propaganda Fide never really dared to
take that risk, the limited reach of the crown authority was not completely revealed during the
Restoration period.
New Bishops and Old Bonds
Apart from giving consideration to the desires of the government, the promotion of new
bishops depended on the local acceptability of the candidates. The only income the future
bishops could dispose of was based on the contributions of the clergy who were living off the
voluntary offerings of the people. If no money was collected the bishops received nothing and
could only survive with the help of friends and relatives. Thus promoting bishops to dioceses
where they had no family proved difficult. Another problem posed the ethnical or regional
preferences of the population. An old Irish bishop could not be promoted to the Pale nor an
old English bishop to Connaught, and a man from the Archdiocese of Dublin would never
have been accepted as a bishop in a diocese belonging to the church province of Armagh.984
Since these criteria could not always be taken into account or were not taken serious enough,
it came to constant dissensions among the clergy and the population even though the state
authorities connived at the newly appointed bishop. Most prominent were these dissensions in
the border regions of the church provinces and the ethnical groups in general, most distinctly
in the Archdiocese of Armagh.
Armagh consisted in parts of southern old English dioceses of the province of Leinster and in
parts of old Irish dominated dioceses in Ulster. It was in the Diocese of Clogher that one of
the fiercest outbreaks of internal dissensions occurred in the Restoration period that
underlined those divisions that still characterized the Irish Catholic clergy despite all efforts
from Rome.985 In 1670 Clogher first received a new bishop since the death of Heber
MacMahon in the 1640s. The local clergy asked for the promotion of the already mentioned
Patrick Duffy, a desire that was granted even against the expressed wishes of the king. Duffy
himself was an Ulsterman from County Monaghan and well-liked by the locals and the clergy
but he died as early as 1675.986 After his death the clergy sent the usual list of candidates to
Rome and expected little changes since all previous three Clogher bishops of the seventeenth
983
See chapter IX.II.
The envoy of the Irish clergy in Rome, William Burgat, appealed to Pope Alexander VII in 1665 not to
promote any cleric from County A to County B since the local population would never tolerate that: Millett,
Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 83-4.
985
Ò Fiaich, The appointment of bishop Tyrrell, p. 1.
986
Ibid., p. 2.
984
203
century had been elected according to these propositions. Amongst the candidates was
Gelasius MacMahon, a member of the family that had already brought forth Duffy’s
predecessor. But still the most prominent candidate on the list was Felim O’Neill, son of the
leading 1641 rebel Sir Phelim O’Neill.987 When finally a new bishop was elected on 4th May
1676 it came to a scandal since neither O’Neill nor MacMahon were chosen but someone who
was not even from Ulster. Propaganda chose Patrick Tyrrell, a Palesman, Definitor-General of
the Franciscan order and thus better qualified than any other suitor.988 By August the
internuncio at Brussels wrote to Rome: “Better warn Dr. Tyrrell, if he has not yet left Rome,
to show impartiality in the administration of his church and to prefer the natives to foreigners
and not to exclude the priests of the diocese in favor of outsiders.”989 These hints were wellintended but they could not appease the Clogher clergy. The place and date of his
disembarkation in Limerick was revealed to the government and Tyrrell had to go into hiding
for some time before he even reached his diocese. Once he arrived, nine clerics simply
refused to accept him as their bishop under the pretense that Irish dioceses had the right to
appoint their own bishops.990 Until December Tyrrell summoned a diocesan synod and
disciplined the majority of the clergy but a still powerful group led by the MacMahon family
rejected him. In the end the bishop was left no other option than to suspend them from office
with the approval of Archbishop Plunkett.991 Nevertheless, the last resistance against Tyrrell
was overcome only when the former candidate Felim O’Neill who resided in the Spanish
Netherlands by then appealed in a letter to the clergy of Clogher to obey the new bishop and
declared that neither he himself nor MacMahon enjoyed a privilege to the promotion. This
letter shows how unbroken the influence of the old Irish families of Clogher still was and that
without their consent no episcopal hierarchy could work.992 On 12th May 1677, a year after his
promotion, Tyrrell could announce to Rome the settlement of the disputes. The local clergy
finally obeyed him. But the relation between bishop and clergy remained shattered since
Tyrrell constantly complained about the numerous unqualified clerics that resided in his
diocese being a burden to the people who had to pay for them.993
Similarly difficult was the situation for Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh. Plunkett had
the full support of his family and friends in the southern part of the Archdiocese but in the old
987
Ibid., pp. 2-3.
Tyrrell received his consecration in 1652/53 in Rome where he taught for several years theology in St.
Isidore’s College. He was even elected secretary general of the Franciscan order. Cf. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
989
Ibid., p. 6. Quoted from Scritture Riferite, vol. 4, fo. 72.
990
Ibid., p. 7.
991
Ibid., pp. 7-8.
992
Ibid., p. 9.
993
Ibid., pp. 10-1.
988
204
Irish dominated dioceses he was constantly challenged. This was especially evident when he
decided to work with the government in order to appease the tories in Ulster which earned
him a pension by the king, many accused him of being just an instrument of the Protestants
and foreigners.994 Donnchadha MacPhóil outlined in his study of the case that it was not
primarily at the government’s request that Plunkett intervened in the North but under the
urging of his own vicars general. The raids by the tories were as devastating to their own
situation as they were to the government authorities, thus they were happy to report to Rome
the significant improvement that Plunkett’s arrangements meant for the common people.995
Plunkett himself showed little concern with the ethnical sensitivities of some people. He
regarded the tory problem as based on the lack of chances and education against which he
proceeded by founding a public school at Drogheda.996 Most likely he under-estimated the
threat of the enemies he made. The complaints about him did not cease with the tory activities
in Ulster. In July 1679 a formal protest of some Ulster clergymen was sent to Rome pointing
out the difficulties that he caused with the old Irish and great parts of the clergy. The manifest
was chiefly promoted by Anthony Daly, an old Irish Franciscan who was one of the vicars
general that had asked Plunkett for help in 1670. But by 1679 Plunkett had also made himself
an enemy with the Franciscan order in his Archdiocese as will be discussed later on.997 The
main accusation of the clergy was that they did not feel sufficiently represented by the
Palesman Plunkett, most of all because the Archbishop did not even speak any Irish and was
thus impossible to communicate with many of his flock. This most interesting point was never
commented by Plunkett who denied all other accusations.998 From Plunkett’s difficulties it can
be seen that an adequate candidate for the Archdiocese of Armagh was nearly impossible to
find. Old Irish candidates such as O’Reilly were usually not acceptable to the king and the
Lord Lieutenant999 as they were often related to former rebels or indirectly represented the
994
Donnchadh MacPhóil: Blessed Oliver Plunkett and the tories, in: Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the
Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, No. 3 (1959), pp. 251-260, p. 251.
995
Ibid., pp. 257-8.
996
Ibid., p. 254.
997
Ethnical division and the old religious orders were traditionally strongly associated what further complicated
the matter for any bishop who had to decide controversial questions where one or more order were involved. On
30th September 1668 Ildephonsus Salizanes minister general of the Franciscan order decreed in a letter to his
Irish brothers that any further emphasis of the ethnical affiliation of the order must be avoided in the future:
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 182-3.
998
Canice Mooney: Accusation against Oliver Plunkett, in: Seanchas Ardmhacha, vol. 2, No.1 (1956), pp. 119140, pp. 132-3.
999
When in 1664 a promotion to a diocese in the church province of Armagh was discussed in Rome William
Burgat insisted, that those candidates proposed by Archbishop O’Reilly should not be taken into account.
O’Reilly was disliked by the government and to promote any companions of his posed a threat to all the clerics
in Ireland: Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 105-108.
205
group of the dispossessed landowners who still hoped for restoration of their lands.1000 But
additionally, most of the Ulster candidates lacked the financial background to pay for the
duties of an archbishop in case of only small contributions from the clergy. Plunkett instead
was well acceptable to the king and had all the necessary contacts among the Irish gentry to
appease the government in time of conflict. Moreover his family was still wealthy enough to
support him and could provide him with the necessary means for projects such as the
Drogheda school. Thus Propaganda has to choose between two extremes and either choice
would have discontented one group at least.
This became ever more visible after the execution of Oliver Plunkett when for the third time
in the Restoration period a new Primate of all Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh had to be
elected. As in Clogher different candidates proposed themselves, representing the old Irish
families of Ulster. Among them was Anthony Daly, Plunkett’s adversary who considered
himself the best suited candidate. In 1683 he went as far as to warn Propaganda that no
proclaimed archbishop would ever be accepted if he was not from Ulster thus evoking the
same scenario Tyrrell had to face in Clogher more than ten years before. Similar to
MacMahon, Daly was not chosen archbishop but instead was arrested at Louvain and forced
into French exile.1001
Apart from these ethnical, financial, and political difficulties that had to be overcome to
promote a bishop to an Irish diocese, the main task of those promoted remained the
implication of the Tridentine reforms. This task was more than on the continent combined
with the introduction or re-enforcement of the episcopal hierarchy since traditionally it was
the old religious orders that characterized Irish Catholicism in Ireland while the diocesan
structure was not fundamentally imposed until 1618.1002 By the middle of the seventeenth
century Irish monasticism had largely recovered from its crisis of the sixteenth century and in
many parts of the island the convents resumed their important local role they had had
before.1003 Their resurgence combined economical and confessional local aspects and was
immensely intertwined with the local population. This popular character of the Irish church
was special to the Irish context of the confessionalization period and remained difficult for the
1000
William Burgat went so far as to suspect, that those dispossessed who felt no longer represented by the
Catholic Church would convert since they would willingly turn to everyone who offered them some kind of
recompense: Ibid., pp. 83-4.
1001
Fenning, Dominic Maguire, p. 31.
1002
For the origins for the Irish episcopal structures and their implication since 1618 see Kearney, Ecclesiastical
Politics.
1003
Hersche, Muße und Verschwendung, vol. 1, pp. 204-5.
206
new reform-oriented orders such as the Jesuits as well as for the bishops.1004 John Bossy
argued in his study of the Counter-Reformation in Ireland that the strength of the orders lay in
the strong combination of a feudal society and clan-solidarity that was predominant
throughout early modern Ireland. The convents as representatives of the orders were
considered an artificially created clan that cared for its dependents and could comprise of lay
people as well as women. Since clan-affiliation was often considered of more importance than
loyalty towards the church, the appointment of bishops could be seen as a threat and loyalty to
one order or convent was placed above loyalty towards the bishop as the representative of
Rome.1005
To limit the influence of the old orders turned out to be extremely difficult for the bishops of
the Restoration period and the disputes that arose from these tensions usually culminated in
the questions concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the number and quality of the
novitiates entertained by the old orders, chiefly Franciscans and Dominicans. Both cases came
together when Franciscans and Dominicans started fighting over several convents in Ulster, a
conflict that had to be decided by the Tridentine Bishop Oliver Plunkett and was eventually
brought before the Pope in Rome. In any case the episcopal-regulars controversy inhibited the
implementation of the Tridentine reforms and bound energies on both sides that could have
been of better use in the course of the Catholic Church in Restoration Ireland.
Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
The basis for the controversy between bishops and regular clerics was the fact that the
punishment of disobedience within the hierarchy was the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction
and consequently prohibited by the Protestant government. Any regular cleric who was to be
disciplined by his bishop could denounce this to the local authorities which drastically
weakened the bishops’ position. The most cautious but most difficult and tedious way for the
bishop to control the orders was to appeal to the provincial superiors or the order generals in
Rome without having to use any kind of direct punishment against the friars.1006 The only
exception in the constant struggle between bishops and regular clergy was Bishop O’Moloney
1004
Braun, Katholische Konfessionsmigration, pp. 81-2.
Bossy, People of Catholic Ireland, pp. 156-7. In a letter the secretary of Propaganda Fide Baldeschi, the
internuncio at Brussels Airoldi complained in 1671 about the unbroken influence of the orders. Nearly all innerconfessional problems arose from their exceeding power since in many places a young friar was thought to have
a higher authority than the archbishop: Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of volume II (1669-71) of the “Scritture
riferite nei congressi, Irlanda” in Propaganda Archives, Part 2, ff. 402-803, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 17
(1974-75), pp. 17-68, pp. 39-40.
1006
Such approaches were, for example, chosen by Bishop Brenan of Waterford and Lismore who used to inform
the provincial superiors of the Franciscans and Dominicans every time his authority was questioned and usually
the problems could be settled in time: Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 357.
1005
207
of Killaloe. In April 1673 Lord Lieutenant Essex wrote to Arlington that O’Moloney was a
very intelligent man who “has employ’d his time since his arrivall here (and not without
success) in composing ye differences, wch were among those of his owne Religion (...).”1007
Further information on O’Moloney’s approaches was given in a second letter from Essex to
Ormond in November 1673 after parliament had for another time decreed the banishment of
all bishops and secular clerics from the country. Essex admitted that such a decree caused him
problems since he had employed a variety of clergymen in the past months to inform him on
the activities of O’Moloney who was nearly successful in his attempts to reconcile the both
opposing inner-clerical factions. Six to eight priests had even accused Catholic clerics of
exercising papal jurisdiction in courts so that if they were sent into exile now they would be
condemned for treason.1008 O’Moloney, however, was not as successful as Essex feared since
the internal divisions continued for the entire Restoration period.
The best documented episode resulted at the same time and involved ecclesiastical
jurisdiction and the dissensions between bishops and regular clergy. In April 1673 the
Dominican friar John Byrne wrote a letter to the Lord Lieutenant accusing the Archbishop of
Dublin, Peter Talbot, and the Bishop of Meath, Patrick Plunkett, to have exercised
ecclesiastical jurisdiction by excommunicating him and several others in Dublin. The true
reason for his accusation is only marginally mentioned when it is said that Talbot and his
colleagues extracted “yearly taxes by his priests, &c., from the people contrary to the laws,
and, that the truth of this may better appear, that his Excellency’s protection may be granted
to the petitioner and others concerned therein.”1009 In fact, Byrne and the others disciplined by
Talbot refused to contribute to the maintenance of the Archbishop, a common problem that
was also mentioned by Bishop Brenan of Waterford and Lismore.1010 In order not to be
punished by their hierarchical superiors the Dominicans Byrne, Edmund Wall, Edward
Chamberlain, John Reynolds, Christopher Farrell, and Michael Fullam denounced their
bishop for exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Only a month later Lord Lieutenant Essex
reported on the matter to the Earl of Arlington. The authorities had found out the names of
those excommunicated and the places where the excommunications were proclaimed by
Talbot. In addition, other cases had come up. According to other witnesses, a similar
1007
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 76.
Ibid., pp. 137-8.
1009
CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October 31st, 1673, p. 186.
1010
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 357.
1008
208
excommunication was pronounced against the Capuchin Dr. Anthony French while the
Franciscan Anthony Garland was at least threatened with excommunication.1011
But interesting enough neither Talbot nor Patrick Plunkett was arrested for the crime they
stood accused of. Instead it appears that Byrne himself was put into prison standing accused
of something that is not explicitly mentioned. Only a response letter to Byrne from Bishop
O’Moloney was preserved among the documents. Apparently Byrne had asked the bishop to
mediate on his behalf or to prove his innocence. O’Moloney replied that “I will do what I can
to procure your liberty, both with the Archbishop and Lord Dongan.” But even if he could
free Byrne from the government’s prisons he forewarned the friar “that a complete and
unconditional submission is absolutely necessary, and that you will retire from these parts to
the place of obedience appointed by your superiors, or elsewhere, if you prefer it, outside this
province.” The bishops concerned were eager to make an example of the case although they
were willing to spare Byrne the personal shame in order not to aggravate to dissensions
among the factions. Thus O’Moloney continues that “we shall take care of your reputation as
far as possible, but you must surrender to another the business of the Order hitherto entrusted
to you in these parts, according to the command of the Superior or Provincial.” The bishop’s
malicious joy becomes clear when he ends the letter explaining that “it is better to anticipate
than to be anticipated, and he who is wise only after the event (like most of our cloth) is wise
too late. If you are a sensible man I have said enough.”1012 What happened to Byrne remains
unknown but the episode shows clearly that the regular clerics were not always in the better
position. Many of the bishops, especially Peter Talbot of Dublin, had influential friends
among the Protestants and the crown authorities and as has been outlined above the
government had a vital interest in a solid relation to the Catholic bishops. It seems as if the
application of legal prosecution against ecclesiastical jurisdiction was sometimes helpful to
the government and sometimes not and as consequently used. The Earl of Drogheda, for
example, handed over the unused churches and chapels of his lands to the Archbishop of
Armagh and exempted them explicitly from the jurisdiction of the royal ministers as Plunkett
proudly wrote to Rome in 1671.1013 In this case the friendship of the Primate who was very
much interested in a peaceful cooperation with the leading authorities was more worth than
the merciless application of any laws as was the case with Peter Talbot described above.
1011
CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October 31st, 1673, pp. 246-7.
Ibid., pp. 108-9.
1013
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 166-7.
1012
209
But as the example of Talbot and Byrne already underlined, the church authorities did not
hesitate to apply their own rules either. While the papal nuncio Rinuccini pronounced only
two excommunications in the 1640s that caused so much dispute among the Irish Catholics,
the post-Restoration bishops were not as restrained. Apart from Talbot many cases of
excommunication or at least the threat of it can be found. From the dioceses of Kildare and
Leighlin a Protestant observer commented that any Protestant school newly erected in the area
was useless since a Catholic priest called Laghlin Oge declared after the mass that anyone
who had his child attend a Protestant class was excommunicated ipso facto “and should
certenly be damned wthout they did undergoe great penance for ther so doing”. And
according to the informer such threats were common throughout the whole of Ireland.1014 In
affirmation of this theory one episode from the Archdiocese of Cashel is of great interest. On
1st August 1678 the local Bishop John Brenan, a man who is usually portrayed as
understanding and co-operative, was informed that the Protestant Bishop of Cashel had
announced that he would preach in Irish in the future and sent special invitations to all
Catholics of the city. Brenan immediately returned to the town and had every member of the
parish assembled the next day. In his own words he informed Propaganda of the meeting: “I
prohibited them going there, that those who violated this prohibition would be interdicted
from assisting at Mass and from receiving the Sacraments, even in articulo mortis (...).”1015
Thus ecclesiastical jurisdiction was commonly exercised in Ireland by the Catholic bishops in
order to secure the application of the Tridentine reforms and to impregnate their confessional
community against possible approaches of the Church of Ireland. To a certain degree they
were allowed to do so by the Protestant government that needed the bishops to control the
Catholic majority and to sustain the inner-confessional divisions among the Catholic clergy.
Consequently the liberty that the Catholic episcopal hierarchy enjoyed in Restoration Ireland
must always be considered a double-edged sword.
The Novitiates
While the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction was an extreme expression of the episcopalregular-dissensions, the most common reason for dispute were the novitiates entertained by
all of the religious orders in Ireland with exception of the Jesuits and the Capuchins. It is even
more interesting since the monasteries and their adjoined novitiates had formed and continued
to form an important element of Catholic education in Ireland. Following the sheer numbers
1014
1015
Comerford, Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, pp. 242-3.
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 61.
210
of the novitiates that represented the most fundamental sort of instruction, education from
regular clerics was the most important element in the Catholic educational network and
without the numerosity of the small and micro-novitiates, large numbers of the rural
population would have been left without any form of education whatsoever. Nevertheless,
their number, funding, quality, and organization was origin to a constant flow of complaints
to Rome by the Irish bishops and the secular clergy as well as the Jesuits.
The number of regular clerics in Ireland at the Restoration is difficult to estimate. As has been
outlined elsewhere a variety of estimations exist for the whole period but they are often
contradictory and unreliable. What is certain, however, is that the bishops of the early
Restoration period tried to assess the number of regular clerics between 1660 and 16621016 and
were eager to rapidly increase the number of secular clerics at every cost to fill the vacant
posts throughout the country. Archbishop O’Reilly of Armagh ordained 29 priests during his
first eighteen months in office, Bishop MacGeoghan added another thirteen in the same time
period and another eight until 16th September 1661.1017 Even more productive was Bishop
Patrick Plunkett of Ardagh and later Meath who declared to have ordained 200 priests
between 1664 and 1669 in various Irish dioceses.1018 These mass-ordinations were considered
necessary in order to balance the strength of the traditional orders and to reinforce the
episcopal hierarchy. In another approach O’Reilly laid special emphasis on the formation of
the novices according to the Tridentine reforms. This was not guaranteed in Ireland because
neither the wearing of the habit and the tonsure nor living in the community with monastic
discipline were allowed. Generally O’Reilly saw no necessity why the orders should insist on
Irish novitiates since they all disposed of sufficient establishments on the continent where a
regular formation was secured.1019 But since the influence of the bishops was limited as was
outlined above, not much attention was paid to O’Reilly’s critics. By March 1664 Propaganda
Fide wrote to the general of the order of the Franciscans that it had been informed that
Franciscan novitiates in Ireland were established in huts and caves since the monastic houses
were confiscated long ago. The novices were accepted into the order without ever having
worn a proper habit nor a tonsure and they received little and less education and training.1020
Such misgivings were nourished by constant complaints and reports from the Irish secular
clergy via their envoys at the Roman Curia, William Burgat and Hugh Egan. The accusations
1016
Cf. Benignus Millett (ed.): Archbishop Edmund O’Reilly’s report on the state of the Church in Ireland, 1662,
in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 2 (1959), pp. 106-114, pp. 108-9.
1017
Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in volume 15 of “Fondo di Vienna”, p. 71.
1018
Ibid., Calendar of volume II of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 1, p. 20, f. 102v.
1019
Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in volume 13 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 2, p. 55.
1020
Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 1, p. 55.
211
were always the same and they were continuously repeated in one variety or another until the
end of the Restoration period. Since the houses of the orders were dispossessed, the friars
lived in huts in the forest and took in as many novices as they could get without any previous
schooling. They celebrated masses with excessive frequency with the objective to quest for
alms in public before and after the celebrations. This resulted in the need to increase their
numbers to quest even more and thus originated a vicious circle that had to be broken for the
benefit of the Catholic Church.1021 The friars were so ruthless that any nuns who still resided
in Ireland were afraid to submit themselves to their care. Consequently several nuns pleaded
to Propaganda and the pope that they might be subordinated directly to the bishop and
allowed to stay in the private houses of friends and family.1022
While the bishops and the secular clergy proved to be unable to break the influence of the old
orders despite their growing numbers, by the early 70s the general situation became
unbearable because too many seculars as well as too many regulars were living in the country
disputing over the little income that the parishes offered.1023 This was the time when the
second wave of Tridentine educated bishops under the guidance of the newly appointed
Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, arrived to Ireland. They did not cease to consecrate
secular priests, however, but intensified the criticism against the orders’ novitiates and
demanded a radical reduction. Decisive for them was the unsatisfactory quality of education
that the novitiates offered. Neither the friars nor the lay people of the surrounding areas that
attended classes there received sufficient doctrinal formation and did not serve to promote the
Catholic faith nor would they withstand any approach of a well-trained Protestant minister.1024
Although many of the complaints may have been justified, it must be considered again that
the bishops had comparatively high expectations of education while a radical reduction of the
novitiates would have left a great part of the rural population without any form of teaching. A
reform to improve the existing institutions may have achieved more than to dissolve them
completely but it was never taken into consideration neither by Plunkett nor by John
Brenan.1025
To underline the missing Tridentine aspect of the novitiates Plunkett added to the standard
catalogue of complaints that the friars did not catechize nor did they preach and thus ignored
1021
Ibid., Calendar of Irish material in vols. 12 and 13 of “Fondo di Vienna”, p. 73.
The petition was granted immediately by Cardinal Chigi: Ibid., p. 73.
1023
Ibid., Survival and Reorganization, p. 15.
1024
The Litterae Annuae speak in several occasion of converts whose Catholic education was so bad that they
did not really understand the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism: ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.:
Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266.
1025
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, p. 196.
1022
212
two fundamental requests of the Tridentine reforms.1026 As a result, Plunkett was of the
opinion that the novitiates and the untrained friars caused more damage to the Catholic
Church in Ireland than any persecution. Sarcastically he added in a letter to the internuncio
that “the toleration and freedom which we enjoy under the present most benign king and
viceroy hurt us more than the persecution of Cromwell. We have overcome the one to be
defeated by the other: Juvenal put it well to the Romans when he said to them after a long
peace in verses which are truly golden, “Already we suffer the evils of a long peace, and
luxury, more savage than arms, oppresses and punishes a conquered world”. But the religious
reply that they cannot quest from door to door as they ought according to their rule, on
account of the persecution: oh what a lame excuse!”1027 But all complaints of the Archbishop
were in vain. As discussed above the opportunities for action of the bishops were limited
since they were afraid of being charged with the exercise of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. As a
result Plunkett approached the superiors of the order in Ireland asking to interfere on his
behalf but was brusquely declined since the orders knew of their power and that they had little
to fear from the church authorities. Furiously Plunkett reported to Airoldi in January 1672:
“Instead of thanking me they broadcast that I am against the religious, that I am a spy for the
king and the viceroy, and that this was why I was awarded a pension, that I belong to the
party of Ormond, that I have a mistress, that I shall soon become a Protestant bishop, and that
the time I have spent with Father Harold has no other purpose than to promote the faction of
Walsh, and that soon I shall become another Walsh.”1028
After all his initiatives to solve the problem in Ireland failed, Plunkett turned to Rome for help
proposing that by order there should be only one novitiate in each church province since “at
present there are almost as many novitiates as convents, and the novices converse with the
women and maid servants, and they do not receive the least education.”1029 Theoretically
Plunkett’s strategy was successful when the general of the Franciscan order decided in 1672
to reduce the number of novitiates in Ireland and to erect in compensation two study houses in
each church province. What sounded appeasing was never taken into effect. In 1673 the
political climate changed again and with a new wave of persecution the plan to re-organize
the novitiates was put aside. However, it seems as if the Irish Franciscans never really
1026
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 215.
Ibid., p. 278.
1028
Ibid., p. 293.
1029
Ibid., pp. 322-3.
1027
213
intended to change the structure of their novitiates since they did not return to the plans of the
study houses even during the reign of James II.1030
Scared up by the reports from Ireland Propaganda Fide tried to clarify the novitiate situation
in 1672 when the political circumstances were favorable. They consulted the generals of the
Franciscan and the Augustinian orders and demanded to remedy the abuses if the accusations
were true. Consequently the general of the Augustinian order Girolamo Valvasori replied that
indeed a great number of young novices had been accepted, and all of them were members of
impoverished noble families who could no longer sustain themselves. Now that they were
taken in, the brothers had to quest for alms since their convents were destroyed and they had
no proper income. In the end Valvasori regretted the circumstances but admitted that he knew
of no remedy to solve the problem. If Propaganda had any solutions he would be most
grateful.1031 While Valvasori admitted meekly that the novitiates and the novices did not meet
the Tridentine standards the general of the Franciscan order Francesco Maria Rini di Polozzi
was not conscious of any guilt. In his response from 20th August 1672 he explained that
reliable sources had assured him that each Irish convent of his order examined thoroughly the
familiar background of all novices so that no heretics were allowed to enter. The admission
procedure was identical to every other European country and afterwards the novices spent a
year in the convent without having any contact to lay people. Since most of the monasteries
were destroyed, the communities lived in private houses but Urban VIII had by decree
recognized them as adequate substitutes. After the year of probation all novices were sent to
the continent for further education before returning to the mission in Ireland. Rini di Polozzi
only admitted that the colleges on the continent were not sufficient and that many novices had
to spend some time in other convents of the order in Spain or Italy. Those who returned to
Ireland were very successful in the conversion of heretics and his subordinates in Ireland were
willing to send proof of their work if necessary. Nonetheless, Rini di Polozzi promised to
further investigate the matter and punish any irregularities.1032 It is unknown if he ever had
direct contact with the Irish missionaries. Even if he lied Propaganda could do nothing to
prove him wrong despite the continuing protests from the Irish bishops.
1030
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685 II, pp. 316-318. Cf. Giblin, Liber Lovaniensis, p. 131.
Millett, Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 1, pp. 60-1.
1032
Ibid., pp. 61-2. In fact many former Franciscan novices were sent to the continent as was documented by a
correspondence between the internuncio at Brussels and the superior of the order in Spain who complained about
the inability of his Irish brothers to elect proper candidates and lamented the lack of education the novices had
when coming into Spain: Ibid., Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 2, p.
37.
1031
214
In April 1673 Bishop Brenan wrote to Rome about two former Franciscan friars who fled
under the protection of the Protestant Archbishop of Cashel. Brenan showed little surprise but
expressed astonishment that no more grievous cases of heresy were known among the
regulars since the novitiates housed even the less qualified for religious tasks.1033 In general
the accusations of Plunkett, Brenan, and others were exactly the opposite of what Rini do
Polozzi manifested. In 1676 Plunkett again listed the main offenses: the friars did not lead a
common life and had no regular observance. The novices were only taken in to quest around
for alms while they lived together with lay people and worst of all women.1034 By the end of
the Restoration period nothing about the accusations had changed. In a letter from the Irish
Jesuit Jacob Reilly to Rome from 1685 the arguments were still the same. The number of
regular clerics seriously damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church and disturbed the
secular clergy, although Reilly restricted his own assessment as to he himself was not sure if
these accusations were justified.1035
And this question remains the most important in the end. Since the constant complaints from
O’Reilly, Plunkett, Brenan, and other representatives of the regular clergy have survived in
such multitude their truthfulness was usually not questioned. Only Canice Mooney tried to
reply to it in his 1953 article Rough and uncultured men?. Mooney was himself an Irish
Franciscan and eager to outline that Irish Franciscans were renowned throughout Europe for
their intellectual abilities and missionary engagement. The Franciscan college at Louvain
stood as a representative of a golden age of Franciscan learning. But also in Ireland, according
to Mooney, the Franciscan friars were famous for their thorough formation. In support of his
theory Mooney cites the Franciscan Anthony Broudin who claimed that in 1676 there were
about forty celebrated lecturers of the Franciscan order in the Irish province.1036 Mooney
admitted that the order changed during the second half of the seventeenth century but only
towards more diversity. While the secular clergy was recruited among the wealthy, urban, and
mostly old English society it was the old religious orders that opened themselves for the poor,
the disadvantaged, and the old Irish, those who were chiefly left behind in the aftermath of the
1641 rebellion.1037 Many Franciscan convents flourished during the Restoration period while
their infrastructure lay completely wasted in 1660. But the order recovered and played an
important role in the education of the young and especially the poor who did not have the
1033
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 366.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 460-1.
1035
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 91, 91v.: Letter from Jacob Reilly to Nicolao Avancino, Dublin, 22nd Mai 1685, fo. 91.
1036
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685 II, pp. 318-9. Cf. Mooney, The Irish Franciscans, pp. 380-1.
1037
Ibid., p. 381.
1034
215
means to travel to the continent for education. And what they offered was not necessarily
inferior to any other teaching facility in Ireland. In 1669 James White reported of a Franciscan
convent in Clonmel where five novices were taught in an excellent manner since they had
advanced knowledge in the humanities and could write and read in Latin. And many more
such novitiate schools were opened until 1687.1038
In fact, Mooney may not have been completely wrong. The regular Irish clergy did at one
time appeal to the Cardinals of Propaganda Fide that the accusations brought forth against
them by the secular clergy were unjust. They felt accused of unchristly extravagance and
accused the secular clergy instead of trying to subdue the regulars in a way that was
completely illegitimate.1039 In the end to decide who was right and who was wrong is
impossible and irrelevant. Given the diversity of descriptions of convents in Restoration
Ireland it can only be assumed that the daily life situation of the orders differed immensely
from one region to another. As will be analyzed elsewhere, Catholic religious life could have
a solid background in some parts where convents were re-built, well-provided, and thus
offered excellent conditions for teaching and learning. The report from Clonmel is one
example for that. On the other hand the bishops’ complaints were certainly not unjustified
either. In most parts of Ireland the funding situation of the orders was devastating, their lands
occupied by Protestant settlers and their numbers too high to be supported by the local
population.1040 Nevertheless, Mooney accused the bishops of not being sufficiently acquainted
with the order’s conditions in the Irish countryside to judge them so drastically.1041 Perhaps he
was not wrong about that. When they arrived from Rome, Plunkett and Brenan had very high
expectations that were definitely incompatible with the Irish setting in 1670. They tried their
best to improve matters according to their own understanding of Tridentine Catholicism but
the vast majority of the missionary and especially teaching work was still done by the old
religious orders they despised so much.
The Dominican-Franciscan Controversy
As mentioned earlier the smoldering dissensions among regulars and seculars culminated in
the early 1670s with the inner-regular dispute about some former convents in Ulster between
Franciscans and Dominicans. After the Restoration members of both orders returned to the
1038
In that year the Franciscan chapter counted official novitiates in Nenagh, Limerick, Ennis, Waterford, Cork
(all Munster), Kilconnell, Kinalehin, Elphin, Moyne (all Connaught), Armagh, Donegal, Drogheda, Cavan (all
Ulster), and Dublin, Athlone, Kilkenny, Multyfarnham (all Leinster): Ibid., pp. 389-90.
1039
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 4, p. 19.
1040
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685 II, p. 319.
1041
Mooney, The Irish Franciscans, pp. 398-9.
216
region and claimed theoretically several of the ruined convents for themselves. This was done
theoretically because in most cases the lands were by then held by Protestant settlers and the
recovering of the buildings was merely hypothetical. In the best case, the orders could hope
for the connivance of the new proprietor who let them settle on his lands and in some cases
even allowed them to reconstruct some of the houses. Until the middle of the 1660s the
Dominicans resettled places at Carlingford, Newtownards, and Gola near Enniskillen while
the Franciscans claimed the houses for themselves with the argument that they had been in
Dominican hands long before the Reformation. To decide the matter, the orders had no other
choice than to let the Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, act as judge and mediator. In
1671 Plunkett finally awarded the houses to the Dominicans.1042 This was not the only point
where silent disputes between the orders turned into open confrontation. In the early 1660s
the general of the order of the Discalced Carmelites complained to Rome that all the other
orders were already returning to Ireland claiming houses for themselves, although the
internuncio decreed that they had to wait for his permission. However, only the Discalced
Carmelites waited and now the general had been informed that especially the normal
Carmelites inhabited several of the former houses of his order.1043 Other houses were not
recovered at all during the Restoration period since the orders fighting over them could not
come to terms as happened with the convent at Mothel where neither Cistercians nor
Augustinians could agree on a compromise.1044 In Ulster the decision lay with the archbishop
who declared that traditionally the houses belonged to the Dominicans although it was the
Franciscans who inhabited them even through the times of Cromwell. When the Franciscans
refused to accept the archbishop’s decision, the matter was transferred to Propaganda Fide
that lastly approved the Primate’s judgment.1045
Although this was only one episode it underlines the difficulties that characterized Catholic
labor in Ireland and the re-establishment of the episcopal hierarchy. The traditional orders
were strong and backed by the local population, especially in the parts with an old Irish
majority. Since ecclesiastical jurisdiction was legally prosecuted, the bishops and the secular
clergy could do little to enforce their rules as representatives of the Tridentine reforms.
Episcopal nominations as well as the bishop’s decisions were constantly questioned or
ignored and thus further decelerated any reforms Rome and Propaganda Fide aimed at. The
1042
Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 139-40.
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 1, p. 46.
1044
Power, Carrick on Suir, pp. 58-9.
1045
Brendan Jennings: An appeal of the Ulster Franciscans against Blessed Oliver Plunkett, in: Seanchas
Ardmhacha, vol. 2, No. 1 (1956), pp. 114-16, pp. 114-5.
1043
217
outlined aspects illustrate how complicated Catholic influence ‘from above’ was. In the
promotion-politics pursued by Propaganda Fide it became obvious that there were no or little
intentions to fully restore the Catholic Church in Ireland or even in England. Moreover
Propaganda and the bishops that had been promoted since the end of the 1660s were eager to
find a way of cooperation with the Stuart monarchy and the Protestant authorities in Ireland.
When a succession of the king’s Catholic brother to the throne became ever more realistic,
especially by the end of the 1670s, Propaganda did everything not to cause too much trouble.
Consequently the priority of episcopal activity in Ireland laid on the consolidation of
Catholicism where it was predominant and on the teaching of Tridentine doctrines. The
conversion of Protestants was not refused but it was not necessarily sought after either.
Instead the Catholic clergy led by the reform-orientated bishops silently reestablished their
hierarchy in order to be prepared once the Duke of York assumed the throne. Such cautious
policy worked well enough in times of relaxation, especially between 1669 and 1672. But
with the end of the Indulgence policy the Irish government returned to the divisive strategy
applied by Ormond during the Remonstrance affair. And given the perpetual animosities of
regular and secular clergy in Ireland, it became nearly impossible to agree on one general
course of action.
Measures promoting the Catholic Confession
While the Irish colleges on the continent have been intensively studied in the past decades, the
following chapter will only focus on their reciprocal relationship with the Catholic schools in
Ireland during the Restoration period to analyze how far both aspects have to be considered
jointly. What was the previous school career of an Irish student before he entered one of the
colleges, who elected him, who paid for him and with what purpose from the perspective of
the Irish hierarchy?
As Bettina Braun pointed out the migration of Irish scholars to the continent and back to
Ireland certainly belongs to one of the aspects of Catholic migration which is better
documented than most but still the organizational structure of this society in transfer would
require further research.1046 While previous studies of the colleges seem to have assumed that
the students came out of nowhere being perfectly trained for the admission to the college, the
present work tries to work out the Irish half of the curriculum. To combine both aspects and
to fill the gap between in order to trace the way of life of an Irish Catholic scholar in the
1046
Braun, Katholische Konfessionsmigration, p. 76.
218
seventeenth century from his hometown to the continent and back to the Irish mission will be
the task for another work.
The colleges on the continent were one of the fundamental elements of Catholic education in
Restoration Ireland. Their importance for the mission was underlined by the fact that among
the first decrees of the first post-Restoration synod at Armagh on 8th October 1660 it was
recorded that “Ad Bursas fundandas pro juventute hujus Provinciae in virtutibus et litteris
educanda in Collegiis ultramarinis, statuimus et ordinamus ut singuli Parochi contribuant ad
valorem at quotam quartae partis annualis proxis, seu subsidii charitativi Ordinario
solvendi.”1047 A quarter of the income of every parish of the church province had to be paid
for the financing of the continental colleges. Since the poverty of the Irish people as well as
their clergy was already described, one can imagine what an extreme additional burden this
quarter was for every parish priest and every bishop. Thus we can estimate how important
these colleges were considered by the Irish clergy. Since the primary interest of the arriving
bishops was the implementation of Tridentine reforms in Ireland along with the establishment
of a diocesan hierarchy outlined above, the bishops needed well-trained priests with whose
support such reforms could be carried out. Consequently they had a vital interest in sending as
many young clerics as possible to the continent in the hope that they returned well-trained and
prepared for their future task. Additionally, as discussed earlier, the bishops were highly
dissatisfied with the standard of clerical education in the Irish novitiates and since they
considered the establishment of seminaries in Ireland as little promising the promotion of the
continental colleges was their only option.1048 At the same time Plunkett, Brenan and others
turned their attention to the establishment of a basic educational network in Ireland itself.
That way they hoped to prepare and select the best qualified boys for the colleges and to
control the stream of students according to their ethnicity and home County so that out of
every group and region a sufficiently suitable and acceptable office candidate would result.
When the bishops’ general initiatives came to an end with the Indulgence politics in 1673 and
Plunkett’s school in Drogheda was forced to close, Bishop O’Moloney of Killaloe was sent as
an envoy to Paris to ask for the assistance of the king of France in order to establish even a
school for children and adolescents in Paris. The request, however, was never granted.1049
1047
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 200
Ibid., Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, p. 91. The problem was that from the Irish perspective
these colleges existed but the knowledge of them, how they worked, how much space they had, etc. was scarce.
Consequently the Internuncio Airoldi wrote to Propaganda in 1671 seeking detailed information on the colleges
abroad in the name of the Irish bishops: Millett, Calendar of volume II of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi,
Irlanda”, Part 2, p. 55.
1049
Kenrick, Reports to Rome, p. 12.
1048
219
While the necessity of the colleges was not questioned by anyone their organization was
controversially discussed. Especially the state of the colleges in Spain was seen critically. In
1665 an Irish priest of County Galway who resided in Spain sent a petition to the Pope that he
and fellow Irish clergymen had presented to the king of Spain. They lamented the miserable
state of the colleges in Spain, namely in Salamanca, Santiago, Seville, and Lisbon, accusing
the Jesuits who organized them as enjoying the revenues without improving the schools.1050
They admitted only three to four students while the money sufficed for many more, especially
since the Irish mission was so desperately in need of qualified priests.1051 Other complaints
were directed against the partiality of the colleges against some Irish provinces or
ethnicities.1052 In order to set things right, Oliver Plunkett proposed to Airoldi in August 1671
that the colleges should no longer choose their students but that the archbishops of the Irish
provinces should do so.1053 And finally the Irish clergy had the problem that many of the
students that were accepted at the colleges never returned to the Irish mission once they
enjoyed the liberties of the Catholic continental countries. The Irish envoy in Rome, William
Burgat, thus demanded in 1664 that the colleges should aim more strictly at the missionary
tasks of the scholars.1054 Two years later the Irish clergy presented a similar petition to
Propaganda Fide via Burgat where it was demanded that “Propaganda issue an order to the
effect that all who have been promoted to holy orders ad titulum missionis in Hibernia and
have completed their studies be obliged to return to Ireland, and especially the many Irish
priests who are in Paris.”1055 These three problematic aspects underline that coordination
between the colleges and the hierarchy in Ireland was at best limited; everyone agreed on the
necessity of the colleges but little was done to optimize the circular flow of students and
priests in favor of the Irish mission.
This becomes most obvious when taking into consideration that the colleges required basic
knowledge in humanities, reading, writing, and Latin while little was done to coordinate and
improve the teaching of these basics in Ireland. Since 1592 the college of Salamanca accepted
1050
Benignus Millett (ed.): Catalogue of Irish Material in vols. 370 and 371 of the “Scritture riferite originali
nelle congregazioni generali” in Propaganda Archives, in: Collectanea Hibernica, Nos. 27/28 (1985/86), pp. 4485, p. 82.
1051
Ibid., p. 82.
1052
The college at Salamanca under Jesuit guidance was primarily attended by students from the old English
dominated areas of Leinster and Munster much to the annoyance of the old Irish that were traditionally more
affiliated to the Franciscan order. The problem proved insoluble until the Spanish king Phillipp III allowed the
foundation of a separate Franciscan college at Louvain in 1616: Hammerstein, Aspects of the Continental
Education, p. 150.
1053
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 215.
1054
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 14 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 1, p. 56.
1055
Ibid., Catalogue of Irish Material in vols. 370 and 371 of the “Scritture riferite originali nelle congregazioni
generali”, p. 80.
220
only students between 18 and 25 years of age who were sufficiently fluent in Latin and
grammar since Latin was the college’s everyday language.1056 It has been seldomly asked
exactly how the matriculants acquired these abilities. Regardless of how low the standard of
the Catholic elementary schools in Ireland was during the Restoration period, it must be
assumed that many still taught sufficient Latin and grammar to prepare their students for the
continent. For the Irish college in Rome the matriculation records of the students survived
until 1678. After 1660 39 students entered the college; 17 of them said to have received their
education at home in Ireland while 15 previously attended other schools in Belgium, two in
France, one in Rome and four did not give any further information. Of the 17 educated in
Ireland only four came to Rome before 1670, which is to say before the arrival of the reformorientated bishops to Ireland. Three students came with the personal recommendation of
Oliver Plunkett so most likely they attended his school in Drogheda between 1670 and
1673.1057 For the Franciscan college at Louvain similar records exist although they give much
less helpful information. Between 1660 and 1684 107 students matriculated but no
information about their previous education was provided.1058 In any case the numbers
underline the attractiveness of the colleges and the fact that a majority of the students, at least
in Rome, received their education in Irish schools, most likely Catholic ones. For Rome a
considerable increase is notable after the arrival of Oliver Plunkett to Ireland although this
may be related with his strong personal connection to the city. Other bishops in other times
and the teachers at the novitiates and schools of the religious orders may have recommended
more students to other colleges such as Louvain, but this cannot be proved by the sources.
The only sources that give any precise numbers considering the transfer process of scholars to
the continent are the Jesuit Litterae Annuae. In the schools of New Ross and Cashel the most
qualified of the graduates were advanced to the continental colleges in Spain. In 1663 Cashel
alone reported to have sent 16 young promising students to Compostela, Seville, and Lisbon
respectively and all of them were accepted.1059 In fact, the education in Ireland was in no case
a guarantee for the acceptance as a scholar in the seminary. The Jesuit comments as well as
the matriculation records of the college in Rome show that it was absolutely common for
many students to wait a term or two until they were admitted even if they came highly
1056
Hammerstein, Aspects of the Continental Education, pp. 148-9.
John Hanly (ed.): Records of the Irish College, Rome, under Jesuit Administration, in: Archivium
Hibernicum, No. 27 (1964), pp. 13-75.
1058
Brendan Jennings: The Irish students in the University of Louvain, 1584-1794, in: Measgra Mhichíl Uí
Chléirigh, Dublin 1944, pp. 74-87, pp. 84-87.
1059
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 263-265v.
1057
221
recommended by their former teachers.1060 With the persecutions in the aftermath of the
Remonstrance affair, the size of the Jesuit schools in Ireland decreased for some time. In 1669
only five students from Cashel were sent to Spain because the school was previously forced to
close for two years.1061
Of course, all this material is scarce and little representative for the whole educational
migration process and cannot be of further relevance for this work. In conclusion it can be
stated that the fluctuation of students to the continent and the return of some priests to the
mission continued after the Restoration and the maintenance of the colleges was of primary
importance to the Irish Catholic clergy who offered a quarter of their nearly nonexistent
income to support these colleges financially. The Protestant authorities were not able to
prevent the migration either, as was underlined again by the 1695 Act to restrain foreign
education. Still after the Glorious Revolution Irish Catholics sent their children to the
continental colleges although they were threatened to “loose and forfeit all his her and their
goods and chattles”.1062 But the necessary background for the survival of the colleges was
certainly the upkeep of the Catholic schools in Ireland which prepared the children in the
humanities and languages required. Since Latin was usually not taught by Protestant
schoolmasters only the illegal Catholic schools could provide the necessary abilities. That the
root for the existence of the Irish colleges abroad was to be found at home was plainly
admitted in the same Act concerning foreign education. It concluded that “there are not
sufficient numbers of schools in this realm to instruct the youth thereof in the English
language, and other literature”1063 despite the several Acts for Irish education. The conclusion
that was drawn from this statement summarized precisely the heart of the problem of Irish
Protestant education. The Protestant schools according to the Williamite Act could not be
maintained “by reason of such Irish popish schools being too much connived at”1064 and that
henceforth the existing “Act for the English order, habite and language” as well as the “Act
for the erection of free schools” should be strictly put into execution.
The funding-debate
In the end, all of the Catholic reforming projects came down to the question of funding. The
old religious orders sustained themselves by questing for alms and the Jesuits were supported
1060
Hanly, Irish College, Rome, pp. 13-75.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 281v.
1062
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 91-2. Irish Statutes, 7 William III, c. 4.
1063
Ibid., pp. 91-2. Irish Statutes, 7 William III, c. 4.
1064
Ibid., pp. 91-2. Irish Statutes, 7 William III, c. 4.
1061
222
by the wealthy merchants in the cities, Protestant and Catholic alike.1065 Many of the secular
parish priests extracted little sums from their flock but for the bishops as the main carriers of
the Tridentine reforms in Ireland remained only a little. However splendid the Roman designs
for the restoration of the episcopal hierarchy in Ireland, the promotion of the educated youth
to the colleges on the continent, and the limiting of the influence of the monastic power, the
disposition to pay for it was not pronounced. Consequently, more clergymen were active in
Ireland without more people who could support them financially and the Protestant authorities
rejoiced in the fact that such a situation would not be bearable for long. The selfdestructiveness of the chronic underfunding was expressed by Lord Lieutenant Essex in a
letter to William Harbord in January 1674. Concerning the upcoming Act for the banishing of
bishops and friars from the island, Essex wrote that “I am confident it is so far from causing a
discontent, even among ye Papists themselves, that I am sure they are rather glad of it, these
being a great burthen to them in ye collection of money, wch were perpetually made for their
support (...).”1066 And in a second letter from March 1674 he went even farther affirming that
such banishing would be welcomed “for indeed they have almost beggar’d them.”1067 Hence
the government had small reason to interfere once it realized that the problem of the Catholic
clergy in Ireland would hopefully regulate itself or would even convince the common people
to convert once they were exhausted of financing two churches.1068 But the government
authorities were not the only ones seeing the difficulties. As early as 1661 one of the leading
old English speakers, Richard Bellings, wrote to Ormond that it was ridiculous to assume that
the Irish clergy collected money for the recruiting of more clerics. To the contrary Bellings
pointed out that the clergy who was already in Ireland would rather collect money to prevent
any more priests from coming over since the population could not even support those that
were already there.1069
Apart from a variety of requests to decrease the number of Irish dioceses in order to increase
the income of those remaining on the island the resident bishops tried to facilitate their
situation by acquiring foreign financial support or, if that was not possible, accumulating
diocesan dignities. When Patrick Tyrrell applied for the episcopal see of Clogher around 1667
he laid special emphasis on the fact that a Spanish nobleman had promised him a yearly rent
of 1000 scudi if chosen, a declaration that was later affirmed in writing by the nobleman
1065
For a more detailed analysis of the Jesuit funding situation see chapter IV.III.
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 166.
1067
Ibid., p. 193.
1068
HMC, Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond, New Series, vol. VII, p. 311.
1066
1069
Creighton, The Remonstrance, p. 25.
223
Nicolas Paules y Merode.1070 The costs of Catholic education apart from the necessary
expenses of the office were high and only the richest dioceses disposed of sufficient income.
Bishop Farrell of Ardagh which was one of the poorest dioceses in Ireland had an irregular
income of between sixteen and thirty-two pounds since he counted only four Catholic families
with landed property in his diocese that were wealthy enough to support him.1071 Similarly
difficult was the situation of Dr. Mark Forstall who was appointed Bishop of Kildare in 1676.
According to Oliver Plunkett Forstall only had an annual income of fifteen pounds out of his
fifteen parish priests. As a solution Plunkett proposed to appoint Forstall as bishop of the
adjoining diocese of Leighlin as well. Without sufficient income, Plunkett pointed out an
equal dialogue with the Protestant authorities would be completely impossible since the
bishop would have to spend his time begging.1072 Nevertheless, Propaganda Fide allowed
such duplication of offices only in one case; after the death of Archbishop Burgat of Cashel, a
new archbishop of the southern church province was needed. But since the yearly income of
the Diocese of Cashel alone was no more than twenty pounds it was never sufficient for the
maintenance of a bishop let alone an archbishop. Finally Propaganda agreed to a compromise
that made John Brenan, Bishop of Waterford & Lismore the new Archbishop of Cashel but
permitted Brenan to retain his old dioceses worth about thirty pounds a year. With the income
of then fifty pounds Brenan still earned only half as much as the Protestant schoolmaster of
Kilkenny but it seems to have been enough for him not to further complain.1073
Much more quarrelsome was the Archbishop of Armagh Oliver Plunkett who was chronically
in need of money for his school in Drogheda. He was of the opinion that Propaganda should
provide the financial means or the Restoration of the Catholic Church in Ireland and no letter
or report from him was written without a hint to the desperate financial situation of the Irish
bishops.1074 Different to most of the candidates, it would seem that Plunkett started in his
office with a considerable fortune, brought together most likely by his large family relations
in northern Leinster. At least he disposed of sufficient money to buy or build a house in
Drogheda for his school and to pay for the Jesuit teachers therein as well as the provision for
the boarding students. But different to what Plunkett expected, the flow of financial support
was soon at an end and the money spent.1075 Plunkett argued that the school project was
approved by Rome and “I was given to understand by the sacred congregation and Your
1070
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 95-6.
Kelly, Diocese of Ardagh, p. 70.
1072
Comerford, Dioceses of Kildare and Leighlin, pp. 37-39.
1073
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 252.
1074
Millett, Survival and Reorganization, p. 30.
1075
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 186-7.
1071
224
Lordship that my expenses would be made up to me”1076 but only smaller sums were granted
to him. When it became known that Plunkett had been granted an annual pension of eight
hundred scudi from the king for his help with the Ulster tories, Propaganda proofed reluctant
to offer any further help, although Plunkett insisted that he only received a half-yearspayment before the pension was cancelled again.1077 By September 1672 Plunkett finally
received the long-expected grant from Propaganda to pay for the Jesuit fathers.1078 In
November of that same year he informed the clergyman Peter Creagh that the salary for the
Jesuits would be paid for four years of which he had already paid two years out of his own
pocket.1079 But when the money arrived in early 1673 it was less than he expected. While he
had given five hundred scudi to the Jesuits to maintain the school, he received only three
hundred from Propaganda that obviously thought it enough and Plunkett again wrote to the
internuncio at Brussels to intervene with Propaganda and ask for the remaining sum.1080 In
fact internuncio Airoldi as well as the cardinals of Propaganda Fide never intended to give
him more than the three hundred scudi. In a letter to the secretary of Propaganda, Baldeschi,
in October 1672, Airoldi stated that it would be a mistake to grant the archbishop an annual
subsidy since other Irish bishops might think that was an option for them as well. He
proposed that Plunkett should be given three hundred as a one-time payment while it should
be waited for his reaction.1081 Plunkett continued to ask for more though and finally in autumn
1673, a few weeks before the school was forced to close down by the Protestant authorities,
Propaganda agreed to send another 150 scudi in order to meet the Primate’s expenses.1082
1076
Ibid., p. 318.
Ibid., pp. 186-7.
1078
Millett, Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 1, pp. 63-4.
1079
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 346.
1080
Ibid., pp. 375-6.
1081
Patrick Francis Moran was still of the opinion in his older edition of the letters of Oliver Plunkett that
Propaganda assigned him an annual pension of 150 scudi. The documents of Propaganda Fide speak a different
language though: Moran, Rev. Oliver Plunket, p. 135. Millett, Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite
nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 1, p. 65. Ibid., Part 2, p. 10.
1082
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 381.
1077
225
VIII. Confessionalization and Education from a Daily Life
Perspective
The two previous parts of this work have argued that Catholic education was available in
most parts of Ireland during the Restoration period. Catholic schools were set up by different
groups and were of different quality and duration. These results contradict the assumption that
the Catholic educational network suffered a major breakdown during the Cromwellian period.
Instead, Catholic teachers went into hiding but returned soon after the Restoration. As already
seen, church structures were quickly recovered, however, the traditional feuds between Rome
and Ireland, regular and secular, went on and were more disturbing to Catholic intentions than
the anti-Catholic policy of the Protestant authorities. Even though the confessional affiliations
of the Lords Lieutenant and their political programs varied, none of them ever executed the
whole power of the law as they were mostly interested in keeping the Catholic population
quiet and their clergy disunited in order to secure Protestant wealth and privileges. On the
other hand the Catholic Church arranged itself with a Protestant king and tried to be
considerate in its politics and promotions.
After analyzing the political and confessional background along with the larger designs of
confessionalization, social disciplination, and developing crown authority, the following part
will confront these results with the daily life circumstances of Catholic teaching in Ireland.
Following the critical aspects of the confessionalization paradigm it will be investigated how
far state and confessional policy could be implemented on the local level. Were the
confessions actually as distanced from one another as Ute Lotz-Heumann has suggested? Or
could Catholic teaching only survive because of a vivid interconfessional community in the
cities and their periphery? Certainly, many Protestant settlers were still afraid of the possible
threat that their Catholic neighbors could pose. Those who fomented these fears for political
reasons consistently remembered that outside the walled garrisons the settler population could
hardly be protected.1083 While some Protestants were willing to hope that moderation and
kindness might ensure the peace, others feared the slow hidden progress of Catholicism led by
the Jesuits.1084
In this context, the education of the youth was of crucial importance as much to those who
feared the influence of the Jesuits as to those who realized that a qualified Protestant teacher
1083
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 3.
CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st, 1679, to August 31st, 1680, pp. 173-4. CSPI, Sept. 1669 – Dec. 1670, p. 67.
Dodsley, Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, p. 133.
1084
226
would not only win over souls but use the children for the economic benefit of a country that
needed a great deal of recovery after nearly two decades of war and chaos. Sons of Protestant
parents attended Jesuit schools wherever those were set up and thus concentrated the hopes
and fears of both groups relentlessly, although this situation was neither new nor peculiar
Irish but a common feature to many European countries as Stefan Ehrenpreis has
demonstrated.1085 It will be argued that the Irish society was in a state of fluid confessional
affiliation or even confessional indifference as long as their personal advantage was at stake.
Confessional borders were of lesser importance and interconfessional cooperation was seldom
punished by the crown authorities. This aspect underlines the limited power of the developing
early modern state in face of a confessionalization ‘from below’. Paradoxically, Catholic
education flourished mainly where wealthy Protestants lived as well as where the government
and the Church of Ireland had not managed to establish schools or supply adequate
teachers.1086
This offers a compelling argument against the concept of an isolated double
confessionalization proposed by Ute Lotz-Heumann1087 as well as Heinz Schilling’s1088
notion that high confessional activities occurred mostly where two or more confessions
neighbored one another. Rather, this chapter will demonstrate that the confessional
borderlands in Ireland usually did not boast a higher amount of teaching facilities or welltrained teachers. The fact that two or more confessions entertained well-equipped schools in
the same place competing for the confessional affiliation of the population was usually not the
case. Instead, Jesuit schools flourished in urban regions where they were legally not tolerated
and where they attracted large groups of Protestant students. This however, did not
necessarily lead to a high increase of conversions as the Jesuit Litterae Annuae clearly show.
Many inhabitants were willing to embrace the Church of Ireland in order to avoid political
repression, but conversely, had no problems with Catholic teachers – as long as it was to their
own benefit. With many Catholics dispossessed and expelled from the towns, those regions of
1085
Ehrenpreis, Reformed Education, pp. 39-41. For the importance of qualified teaching in order to achieve
economic as well as confessional progress cf. Griffith, Chronicles of the County Wexford, vol. 1, pp. 44-5.
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 466. Louis McRedmond: To the Greater Glory. A history of the Irish
Jesuits, Dublin 1991, p. 89.
1086
John Spurr argued in his analysis of religion in Restoration England, that while ‘anti-Popery’ was a
widespread expression of popular fears among English Protestant it was usually not applied to the local Catholic
families that were personally known to the inhabitants. Of course, the distribution of population and confession
was contrary in Ireland but among the landed gentry Spurr’s concept of partition between ‘Popery’ in general
and personally known Catholics from one’s immediate surrounding could as well be valid. Spurr, Religion in
Restoration England, p. 94.
1087
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung.
1088
Schilling, Kirche, Staat und Gesellschaft.
227
the island that were mostly populated by Catholics proved to be unable to sustain larger
Catholic schools. This case offers an explanation for the high concentration of schools in the
merchant towns of the Southeast and the rich agricultural areas of Leinster. Other parts, such
as Connaught and West Ulster, were nearly uncontrollable for the crown authorities. These
regions lacked the wealthy and in most cases Protestant landlords who would offer financial
support. Additionally, Connaught and West Ulster were largely based on a pre-Tridentine
Catholicism that still preferred the monastic structures of older times over the newly
introduced episcopal hierarchy. These preferences made general episcopal designs for
education more difficult. The resulting inner-confessional differences between the Irish
Catholic clergy will be analyzed along the examples of the most prominent Catholic
Archbishops of the Restoration period, Oliver Plunkett and Peter Talbot. Both received their
education abroad and were in open dialogue with the Protestant authorities in Dublin and
London. These two clergymen were both representatives of a transconfessional Humanistic
group of intellectuals (Thomas Kaufmann)1089, and agreed on many questions of daily life as
well as the common values of Christianity with Protestant dignitaries. But at the same time
they were despised and attacked by many adherents of the traditional Catholic Irish Church.
Catholic family traditions played an important part in Irish society and were an indispensable
factor to preserve internal power relations for the few remaining Irish dynasties. The
examples of the families of the Burkes, O’Briens, and Butlers will demonstrate how
interconfessional and ambiguous the surviving political élite acted in the balancing act
between a devout Catholic population and a Protestant crown. Each of the families developed
different strategies but they all exerted an astonishing form of patronage for Catholic clergy
and teaching in their home territories. This protective policy allowed Catholic teaching to
survive the turmoils of the seventeenth century and it underlined the huge gap between local
popular belief and the confessionalizing intentions of the developing early modern state.
1. Catholic Education in Rural Ireland
Education and especially Jesuit education was mostly an urban feature in early modern
Europe. Notwithstanding the largest part of the Irish lived in the countryside and for most of
the Restoration period the Catholics were officially not even allowed to reside within the city
walls, although they still did in many cases. These restrictions make it necessary to
differentiate between the educational practice in urban and rural areas. Landowners and
wealthier peasants might have sent their children as boarding scholars to the nearest town or
1089
Kaufmann, Einleitung, pp. 14-5.
228
even into a distant part of the island but the majority could not afford that. They depended on
the range of available education in their immediate surrounding which limited the gathering
ground of the schools and originated different models of teaching.
Schools in the countryside were less likely to cause serious annoyance to the authorities and
were not as exposed to persecution as those in urban centers. Instead their main problem was
funding. In 1665 Pope Alexander VII authorized Edmund Teige, vicar apostolic of Meath, to
dispense those Catholics who were living off former Catholic Church lands. In return they
were supposed to pay an appropriate part of the income as alms to the local priest or religious
order to help maintain them. It is uncertain if this order was ever put into effect and how
many tenants were concerned, but it documents that the church was aware of the shortage and
looked for ways to extract contributions from those who still disposed of some income.1090
The Jesuits were not able to maintain residences in those rural areas where they had no
financial support and little backing by the local inhabitants. They slowly advanced into the
peripheries of cities and towns sending one or two of the members of one residence into the
countryside to preach and catechize.1091 In this they could be compared to the Protestant
authorities that lacked the funding, the personnel and the local support to control the whole
Irish countryside. Their main concerns were the tories, raiders, and robbers. Many had been
former landowners who were now dispossessed and saw no other way to live off their land as
they did before by taking what they needed. At no time was the government able to deal with
them all and thus had to rely on the support of the people. To win their assistance the local
parish priests were identified as being of central importance. While some officials offered
them undisturbed exercise of their religion if they cooperated, others proposed to take them as
hostages until their flock would cooperate with the authorities in order to find and arrest the
raiders.1092 In any case the tory problem documented the limits of the crown in the Irish
countryside. In the following section of this paper, the development of Catholic education in
the Irish periphery shall be analyzed according to the geographical distribution of the four
Irish provinces. Generally, each province was of a different social structure and subject to
different confessional and political influences that have to be taken into account. While the
Irish east coast was highly influenced by English language, traditions, and economy, the
western parts of the island were still largely dominated by the old Irish. Geographical borders
such as the river Shannon and simply the distance to the capital in Dublin made it more
1090
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 21-2.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad
exitum anni 1674, fo. 271v.
1092
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 1, p. 172.
1091
229
difficult for the government to interfere in these parts. It was also less attractive from an
economical point of view since the majority of agriculturally exploited and fertile centers
were located in Leinster and eastern Munster. As will be demonstrated the economic wealth
of the East where most of the landlords were Protestants was essential for the existence of
Catholic education, especially for the Jesuits. But while in some parts the Church of Ireland
offered sufficient education to their adherents, in other parts of the East, Protestant landlords
were willing to support Catholic teachers in order to secure at least some form of education
for their children. Paradoxically, in those parts of the West where the crown authority was
almost nonexistent and only few Protestants lived in the countryside, Catholic education
turned out to be weakest. This was due in parts to the strong pre-Tridentine tradition of the
common belief there, and in parts to the little financial support that could be offered by the
Catholics themselves.
Leinster – Between confessional fluidity and indifference
The province of Leinster was composed of several urban centers––most of all Dublin, the
island’s capital––and a few garrisoned cities, such as Drogheda, Trim, Athlone, Kilkenny, and
Wexford. Larger towns existed in nearly every county of the province and could usually be
reached by the country folk. The high population density in the territories of the Pale set the
ground for rural education since those families who wanted to send their children to the urban
educational centers could do so more easily than families in the provinces of Ulster,
Connaught, and most of Munster. Furthermore, Leinster was home to the previously wealthy
old English families, many of whom had enjoyed a certain standard of education before. And
the economic élite of the province was eager to have their children well-educated. This
became clear, for example, when the Lord Deputy Grey petitioned that six monasteries should
be preserved in 1539 in order to avoid a complete educational breakdown in the Pale. All six
monasteries were located in Leinster, most of them were situated around Dublin, while both
Kildare and Kilkenny boasted one monastery, respectively.1093 Some of the old Leinster
families had regained their property or part of it after the Restoration, were related to teachers,
priests, or bishops, or had converted to Protestantism while conserving their family bonds.
These interconfessional networks generated a confessionally mixed population that was in
general sympathetic to education of what confession whatever, as long as it complied with
their quality standards. At the same time many of these families followed Catholic traditions
or had joint interests with Catholic landowners and merchants, and their main concern was the
1093
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 43-4.
230
continued protection of their property. In order to secure their possessions, lands, or titles they
were willing to cooperate with all those who might help them in a renewed moment of
political or confessional turmoil. As a result, confessional politics were for the confessionally
mixed rural population of the Pale determining only as long as they went hand in hand with
their own economical, educational, and political ambitions. If the Protestant crown did not
supply enough sufficiently qualified Protestant teachers the tolerance for Catholic teachers
was high and if Protestant landowners were not afraid of another Catholic rising they had no
problem in tolerating Catholic neighbors, tenants, priests and teachers. And since family
relations of different confessions were common among the Irish gentry the fear for a rising
was comparatively small.
For the analysis of Catholic education, the province of Leinster can be generally divided into
two sectors, North and South. While the main centers of Jesuit activities were established in
the wealthy ports and trading areas of southern Leinster and eastern Munster, the counties of
Louth, Dublin, and Meath formed the basis for episcopal activities, especially during the
tenure of Primate Oliver Plunkett. The majority of the members of the Jesuits came from
merchant families of the towns and had few connections to the rural gentry. Many of the
higher church dignitaries on the other hand came from the interconfessionally related Pale
families described above and thus had a better standing in this very area. The Archbishop of
Armagh was especially well-connected among the gentry of Louth and Meath. He received
considerable financial support from his friends and relatives in order to pursue his educational
goals. Sir Nicholas Plunkett hosted him and gave him his carriage. His cousin, the Earl of
Fingall, invited the Archbishop to his country seat; three of his other cousins were married to
Protestant landlords in the area who offered him support and so on.1094 His relation to the still
influential Plunkett family in this area was certainly one important aspect for his promotion
and gave him the necessary financial background for his activities. Through the Earl of
Sunderland, who wrote in Plunkett’s favor to his aunt, the Countess of Drogheda, he gained
the support of Lord Moore of Drogheda. Moore’s case revealed the mutual benefit which the
toleration of Catholic clergy could offer to Protestant landlords even if they were not
primarily concerned about education. Plunkett told Bishop Brenan of Waterford and Lismore
in 1670 that the Lord had handed over all churches to his priests because he did not have a
single Protestant in his whole estate.1095 What was generous for Plunkett was advantageous to
Moore himself as he no longer had to care for the maintenance of church buildings that
1094
1095
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 2, p. 121.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 127-8.
231
nobody would attend. On the other hand giving those buildings to Plunkett was cheap and
secured the Lord the permanent gratitude of the clergy and their flock.1096 On a low scale
Moore’s case represented the three main aspects of interconfessional agreements in the Irish
countryside that were necessary for the establishment of Catholic education. First of all the
family connections secured a network of sympathetic individuals in order to overcome
possible confessional or ethnic reservations. Second the support through a local Protestant
magnate secured a monetary supply that most of the impoverished Catholic peasants could
not procure. And third, this financial support secured the landlord a favorable standing with
his Catholic tenants, even in times of confessional turmoil so that he could enjoy the fruits of
his property with a certain security. The subsequently generated interconfessional agreement
was the necessary foundation for the establishment of Catholic schools. This strategy was
designed mainly for the countryside where the Catholic population was the undisputed
majority, even in areas close to Dublin and within the Pale. In the cities the distribution of the
population was different from the countryside and consequently led to other agreements.1097
The importance of family connections in the described interconfessional agreements became
clear again with the presence of another Plunkett in the Archdiocese of Meath, Patrick
Plunkett, a relative of Oliver. Patrick Plunkett was Bishop of Meath since 1669 and prior to
that position he was Bishop of the bordering see of Ardagh. The diocese of Meath was one of
the largest and wealthiest dioceses in the country, thus its prelate, although not an archbishop,
had considerable influence among the Irish clergy. In consequence, any Protestant landowner
in the area willing to cooperate with the Catholic authorities did well to approach one of the
Catholic representatives of the Plunkett family, either Primate Oliver or Bishop Patrick.
Thanks to their support problems with the local clergy could be avoided and an
interconfessional cohabitation could be arranged.1098
1096
Ibid., pp. 166-7.
Connolly, Religion, Law and Power, pp. 146-7. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 73. As for
Louth the French traveler, Albert Jouvin, passed through the area between 1666 and 1668, visiting a secret
Catholic mass himself. The gathering was set up at two miles distance from the city and Jouvin was surprised by
the multitude of people who came from all the surrounding hamlets, the woods and the mountains: C. Falkiner:
Illustrations of Irish History and Topography, mainly of the Seventeenth Century, London 1904, p. 418. Oliver
Plunkett described the local population in the countryside surrounding Drogheda as almost completely orthodox.
While Moore could easily hand over the churches and their administration to the Catholic clergy, different kinds
of cooperation were found within the city walls which will be analyzed in the following chapter: Moran, Rev.
Oliver Plunket, pp. 137-8.
1098
The importance and wealth of the diocese of Meath was indicated by the constantly high number of priests
that resided there. A few months after his arrival, Patrick Plunkett reported to Propaganda Fide that there were
eighty secular priests whom he characterised as educated and exemplary men: Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol.
2, p. 119. Quoted from Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, p. 3.
1097
232
On the other hand, the social network of the Plunkett family empowered the two bishops to
have access to broader societal as well as political opportunities than other clergymen in the
area. The Plunketts feared less persecution and their teachers were trusted by Protestant
parents. As for the example of the diocese of Meath, Platrick Plunkett informed Rome that
apart from the secular priests there were also members of the religious orders beyond
counting in the diocese of Meath and all were very active in teaching the youth. Even
Protestant children visited their schools, as he proudly remarked.1099 Local Protestants who
were less familiar with the bishops in control of the Catholic clergy would not have been this
trustful if they were afraid of their Catholic neighbors and religious orders on their land. But
while the secular clerics only set up schools, the religious orders also aimed at restoring their
former monasteries. Since Plunkett described their numbers as extremely high it can be
assumed that they were welcomed not only by Catholic but also by Protestant landowners
who granted them the right to settle on their lands. The aspect of joint classes in recovered
monastical buildings on Protestant land clearly indicates the confessional fluidity of the
population of rural northern Leinster. Neither the Catholic bishops or priests, nor the
Protestant landowners refused the other confession but tried to benefit of the mutual
cooperation as much as possible. The confessional identity of those attending classes or
offering money and protection was often not absolute but in a flexible state that could arrange
itself with the Church of Ireland as with the Church of Rome. Bi-confessional families were
tolerant towards any form of confessional teaching as long as it met their requirements while
others had no confessional disposition whatsoever trying to adapt to the local circumstances
with as little difficulties as possible.
The financial support allowed Plunkett to maintain schools, and the family relations between
Protestant landlords and Catholic bishops gave the former enough security to connive at
religious orders settling on their land. In exchange for tolerating Catholic teachers the
landlord’s children were admitted to the schools respectively. Interconfessional relations thus
created a situation of mutual benefit regardless of confessional and disciplinatory designs that
might have been followed by crown or church authorities. The fact that all these silent
agreements could be made so close to Dublin as the centre of the crown authority in Ireland
casts doubt on the notion that confessionalisation and social disciplination could be
successfully applied ‘from above’ as suggested by Reinhard and Schilling. Crown authorities
only influenced confessional decisions of the rural population when it offered alternatives for
1099
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 2, p. 119. Quoted from Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver
Plunkett, p. 3.
233
the daily life such as in education. But since the crown was not able to employ sufficient
Protestant teachers, and the Protestant landlords were unwilling to refuse their Catholic
neighbours and relying on the crown’s power to protect their property, attempts to implement
working confessionalisation politics failed in post-Restoration Ireland. Left alone by the
government and church officials, agreements with the present Catholics were in many cases
the only option for Protestants in rural Leinster and since most of them were related or
befriended with Catholics, the confessional borders were easy to ignore or to displace.
The importance of family bonds for an interconfessional agreement between Catholics and
Protestants was also striking in Patrick Plunkett’s former diocese of Ardagh and
Clonmacnoise. Though one of the poorest dioceses in Ireland, with allegedly only four landpossessing Catholic families, there were still thirty registered Catholic clerics working in the
county in 1714. The authorities were especially provoked by four schoolmasters who were
still active in teaching the Catholic faith by that time. Robert Molley taught at Drumshanbo,
Edward Nagle at Castlefore, and Richard Flanagan at Drumreilly. The fourth teacher was
James McHugh who taught at Kesheary in the parish of Kiltubrid supporting the local parish
priest Felix MacKeon. MacKeon was registered at Kiltubrid already in 1704 and was ordained
at Carrigan in 1682.1100 It was interesting that he named his witness the local Protestant John
Peyton of Shanragh whose family was renowned for traditionally supporting Catholics in the
area.1101 The case makes it clear that family bonds were important for Catholic teaching not
only where the gentry and the wealthy old English of the Pale were concerned, but also that
such family connections were not limited to the ethnic groups of old English or old Irish such
as Lotz-Heumann suggests.1102 Neither the old Irish family of the MacKeons nor the old
English Peytons were of great importance outside their local community in the quite remote
areas of the diocese of Ardagh. On the local level, however, both families were intertwined or
at least profited from one another offering teaching and legal protection respectively. Both
families shared a common interest for education, protection, and economical benefit and thus
represented a new interconfessional Irish society beyond the much-evoked stereotypes of
ethnic and religious groups. On a local level all these categories were not necessarily
applicable.
The protection and support of Catholic traditions as well as their representatives was
beneficial not alone from an educational point of view as has already been seen in the
1100
In the 1670s Bishop Farrell asserted that his annual income was not higher than 16-32 pounds. Kelly,
Diocese of Ardagh, p. 70.
1101
MacNamee, Diocese of Ardagh, pp. 366-7/719.
1102
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, pp. 393-406.
234
example of the Moore’s of Drogheda. The old religious orders had a high influence over the
local population. The rebellion of 1641 had shown how politically important it was for Irish
politics and landowners to be on good terms with the local monasteries. After the creation of
the Confederation of Kilkenny it was the clergy in the parishes that propagated the
Confederate Oath of Association and secured local support for the newly established
government. After the Reformation many friars tried to reclaim their old monasteries although
the land where they were built on did not belong to them anymore. Nevertheless, many
landowners did not hesitate to let the friars reside on their former property. The Franciscan
monastery of Multyfarnham played an important role in the seventeenth century and prior to
this period, although it had been officially dissolved after the Reformation. First, the land was
transferred to a Dublin alderman named Jans who allowed the friars to return. After
Cromwell’s conquest, the house was in decay before the Franciscans built a new one near the
original place as Henry Piers wrote in his contemporary description of Westmeath. Up to the
Popish Plot they resided in a parcel of Knights-wood that belonged to Sir Thomas Nugent
baronet “where they had built all manor of conveniences both for the receipt of strangers and
for their own use” although, the owner of the land was a Protestant, as Piers realised.1103
Thomas Nugent, 1st Baron Nugent of Riverston’s confessional loyalty remains unclear at this
point. He was likely Catholic and Piers was mistaken. Thomas was the second son of Richard
Nugent, 2nd Earl of Westmeath who had fought for the Confederation of Kilkenny. Thomas
fought at the side of James II against William of Orange. Despite their political alignments
the family managed to make friends in each political camp since their lands were not only
restored by Charles II in 1660 but also by William of Orange thirty years later.1104 In the
context of this accommodative family politics the generosity towards the Franciscan friars at
Multyfarnham was totally reasonable. The convent and its friars were of certain importance
for the Catholic clergy in Ireland. The first time that a clerical assembly approved the
Confederation of Kilkenny was during a provincial synod at Multyfarnham. If Thomas
Nugent wanted to secure his title and lands in times of a possible new Catholic rebellion or
under a Catholic king, he did well in tolerating them. However, the potential risk he took was
limited, despite the close distance to Dublin. According to Henry Piers, the friars did not
perform their service in any secretive manner. Quite the contrary, they were visible to
1103
Piers, A Chorographical Description, p. 69.
Richard Bagwell: Nugent, Thomas, first Baron Nugent of Riverston (d. 1715), rev. James McGuire, in:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20400,
accessed 21 Nov 2013]
1104
235
everyone.1105 If crown officials had wanted to enforce the law against the friars and their
protector, it would have been well within their reach to do so. Nothing happened, however.
Even during the Popish Plot the friars left their place only for a short time. This episode
shows how the local patronage system of clergy, schools, and monasteries was beneficial to
the landowners who supported friars regardless of their confession. They were either tolerant,
secretly Catholic, or indifferent towards confessional issues but regardless they gained an
immediate profit from the friars while the costs and political dangers for themselves were
manageable.1106
While no punishment was to be expected the respect for the traditional houses secured
internal political support for the Protestant landowner from his Catholic peasants and
simultaneously supplied the area with a teaching facility at a low cost. Maybe the landlords
would have preferred Protestant teachers if there had been any around as they should have
been according to existent law, but this was not the case. Otherwise it would have been
questionable that they exerted such confessional toleration. But most rural areas lacked
Protestant schoolmasters if teaching was required the connivance of Catholic teachers posed a
cheap, interconfessional alternative. In his Chorographical Description of the County of WestMeath, Henry Piers showed himself irritated by the fact that the Protestant youth in his
neighbourhood attended Catholic schools. It was not the confession that enraged Piers but
most of all the low teaching standard that was offered. According to him, those schools were
only good for teaching English to the old Irish but did not offer what should be required by
the Protestant youth.1107 Such critique indicates that these Catholic schools of comparatively
low standard were all that was available in rural Westmeath for education. Otherwise, the
Protestants would have attended the classes of a better suited schoolmaster if they had been
offered. Hence the support of Catholic teachers from local Protestants secured the best
1105
Piers, A Chorographical Description, pp. 1-126.
James Rosenheim came to similar conclusions in his analysis of English landowners and landed gentry.
Rural engagement of local gentry in defense of Stuart Restoration politics was particularly present only in the
early stage of Charles II’s reign because those active personally feared a return of republican rule. These
activities decreased, however, soon after the Restoration once the monarchy seemed to be secure. “Even in the
earliest and extraordinary and insecure times of the Stuart Restoration, self-interest rather than country identity
guided some gentry governors (…).” Moreover, an increasing number of the county magistracy proved little
inclined to perform their duties as prescribed from London “whether as a result of absenteeism, indifference or
the pressure of other business.” Rosenheim underlines that even in the prosecution of transgressors against
religious statutes most governors only acted with central government prodding “and neither aggressively nor
regularly pursued Catholics or Protestant Nonconformists as part of their magisterial duties.” Their refusal was
largely based on the awareness that such prosecutions although centrally desired were locally unpopular: Cf.
James Rosenheim: Landownership, the Aristocracy and the Country Gentry, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The
Reigns of Charles II and James VII & II, London 1997, pp. 152-170, pp. 158-160
1107
Piers, A Chorographical Description, pp. 106-108.
1106
236
educational offer available. Even the low-standard Catholic elementary schools were better
than no school at all and the confessional fluidity was high enough to approve of Catholic
schools. It seems likely that confessional tolerance or indifference was the reason for
interconfessional education in Westmeath. As has been outlined elsewhere the private
initiatives for education were scarce in Westmeath as in every other county, although nearly
all of the Westmeath-landowners were Protestants according to Piers. To establish a
Protestant school at their own expense was well within the gentry’s reach but for years they
preferred to send their children to Catholic schools instead. Consequently, the confessional
aspect was not of great importance to them.
While Protestant landlords showed little commitment to introduce Protestant teaching at their
own expense, the crown’s inoffensiveness diminished the political risk for the patrons of
Catholic schools. Nugent’s father, the Earl of Westmeath, experienced the limited reach of the
Dublin authorities in 1674. In one instance, Richard Nugent took a Catholic priest into his
house who had preached too openly to some people in the surrounding villages. It was not the
first time that such an incident happened, however. Not long before this event the vicar
general of Meath, Oliver Dease, had found refuge in the Earl’s house and Lord Lieutenant
Essex had ordered his arrest through the Justice of the Peace and the local constable. But
Nugent refused to let Dease go and the officials did not dare to take him by force. Essex had
to send common soldiers to arrest the man and afterwards complained heavily “why these
noblemen cannot content themselves with any other chapleins than such as are banished
persons.”1108 Nugent was not harmed nor legally accused. Furthermore, Westmeath was in
immediate reach of the Lord Lieutenant. Any Lord at greater distance to Dublin would hardly
have been troubled by such an incident. Protection of illegal Catholic clergy occurred publicly
with only little legal consequences for those who offered their support to the clergymen. The
crown’s authority was too limited to take measures against men such as Nugent and the
overall interest was too small to prosecute the otherwise loyal Irish Lords, especially if they
officially conformed to the Church of Ireland. If the crown wanted to expand its influence into
the rural areas it needed the cooperation of the local gentry and thus was forced to turn a blind
eye to their toleration of Catholic clergy. In consequence the disciplining role of the Irish
gentry was most similar to what was described for other European territories in the works of
Becher1109, Winkelbauer1110, or Schattkowsky1111.
1108
Burke, Penal Times, pp. 46-7.
Becher, Landstände.
1110
Winkelbauer, Grundherren.
1109
237
The confessional tolerance for Catholic schools in rural areas was not always considerably
high in the Pale area and depended much on the presence of Protestant teachers as well as the
proximity to Dublin. When the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot, tried to open a
school with Jesuit assistance at Saggart, which was a few kilometers southwest of the capital,
it was shut down after just three months. The Jesuit teacher Stephen Gellosse collected
complaints of several envious Protestant teachers who were dissatisfied about the existence of
the school.1112 More important than their jealousy, however, was the fact that those teachers
were there thus a silent agreement of interconfessional toleration could not be made as easily
as those in rural parts where no Protestant teaching rivaled the Catholic schoolmasters. Of
course, a Protestant schoolmaster was more likely to complain about a Catholic school, but
above all, he offered an alternative to the local Protestant parents. If a Catholic school wanted
to survive in such a competitive environment, it needed to offer a very high educational
standard in order to acquire financial Protestant support. But the presence of Protestant
schoolmasters was not the norm. Other Catholic schools in the periphery of the city did exist
without being disturbed by envious complaints or others for longer periods of time. Neil
Carolan taught as a parish priest at Slane since 1669 similar to Plunkett’s school at Drogheda
since 1670.1113 The example of the schools at Saggart distinguishes the importance of the
lacking Protestant teaching alternatives in the countryside. In the cities teachers of both
confessions were not as rare as will be seen shortly since sufficient wealth and students
existed to maintain such institutions. In the rural areas this was not regularly the case and if
Protestant teaching of at least a modest level was established, the dominance of Catholic
teaching was unlikely to last.
While the old religious orders were partly allowed to return to their houses and the secular
clergy enjoyed patronage through family bonds in many areas of northern Leinster, the Jesuits
had to pursue a different approach to establish their schools in the rural areas. Lacking the
financial and political support of the landed old English families in the northern Pale, the
Jesuits were not able to build schools but sent out their members into the surroundings of the
cities where they kept residences to preach and catechize. Four of them were active in Dublin
County in 1664.1114 But given its irregularity, this way of teaching could not meet the Jesuit
standards. Jesuit teaching remained city-based in Ireland despite all efforts to reach the
countryside as well. It was fully effective only where it enjoyed the necessary background and
1111
Schattkowsky, Adel und Reformation.
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, p. 202.
1113
Carolan, Motives of conversion, p. I.
1114
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 258v.
1112
238
since there were few members of the order in Ireland, they clearly placed their emphasis on
the cities where they had traditionally the highest backing leaving the countryside to others.
This realistic approach implied as well that they showed themselves constantly unsatisfied
with the state of learning in the rural areas which is comprehensible if compared to the high
standard of Jesuit teaching in the cities.
In the immediate rural surroundings of Dublin County the members of the Jesuit order
observed a tremendous lack of education, according to their 1664 report from the border
region between the counties of Louth and Dublin. One long-term member from the area found
the local population ignorant in regard of the most fundamental Christian doctrines, both in
the Protestant and Catholic faith. According to the father working in the Louth area, the
people he catechised had neither heard of the mystery of the incarnation of Christ nor of the
immortality of the soul and most did not know anything about the holy Trinity.1115 Maybe the
Jesuits exaggerated this case to make the fathers’ task seem more important, but regardless it
can be assumed that the peasants described by the local clergyman had not seen any instructor
in religious matters for a long while.1116 Since Oliver Plunkett arrived in Ireland not until 1670
and Patrick Plunkett was still Bishop of Ardagh at that time, the personal network between
Catholic bishops and Protestant landowners described above was not yet installed. At such a
short distance from Dublin the support of former convents by Prostestant landowners was also
more likely to cause problems. Different to what happened at Saggart it would seem that the
communities in the counties of Louth and Dublin had no resident Protestant teacher either. In
consequence, the area around Louth and many parts of the County of Dublin remained
without any form of regular teaching, but this was exceptional in comparison with most of the
Leinster countryside. This example shows that Catholic teaching was difficult to implement
in areas close to Dublin where the crown authority was instantaneous but that at the same
time Protestant teaching was not as widespread as to reach all the immediate peripheries of
the city.
The southern parts of Leinster had a different socio-cultural and economical background than
the North and thus boasted different forms of interconfessional cooperation between local
Catholics and Protestants. The population formed a closed community defined by individual
1115
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 262v.
Generally the reports on total unawareness of any forms of Christian worship need reassessment according
to recent analyses. James Fox, Margaret Spufford and other have underlined the importance and widespread
distribution of extremely cheap reading material such as the “small godly books” and printed catechisms during
the Restoration period and before. Although Fox’ analysis focusses on England it clearly contradicts the concept
of a completely isolated community without any access to basic ecclesiastical teaching even though no official
teacher was around. Cf. Fox, Popular Literate Culture, p. 270.
1116
239
aspects beyond the internal confessional differences. The spatial as well as mental distance
that existed between Dublin with its more Anglicised population of the central Pale and the
southern parts situated in Wexford and King’s County was documented by Colonel Solomon
Richards in 1682. In his Chronicles of the County Wexford, the Protestant described the
strong entanglement between the traditional inhabitants of the Southeast and the new English
settlers. These inter-connections of the local population led to a unique mix of dialects
between both the Irish and English language, which was hardly understandable to any speaker
of the original languages.1117 Colonel Richard’s observation, although likely exaggerated, is
particularly striking as it documents not only the semantic interrelation between Irish and
English in Wexford, but moreover points to a newly emerging interconfessional local
community that generated individual requirements in teaching, disciplination, and control. It
became more difficult for the authorities ‘from above’ to take influence on the Wexford
community that Colonel Richards described as communication with the subjects was best
possible in their own dialect. A teacher who did not teach in the common dialect as well as
any preacher coming from outside of Wexford was hardly accepted by the locals. Thus, the
dialect defined a closed community that overlapped the confessional difference. At the very
least, it indicated an efficient social life apart from church or state interests. Neighbors who
shared a common dialect that distinguished them from the rest of the Irish population and
marked the area where it was spoken as a common cultural ground were more likely to
tolerate differences on other fields such as confession. These observations are backed for
example by Luke Wadding’s descriptions. The later Catholic Bishop of Ferns pointed out that
his fellow Catholics lived in peaceful co-existence with the Protestants in the rural areas of
Wexford County, whereas in Wexford town a completely different situation structured the
lives of members of the two confessions.1118
The Franciscan abbey at Enniscorthy, which was located in the same county, saw a similar
situation of local cooperation. The monastery was not harmed until 1586, half a century after
all Irish monasteries had been officially dissolved. The property of the land passed to the
Protestant Sir Henry Wallop who let the friars continue to reside in their house. After 1586
the order resumed their residence near the old convent in the countryside around Enniscorthy.
In 1661, they elected Philip Kelly as new guardian who started a succession that set the
ground for a tradition that lasted until the nineteenth century. While most of their former
1117
Griffith, Chronicles of the County Wexford, vol. 1, pp. 49-50.
Corish, Notebook. Gahan, Secular Priests of the diocese of Ferns, pp. 45/260/295. Hore, Town and County
of Wexford, vol. 2, p. 204. Furlong, Wexford port, pp. 160-1.
1118
240
abbey fell to ruins between 1650 and 1670, part of it was restored by the local administration
and used as a Protestant school.1119 Consequently, the area had a Protestant school in the old
facilities, while the Catholic friars were still around teaching as well thus creating a double
structure unlike to what was described in northern Leinster. Protestants attended Protestant
schools and Catholics attended Catholic schools respectively without much interference from
one another. The co-existence of schools required a fair amount of confessional tolerance that
was not common in the areas closer to Dublin. The Wexford community with its distinct
dialect and friendly interconfessional relations propelled a different kind of interconfessional
local co-existence. Catholic education in the Wexford region did not attract many Protestants,
at least nothing similar to what was described for northern Leinster. Yet both confessional
communities existed side by side, leaving each other in peace. The distance to Dublin limited
the interference of the crown authorities with the confessional practice in Wexford but unlike
Meath and Louth, Protestant teaching existed and was attended by the members of the Church
of Ireland. The absence of the central power made the total expulsion of the local Catholics
impossible and the closed community characterised by its own dialect was not afraid of
Catholic revenge in the case of a new insurrection. With the alternative of Protestant teaching
present, however, the necessity of interconfessional schooling was not given.
A third cultural and economical landscape in Leinster besides the northern and southeastern
parts was in the West of the diocese of Ferns and the diocese of Ossory that was comprised of
the southwestern counties of the province. Similar to Wexford this area had schools of both
confessions that were mainly located in the urban centres. But different to Wexford and
northern Leinster as well, the merchant towns of the Southeast often produced sufficient
wealth even among the Catholics to sustain their schools independently on a high quality
level thus creating a situation of confessional educational rivalry between Protestant and
Catholic teaching that was unique in Ireland. There was also a stronger Jesuit presence
between New Ross and Kilkenny due to the variety of wealthier market places in the urban
region that stretched out into Tipperary and Waterford in the province of Munster. Although
Jesuit residences were found only in the cities and not in the countryside, the density of larger
towns made it easier for the Jesuits to access the city’s surroundings and teaching more
regularly in the periphery than was possible in northern Leinster. Around the trading town of
New Ross on the border of Kilkenny County local Jesuits enjoyed widespread support from a
majority of the population Catholic and Protestant alike because of their outstanding abilities.
1119
Flood, Diocese of Ferns, p. 13.
241
They lived within the city but also worked the rural areas up to four miles outside the city
walls. The assemblies in the countryside were not hidden and regularly attended by two
hundred people and more, according the Jesuit reports.1120 This open connivance with only
little interference by the authorities was owed to the wide range of acceptance and the popular
Protestant demand for their teaching. Since the distances from one Jesuit residence to another
were shorter in counties Kilkenny and southern Tipperary much of the rural parts in between
the towns were covered by the Society’s fathers. Compared to a city such as Wexford that lay
far from any other larger city and where most of the Catholics had left for the rural parts of
the county, Protestant tolerance for the Catholics in the diocese of Ossory was comparatively
high and thus allowed for Catholic assemblies to be led by Jesuits in the city’s immediate
periphery.1121
Bishop Brenan of Waterford and Lismore who had accompanied the Bishop of Ossory,
O’Phelan, on a visitation in 1672 reported that the clergy was numerous and exemplary while
it enjoyed greater confessional liberty than most parts of the country.1122 Similar to Dublin
County, the Jesuits of the city’s residence took care of the mostly urban area around
Kilkenny. One member constantly toured the county catechizing peasants. Unlike in Dublin,
however, the Jesuits established three firm stations in surrounding forests that could be used
for ceremonies. One site was dedicated to the immaculate Virgin Mary, another to St. Patrick
and the third to St. Ignacio de Loyola. Mass with communion were held in each one every
month and according to the Litterae Annuae, four to five hundred people attended these
ceremonies.1123 These numbers certainly do underline a great quality of confessional tolerance
that was exerted in the diocese of Ossory. State interference was not to be feared that far from
Dublin and the local authorities did little or nothing to prevent such assemblies as long as they
did not interfere with their own confessional activities. The diocese was one of the wealthiest
and most densely populated in Ireland. Cities with resident Protestant teachers were never far
but contrary to the surroundings of Dublin the educational competition did not lead to more
persecution of Catholic schools by the local authorities. The Catholic clergy was left in peace
similar to the diocese of Ferns, except the urban wealth of the area could provide more and
1120
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 272v.276.
1121
According to Wadding the number of Catholics in Wexford town had decreased to forty attendants at Mass
at that time: Flood, Diocese of Ferns, pp. xvi-xvii. Although it is hard to verify the actual numbers of the sources
they still give an impression of the remarkable difference between the Catholic communities in different parts of
the country.
1122
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 351.
1123
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259v./260.
242
better qualified teachers. The financial support by the landed Protestant gentry and wealthy
Catholic merchants secured a funding not even Patrick and Oliver Plunkett could dispose of
despite their family network. In consequence the patronage of Catholic teaching by a few
powerful local magnates was less important than in northern Leinster since the clergy could
rely on a broader basis of economically well-situated Catholics. Concurrently, political
persecution was usually not to be feared.1124 Different to Wexford the average Catholic school
in the countryside was of higher quality because of the better funding and the higher number
of Jesuits who were able to establish fixed places outside the cities for regular teaching and
catechising what they were not able to do in the other parts of Ireland. At the same time
Kilkenny and Tipperary were less characterised by confessional indifference or fluidity as the
other regions but enjoyed a high degree of confessional educational competition and rivalry
though mostly within the cities and less in the periphery where only a small number of
Protestants lived.
In summary, rural Leinster was generally divided into four different zones. In the immediate
surroundings of Dublin the crown authority prohibited most of the Catholic teaching and
partially offered Protestant teaching as a substitute. Farther outside the city neither Protestant
teaching nor government control was the norm, thus a low level of confessionalizing and
almost no disciplining control was exerted over the rural communities. The landed gentry and
the local Catholic bishops were often related, a fact that guaranteed the trustful basis for an
agreement of mutual benefit. Protestant landowners tolerated priests and convents on their
property in return for the political support of their tenants and the education the Catholics
provided to both the Protestant and Catholic children. The Southeast of Leinster was mostly
dominated by an intertwined rural community of both confessions that allowed the practice of
both Catholic and Protestant teaching in the countryside as long as it happened outside the
harbour town of Wexford. The confessional communities co-existed next to one another but
did not attend each others classes. In the Southwest of Leinster Catholic teaching flourished in
the periphery of the merchant towns. In those areas both forms of education were available in
the nearby cities while Catholic service and teaching was openly practiced in the countryside
and supported by the more efficient educational structures of the Jesuits that predominated in
cities such as New Ross and Kilkenny. This state of open connivance and competition was
possible because the towns generated sufficient income even among the Catholics so that they
could afford to support the orders and no silent agreement such as in Meath and Louth was
1124
For the political patronage of Catholic clergy in the area around Kilkenny compare chapter X.III.
243
necessary. In summary the North of Leinster was characterised by a mixture of confessional
fluidity as well as indifference that originated in the traditions of the larger families which
usually included branches of both confessions. More to the South confessional borderlines
were defined clearly and the fluidity diminished for the benefit of greater confessional rivalry
and more solidly defined confessional camps.
Munster – Competition and Exclusion
In difference to Leinster, the available source material for the southern province of Munster is
extremely unbalanced. While there is a lot of material concerning the urban region of
Tipperary and Waterford as well as the metropolitan areas of Cork and Limerick city, vast
parts of the province in the counties of Cork and Kerry have not left any traces of Catholic
teaching at all. This makes any general assumptions in parts speculative although it is likely
that the different quantity of source material reflects the availability of Catholic education. As
has been discussed already in the previous chapter, the densely populated and comparatively
rich Counties Tipperary and Kilkenny formed the heartlands of Jesuit activity in Ireland. With
a greater group of wealthy Catholics, tradesmen Catholic education did not have to rely solely
on the financial support of Protestant landowners. The level of persecution was low,
especially in the centres of power of the Butler family in Lower and Upper Ormond.1125 While
the urban teaching facilities profited most of the given confessional tolerance it allowed at the
same time for a more widespread engagement of the Jesuit order in the city peripheries and
thus helped to improve rural education as well. This scenario of open confessional
competition contrasted the circumstances in the south of the province, especially in county
Cork. There the Protestant Boyle family pursued a policy of non-toleration towards Catholic
schools while at the same time officially no Catholic tenants were allowed on Boyle property.
In consequence the number of Catholics requiring education was low and made the
maintenance of hard-pressed underground schools less attractive.
The most detailed accounts of clergy and education in Munster come from the Archbishop of
Cashel and Bishop of Waterfod and Lismore, John Brenan. Similar to the Plunketts in
northern Leinster he enjoyed the support of local landowners, many of them Protestants,
although he did not possess such noble family connections as his northern counterparts. He
was aware of the fact that in other parts of the province, local magnates were not as generous
while he was even permitted to have chapels built on Protestant land.1126 By this he probably
1125
1126
For detailed analysis of the Butler confessional politics see chapter X.III.
Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 67.
244
referred to the Earls of Cork and Orrery whose main influence area was southern Munster.
The Boyle family was not only fiercely Protestant but also was eager to protect their wealth
against any possible insurrections, and Orrery showed on many occasions that he was willing
to apply all the anti-Catholic legislation that existed. As the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of
Cork he had politically survived the Commonwealth and acted as Lord President of Munster
until the abolition of this office in 1672 when he came into conflict with the king and his
indulgence-policy.1127 Alongside these major differences the cohabitation of Protestants and
Catholics was in many places shifting more from one extreme to the other and suffered larger
interferences than in other parts of Ireland. In comparison to Leinster, the number of Catholic
or Catholic-sympathetic landlords was low in the Cork and Kerry areas and no intense family
network could be employed to improve the situation of the Catholic clergy. Furthermore, with
the influential Boyles around and a comparatively high number of Protestant settlers the
danger of a Catholic rising and the consequent loss of property was not as threatening. As a
result the need for cooperation such as was the basis of Catholic education in large parts of
Leinster was small.
In Tipperary, Waterford and Northeast Cork the situation was different. Similar to the diocese
of Ossory the Catholic clergy there could rely on the financial support of fellow Catholics
without being too dependent of favourable Protestants. Since Protestant education was
available in the larger towns, the Catholic clergy was eager to maintain the status quo in order
not to disturb the silent toleration they enjoyed. Bishop Brenan always emphasised the
discretion his clergy acted with in his letters as it seemed to him to be the key element to
connivance and respect by the Protestants.1128 The preponderant toleration he enjoyed in
Cashel, Waterford and Lismore propelled a higher request for teaching. Almost no letter was
written without a hint that so many young people were willing to attend school but that
money and adequate teachers were lacking. The financial problem was crucial to Brenan as
the wealthier merchants in the towns spent their money on local parish priests and mostly
Jesuit institutions, leaving only small room for schools in the countryside. His plan was the
construction of at least one episcopal school in each diocese, especially to rival the local
Protestant schools.1129 In contrast to northern Leinster the urban areas of the Southeast did not
lack Protestant teaching facilities. While in towns as Kilkenny, New Ross, or Cashel there
were schools of both confessions, even in the rural areas Catholic teaching was apparently not
1127
David Dickson: Old World Colony. Cork and South Munster 1630-1830, Cork 2005, pp. 47-8.
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, pp. 257-8.
1129
Ibid., pp. 258-9.
1128
245
the only choice for Protestant parents. Since schooling was not exclusive to Catholics the
willingness to financial support by Protestants was naturally less. And without a widespread,
influential family Brenan missed the background to guarantee a certain level of assistance.
Despite this, after a visitation to the diocese of Lismore in 1672, Brenan wrote euphorically
that he was invited by many Protestant gentlemen into their houses who would protect the
Catholic clergy from any persecution and allowed them to build mass-houses on their land.1130
This courtesy was mainly owed to the support of Richard Butler, Catholic brother to the Duke
of Ormond, who resided in the diocese and whose house Brenan praised as “a sanctuary and
refuge for ecclesiastics”.1131
But the clergy that enjoyed this generous protection was not considered to be complaisant
enough by the newly arrived bishop. In Lismore he found 24 priests who were willing to
teach whom he described as too old for their tasks and thus did not meet his standards. As
Brenan was educated in Rome in the centre of Tridentine Catholicism his disappointment is
not surprising although his expectations might have been way too high. Catholic service could
indeed be of the lowest quality and this became clear in his description of a blind priest who
did not abstain from saying mass until Brenan formally prohibited it. Nonetheless, he
continued to teach in his parish, apparently because the need for teachers was so great and the
bishop simply could not do it without him.1132 In conclusion, the wealth and toleration in the
urban centres of the Southeast were advantageous and problematic at the same time. While in
the cities a vivid rivalry between well-financed schools of both confessions with the most
qualified teachers developed, the rural areas of Tipperary and Waterford had little part in it.
The lacking quality of the remaining teaching personnel supports Anton Schindling’s
approach to confessionalisation.1133 Where two confessions were immediately confronted and
the political circumstances were tolerant enough, the highest confessionalising activities could
be realised. Such was the case in the cities of the Southeast as will be analysed in the
following chapter. In the countryside, on the other hand, where little rivalry by Protestant
teachers was to be feared and most of the population was naturally inclined to Catholicism,
the efforts decreased notably.
The situation was even worse in rural areas where less tolerance was exerted by the local
magnates. Writing of the diocese of Waterford, Bishop Brennan was rather pessimistic. Only
six Catholics had retained their property there and allowed the construction of chapels, while
1130
Ibid., pp. 260-1.
Ibid., A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 23-4.
1132
Ibid., pp. 21-2.
1133
Schindling, Schulen und Universitäten, p. 562.
1131
246
the local Protestants were more reserved.1134 One explanation for the greater aloofness of
Protestant landowners in Waterford may again be the Boyles. Large parts of western
Waterford belonged to the powerful family and especially the Earl of Orrery praised himself
of not having one Catholic on his lands or among his tenants.1135 In conclusion, the daily life
between the confessions was peaceful in many areas that Brenan visited. However
interconfessional activities were rare because no necessity such as the shortage of Protestant
teachers described in northern Leinster was given. Of the 165 teachers that instructed students
of Trinity College Dublin between 1660 and 1685, 17 alone taught in the Counties of Cork
and Waterford. This high number of teachers indicates a good network of Protestant schools
which made the survival of Catholic institutions less probable.1136
In Tipperary and Waterford Protestants and Catholics kept a polite distance apart from their
confessional differences. In the diocese of Lismore Bishop Brenan met with a Capuchin priest
who had converted to Protestantism during Cromwell’s reign. In the following years the man
had even married and become a father with his own property and appointment to some public
office. But different to what might have been expected, Brenan and the convert got along well
with one another. The bishop described him as “kind and courteous” whenever he met a
member of his former confession.1137 Of course, not all converts adhered to this nonaggression pact. In Cashel the former Jesuit Andrew FitzJohn Sall converted to the Church of
Ireland and in the following years preached aggressively against the Catholic Church but in
general the verified number of Catholic convert priests was low and at least in Munster they
seem to have respected the proceedings of their former confession.1138
Brenan was also aware of the differences to the Archdiocese of Armagh where more Catholic
schools could be established and the Protestants were more eager to attend them. In his own
dioceses he found only a few schools outside the towns that were each teaching half a dozen
young men but still the majority of young Catholics were forced to attend Protestant schools –
1134
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, pp. 354-5.
Dickson, Old World Colony, p. 48.
1136
For the list of teachers cf. Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublineses. The schoolmasters referred to were in decreasing
order of number of their former students: Mr. Tyndall, Cork/Mr. Wilson and Mr. Burgess, Charleville/Mr.
Scroggs, Cork/Mr. Prythergh, Charleville/Mr. Boyle, Kinsale/Mr. Hull, Cork/Mr. Verling, Co. Waterford/Mr.
Coulter, Waterford/Mr. James, Co.Kerry and/or Cork /Mr. Patrickson, Co. Cork/Mr. Prudworth, Co. Cork/Mr.
Simmons, Cork/Mr. Norcott, Cork/Mr. Noble, Cork/Mr. Hickson, Co. Cork/Mr. Jonathan Brownsworthy,
Waterford.
1137
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 27-34.
1138
Both cousins were outstanding examples of well-educated Irish Jesuits. The younger Sall had studied in
Spain and was consecrated in Valladolid before he returned to Ireland. Compare: Andrew Breeze: Two Irish
Jesuits: Andrew Sall (1612-86) and Andrew Sall (1624-82), in: Éigse, No. 29 (1996), pp. 175–178, pp. 175177.
1135
247
something Brenan considered a great risk for their faith. The pastors in the parishes were
doing as much teaching in reading and writing as they could but he described them as “weak
in the humanities and other sciences”.1139 This expression underlines again the exaggerated
expectations the bishop had when he came to the island since reading and writing would have
been quite a high level of education for a peasant in early modern Europe. Brenan’s
intentions, however, were not limited to education as means for the transmission of
knowledge but Catholic schools were a fundamental asset to him in a confessional contest.
Unlike Plunkett in the North, he had to rival a sufficient number of Protestant schools and
wanted to confront them not for reasons of family tradition or local commitment but for
ecclesiastical zeal. He noticed only little advance on his second visitation in 1675. By then
each parish in Waterford and Lismore had a priest and a mass-house or chapel and at least the
catechism was taught by every cleric.1140 This was still below his expectations from three
years earlier, but the fact that even in the diocese of Waterford every parish had a chapel
indicates that the cohabitation with the local Protestants improved, and things were still
getting better two years later.1141 In fact, the peaceful co-existence of confessions was not too
much disturbed even during the time of the Popish Plot. In every report up to 1683 the bishop
highlighted the tolerance in his area as well as the rationality of the government that did not
follow the anti-Catholic hysteria in England, which Brenan had heard of.1142
Notwithstanding the anti-Catholic politics of the Earls of Cork and Orrery, the southern
counties of Cork and Kerry were areas where Catholic priests and teachers were active. The
Jesuit Maurice Connolly spent all of the Restoration period in the countryside of Kerry being
one of the few members of the Society without a fixed residence.1143 Little is known about his
daily work, in the sources he is only referred to as being a friend of the common people as
well as the gentry and the Lords with whom he often resided.1144 He preached in the open field
and taught the catechism being appalled by the little knowledge that the peasants had.1145
Following the Jesuit report, which certainly had its own political agenda, Connolly was
famous for his curative faculties as well. Protestants came from all over Munster to be healed
by him soon afterwards converting to the Catholic faith. Connolly was said to have won over
1139
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 27-34.
Ibid., Archbishop John Brennen, p. 465.
1141
Ibid., A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 57.
1142
Ibid., p. 62-74.
1143
McDonnell, early Irish Jesuits, p. 329.
1144
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v.-261.
1145
Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279v.-280.
1140
248
50 people this way.1146 When finally arrested, he was allegedly saved by his connections to
many influential Protestant landowners who pleaded for his life.1147 But in general only few
sources of Catholic activities in the Kerry region have survived. Others might have been
working in the area since Kerry County was the native place of one of the most prominent
members of the Jesuit order in the Restoration period. Stephen Rice was born in Dingle and
attended a school there before the rebellion began, but apparently never returned to his home
County afterwards.1148 In the city of Cork the Jesuits Ignatius Brown and Robert Meade were
stationed at the least until 1674.1149 Since they had their base in the city they divided the
periphery of southern Cork between them and visited the hamlets and villages by turns. Again
the Litterae Annuae speak of 200 to 400 people who regularly attended their services every
time they had the possibility and a third man was teaching between Cork and Limerick but no
detailed trace of him has survived.1150 In conclusion all these episodes only illuminate some
individual characters and schools but leave little to say about the general state of Catholic
teaching in the rural parts of the counties of Cork and Kerry. Only few Catholics in the area
still held land and were consequently able to financially support teachers and clerics. In
addition the presence of sufficient Protestant teachers made the low-standard Catholic
teachers that dominated the rural areas of Tipperary as described by Brenan, superfluous in
the eyes of the Protestant landlords.
In the County of Limerick the social and economical structure was different again since the
land was mostly under the influence of the O’Brien family.1151 Several members of the
O’Briens had remained Catholics or re-converted to Catholicism such as Murrough O’Brien,
Earl of Inchiquin. In consequence the toleration and support for Catholic institutions was
more pronounced. But in difference to Tipperary, the county of Limerick had a mostly rural
character. Urban teaching was only found in the city of Limerick while several other small
schools of distinguished quality were to be found in the countryside what suggests similar
interconfessional agreements such as in northern Leinster.1152 Protestant teaching was nearly
absent apart from the city of Limerick. Political divisions underlined the differences in
1146
Ibid., fo. 280.
Ibid., fo. 280.
1148
McRedmond, Greater Glory, p. 90.
1149
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279v.
1150
Ibid., fo. 279v. Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v.-261.
1151
For more detailed analysis of the O’Briens see chapter X.II.
1152
Brenan mentioned one Maurince Donnellan who kept a school famous for philosophy in county Limerick
for twelve years. Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 59. Vicar Apostolic James Dowley referred in his
relation to a quantity of monastical schools in the diocese of Limerick but did not mention where exactly they
were located. Dowley to Propaganda, 1.1.1671, in: Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 506.
1147
249
confessional tolerance or indifference as well. Especially the Earl of Inchiquin, himself a
multiple convert, was a political adversary of the Earl of Orrery and thus potential protector of
Catholic interests in the region. Hence, Catholic schools were widely tolerated by the landed
gentry of Limerick and classes were attended by members of both confessions, given the
absence of Protestant teaching alternatives.
In summary, Munster was fundamentally divided between the wealthy, urban centers of the
East and the little populated, rural areas of the Southwest, as well as the line of political
division between Boyle Cork and O’Brien Limerick. Nevertheless educational facilities
existed above average in the eastern part of the province while the Catholic institutions were
less represented in Kerry and West Cork. Much of the former monastery lands in these areas
had fallen into hands of the Boyle family that pursued a more radical settler policy and did not
allow Catholics to settle on their former lands as tenants. Therefore less demand for Catholic
education existed. Contrary to most parts of Ireland the county of Cork did not have a lack of
Protestant teaching therefore the willingness of Protestant settlers to support Catholic schools
in order to obtain any form of education for their children was small.
Connaught – Confession unquestioned
Beyond the river Shannon Protestant and government influence was practically nonexistent.
Since Cromwell’s transplantation agenda, the western province of Connaught was the major
center of Catholic property and old Irish influence. Apart from Galway no urban centers
existed and the crown’s access to the population in the countryside was limited. But if
government control was scarce, so was the influence of the reforming elements of the
Catholic Church as well. Connaught was poor and most of the rural landowners that did
dispose of some wealth were more inclined to the traditional monastic elements instead of the
episcopal authority or the Jesuit order. In consequence, the educational landscape was based
on completely different premises as in Leinster and Munster. Financial support was only to be
had from a few Protestant settlers and even fewer wealthy Catholic landlords. In County Clare
the family of the O’Briens supported Catholic teaching as well the Burkes of Clanricarde in
Galway and Mayo, but the money they could afford was limited and these old families were
more inclined to traditional support of certain monasteries.1153 Episcopal initiatives such as in
northern Leinster or eastern Munster were restrained in Connaught since the political standing
of the archbishop was by far not as secured as in the church provinces of Armagh and Cashel.
The Archbishop of Tuam, James Lynch, could only survive because of his family connections
1153
For the confessional patronage policy of the Burkes and O’Briens compare chapter X.I and II.
250
in County Roscommon. Lynch was willing to follow the example of Oliver Plunkett and
improve the Catholic education in his archdiocese but he did not have the means nor the
friends or other supporters. While Plunkett and Brenan could rely on the support of Protestant
settlers and the wealth produced by Catholics in the nearby cities, Lynch had only few
Protestant settlers around. The Catholic merchants of Galway might have had the means to
support him but since the Archbishop of Tuam and the Wardenship of Galway were
traditional adversaries he received only little from them.1154
As a result, Catholic education in rural Connaught was not as well-distributed as in the East
and South provinces of Ireland. Protestant education was lacking outside the larger towns but
the number of Protestant settlers that were willing to support a Catholic teacher in order to
secure any form of learning for their children was not as high either thus their financial
support was trivial.1155 Different to the peaceful interconfessional co-existence in the other
provinces, the minority of Protestants in Connaught was apparently more afraid of a Catholic
rising than their Leinster and Munster counterparts. These deeply rooted worries came to light
during the Popish Plot in 1681 when Lord Shannon wrote to the Lord Lieutenant that
“swearing treason against men is now grown so common that many say they dare hardly ask
for their debts or distrain for their rents for fear of being sworn into the plot”.1156 As
unfounded as these suspicions may have been, they were an expression of the different social
and confessional composition of Connaught that allowed only a small number of Catholic
institutions to subsist for a longer period of time. Following the pattern applied in the
previous provinces, it has to be stated that most of those who wanted to promote Catholic
teaching in Connaught could neither rely on wealthy family networks nor on the support by
local Protestant magnates. In northern Leinster Protestants supported Catholic teachers in
order to gain the support of the Catholic population in the area in case of another rising. This
prospect was not convincing enough for the few settlers that actually resided in the
Connaught periphery.
Notwithstanding, Catholic schools existed in Connaught although on a different basis and of a
different structure then in Leinster or Munster. Generally there were only a few institutions
but they were of a comparatively large size such as at Athenry or Burrishoole. They exceeded
1154
Lynch’s desire for Catholic teaching was expressed in: Lynch, De Praesulibus Hiberniae, vol. 2, p. 262. His
differences with the Catholic population of Galway are mentioned in a quantity of sources. Compare for example
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 166-7.
1155
Along the complete Irish Westcoast there were only four Protestant teachers who brought more than five
students to Trinity College Dublin. Mr. Simpson in County Donegal, Mr. Wooding and Mr. Ryland in Limerick
and Mr. Shaw in Galway: Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublineses.
1156
CSP, Dom. Series, September 1st, 1680, to December 31st, 1681, p. 227.
251
the small parish schools that were described by Archbishop Brenan in Munster by far. This
can be explained by the relative powerlessness of the government in the western parts of
Ireland. The financial support and the patronage of local Protestants was missing in
Connaught but that brought a maximum of confessional independence with it. No crown
interference had to be feared even if the schools were as plainly visible as the Dominican
school at Athenry. Without cooperation of the local population only little could be done
against the clergy and their schools. The affected Protestant dean of Kilmacduagh, Dudley
Pearce, observed in a letter to the Archbishop of Dublin in December 1684 that even after the
last proclamation had been issued that commanded the Catholic clergy to leave the country,
nearly nobody had complied with the order. Many priests retreated to friends and family
members for a while; but particularly bishops still held visitations and synods and ordained
priests. Those monasteries that had been dissolved were in a good state of repair again and the
friars did in no way hide from public but “walked in their habits and solemnly, at all usual
hours, chant their offices. They grow into numbers and are daily debauching souls”.1157
Connaught was thus dominated by a micro-structure of monasteries and convents apart from
the few large institutions outlined above. They did not have to fear legal persecution and lived
in small communities that could even be supported by the poorer peasants and small
landowners. These houses kept on with their tradition of teaching of pre-Reformation times
although many of the Tridentine-educated bishops and other clerics complained about the
poor standards they offered. Larger houses as well as the dignities of higher offices could only
be afforded with the financial support of the few wealthy families. This precondition was
taken into account very seriously. When Mark Brown applied for the episcopal see of
Kilmacduagh to the Pope he laid special emphasis on the fact that many of his relatives were
living in the diocese and were willing to support him to fulfill his duties.1158 Similarly
dependent was the Bishop Keogh of Elphin. In 1678 he took refuge in the land house of his
family in the hills of Taghmaconnell. Near the house he kept a little school which was only
supportable because of the direct assistance of his relatives.1159 This outlines the difficulties
that the reform orientated members of the episcopal hierarchy had to face in Connaught.
Family networks were small and not as prominent as in Leinster and the poverty of the
peasants made it absolutely necessary for bishops to be able to provide for themselves in
addition to whatever schools or institutions they wanted to create. Schools could not be
1157
HMC, Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond preserved at Kilkenny Castle, pp. 311-2.
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, p. 39.
1159
Egan, Ballinasloe, pp. 99-100. Unfortunately Egan does not quote any source material.
1158
252
opened where they were most needed by the population but only attached to the family
property of the bishop therefore teachers and students could live directly off the land.
Furthermore they had to compete with the old religious orders that were still favored by
many, especially among the old Irish of whom the majority of the Connaught population
consisted. As a result, it is easier to understand why the bishops represented by their Primate
were so furious about the number of small convents. They may have offered education on a
limited scale but as Bishop Brenan pointed out their standards did not meet the expectations
of the Tridentine reforms. Nevertheless they withdrew the scarce money that could be
extracted from the rural population leaving the bishops and their teachers no other option than
to seek the support of Protestants. If they were not interested as they were in Munster or not
sufficiently available as they were in Connaught, episcopally organized education became
problematic.
But the poverty was not the only problem Catholic education had to face in the West.
Discouraged by the difficult circumstances and intensified by the partly very large parishes,
the bishops did not even dispose of sufficient clergy. Apart from those friars who lived in
their monastic communities, many of the parishes remained unattended despite the fact that
the level of persecution was so low. This problem was highlighted by the secular priest John
Sullivan who reported to Propaganda Fide on the diocese of Achonry in 1668. There were
only few Protestants in the area who held most of the land and not sufficient clerics were
available to teach the people. According to Sullivan, there were thirty parishes at a very large
size, which was necessary in this sparsely populated diocese because of the poverty of the
people. But at the same time, this meant that long ways and distant villages impeded the
regular attendance of classes. Consequently the majority of the people were unlettered and
poorly instructed in the faith although most would have liked to receive a broader
education.1160 Government influence and legal persecution were nowhere as irrelevant as in
the province of Connaught. Paradoxically the quantity and quality of Catholic teaching was
near as irrelevant as well, in many places there simply were no teaching facilities, neither
Protestant nor Catholic. In conclusion, the situation in Connaught supports the theory that
Catholic education of a high standard existed mostly in wealthy areas with a lack of Protestant
teaching and a basic understanding between the confessions. Since the wealthy areas of
Ireland were those that most attracted Protestant settlers, it was an agreement with them that
had to be made in order to establish a Catholic school. The poor rural areas of Connaught
1160
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 144-148.
253
neither supplied for schools nor for sufficient clerics and with the few Protestant resident
settlers, had no basic understanding been reached by the late 1670s. Only a few monastic
institutions enjoyed the accumulated support of the few powerful and wealthy families of
Connaught. Where this was the case, large institutions were founded and attracted a great
number of students although the interconfessional aspect that dominated the schools in
Leinster and parts of Munster was lost with them.1161
Ulster – A Surplus of Offers
The ethnical, confessional, and economical structure of the northern province of Ulster was
easy to compare and contrast with Connaught. While the Northwest and Northeast of the
province were among those areas with the lowest number of Catholic landowners in the
kingdom, the southern dioceses of Kilmore, Clogher, and Armagh still retained certain groups
of old Irish and old English gentry who remained Catholic or at least still supported local
Catholics. Many had returned to their former properties in the counties of Armagh, Tyrone,
and Cavan after the Restoration, though no longer as proprietors but as tenants and
leaseholders. Their numbers secured a basic but limited income for the clergy and allowed for
the reconstruction of some of the old monasteries.1162 Similar to Connaught, the popular
attachment to the old orders and the monastic institutions was very high among the old Irish
of the province. But while the Earl of Clanricarde patronized at least a few houses in
Connaught, no such support was to be found in Ulster. In consequence, the provided money
could support only a network of micro-monasteries as in most parts of Connaught. These
houses with small supply and insufficiently instructed clerics were likewise despised by the
local bishops. Most of all the Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver Plunkett, kept complaining about
the irregularity of these convents although little was done against them. Different to
Connaught was the higher number of Protestants in these counties so that Catholic education
was not only required by Catholics but again also by Protestants if it reached a certain
standard. For example, the Dominican convent at Gola near Enniskillen, was financially
supported by the local Protestant gentry because of the high standards it offered.1163
1161
The finances, structure and personnel of the monastic schools at Burrishoole and Athenry will be reviewed
in the following chapter.
1162
Corish, The Catholic Community, pp. 67-8. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 186-7. The high
quantity of small convents that had been re-erected after the Restoration was a constant annoyance to Oliver
Plunkett. In 1671 he counted already eight monasteries with novitiates alone in his province. Cf. Ibid., p. 238.
1163
The two teachers at the convent, Thomas MacMahon and Charles MacManus returned immediately after
1660 to Ireland from Italy where they had studied. Such well-educated teachers from the continent were
doubtless attractive to many local Protestants as well. Cf. Coleman, The Irish Dominicans, p. 15. Pochin-Mould,
The Irish Dominicans, pp. 139-40.
254
Similar success had John Garrigan’s school at Moybolge near Quilca. The Garrigans
themselves secured at least a part of their family property until the Battle of the Boyne and
supported local teaching in the parish. By doing so they joined the Protestant Sheridans of
Quilca who offered their protection and wealth to the school.1164 These examples highlight
that Catholic education could also be attractive to Protestants if only the teaching standard
was high enough. The records of Trinity College Dublin document that a Protestant school of
higher quality existed in nearby Enniskillen. One Mr. Dunbar taught there for nearly the
whole Restoration period since matriculates at the college named him as their former teacher
between 1664 and 1684.1165 These numbers indicate that the rural areas of Fermanagh had an
astonishingly high density of available education Protestant and Catholic which also suggests
an above average level of religious toleration. At least at Gola students of both confessions
were admitted and it is most likely that Mr. Dunbar taught Catholic children as well.
But the high standard at Gola was not the rule which underlines another Ulster peculiarity
especially in comparison with the problems described for Connaught. Bishop Tyrrell of
Clogher had no lack of clerics in his diocese but he complained of too many of them.
According to him he had more clerics than he could make use of. Thirty-eight priests were
engaged in parishes but another twenty-eight priests had no occupation at all and increased
the financial burden to the common people. Yet he found it difficult to find adequately
schooled clerics for the task of education which aggravated the lack of knowledge among the
laity. Most problematic was the Clogher tradition of nearly hereditary clerical posts. In most
villages certain families held the post of parish priest and passed it on from uncle to nephew.
This resulted in a very communal clergy that usually did not even leave their hometowns and
even less had ever been outside their County. It is not surprising that these clerics did not
meet the educational expectations of the continentally trained Bishop Tyrrell.1166
The low education of clerics was quite unsettling to Tyrrell since he was dealing with a
variety of Protestant groups in his diocese; he himself writes of Presbyterians, Puritans,
Independents, Anabaptists, and Quakers.1167 Tyrrell was glad to find them all courteous and
respectful; however, it can be assumed that their number posed a greater confessional
challenge. More confessional groups offered a greater variety of teaching and preaching
1164
O’Connell, The Schools and Scholars of Breiffne, pp. 259-265. In 1677 Bishop Tyrrell of Clogher reported
to Rome that he had acquired the permission to erect a school for priests and lay people by a Protestant Lord. If
it was the school at Moybolge cannot be said with certainty since no further reference was made to the school
planned by Tyrrell. Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, p. 198.
1165
Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublineses.
1166
Gallagher, Seventeenth-Century Clogher, p. 30.
1167
Ò Fiaich, The appointment of bishop Tyrrell, pp. 10-1.
255
which would have required a Catholic community of ensured Tridentine formation in order to
prevent conversions. With a Catholic clergy as described above this kind of formation was
difficult to achieve.
Especially the Scottish Presbyterians in the Northeast kept a number of schools with well
qualified teachers.1168 Considering these educational offers, only little support from
Protestants could be expected. In turn it is likely that also many Catholics attended Protestant
schools if only they had a better teacher available. Oliver Plunkett complained of this same
danger in the diocese of Armagh. In a letter to Rome he referred to one Catholic gentleman
who had asked for education for his six sons declaring that he would “rather put them behind
the plough or driving cattle than send them to Protestant schools as others do.”1169 In the end
the confessional competition in the southern and eastern parts of Ulster was high and the local
bishops required better qualified clerics in order to rival the Protestant teachers. For the rural
parts of Ireland this great diversity of confessions that were actively competing in the task of
teaching was unique and generated an interesting pattern of interconfessional education.
With only few places where Catholics regained their wealth and land, the support of larger
teaching institutions was impossible especially since the general number of clergy was
extremely high compared to Connaught, a fact that imposed a high financial burden to the
people. With many schools of other confessional groups in existence it was more difficult to
obtain financial support for Catholic schools, above all in the Northeast of the province.
However this situation underscored the important role that was played by better qualified
schoolmasters. In some places Catholic schools were conducted by clergy recently returned
from the continent and thus offered the most modern educational approaches. These
institutions were
still attractive to local Protestant gentry even though they had access to
schools of their own confession. But in many rural parts of the North, particularly among the
old Irish communities, priests were still representatives of an old social order. These priests
were not the kind of teachers Catholics were looking for therefore Catholic parents often sent
their children to Protestant schoolmasters even though they had an alternative. In summary,
Ulster disposed in some rural areas of sufficient wealthy Catholics and Protestants who
enjoyed a certain degree of tolerance for each other. For some time, this secured the survival
of Catholic education as long as the quality offered met the expectations of the local
1168
Cf. Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublineses. Similar competition was found in County Down, where the priest
William Flaherty kept a school with only a few scholars in it. In a densely populated area such as the Northeast
this would be unusual as long as there were not sufficient teaching facilities of other confessions or religious
groups. Cf. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 145.
1169
Ibid., pp. 78-9.
256
Protestants. This proves that the northern parts differed from Leinster where Catholic
education was often times the only education available. Different to Connaught the religious
tolerance and the comparative wealth of some areas allowed the maintenance of a high
number of priests – sometimes even too much in the eyes of the Catholic bishops. The
existence of Catholic teaching was characterized by interconfessionalism which was different
to Munster where Catholic schools were primarily for Catholics.
Conclusion
Catholic education in the Irish countryside differed immensely from region to region. It
depended on the presence of reform-orientated bishops or religious orders and a certain basis
of wealthy Catholic peasants. Nonetheless, the construction of adequate schools was
impossible without the support or at least connivance of local Protestant landholders who
were either generous because of family tradition, political reasons, or in most cases because
they profited from the teaching themselves. Legal consequences were usually not to be feared
neither for the protectors, nor for the teachers. In the rural areas where good Protestant
teaching was sufficiently supplied – something that was only in a few parts of the country the
case – there were less Catholic schools because they lacked the necessary funding.
Notwithstanding most Catholics living in the countryside had access to fundamental
schooling although the quality may have caused discontent with the local bishop. Only in very
few areas such as rural Cork were there no schools, mainly because the local magnates did not
allow Catholic tenants on their land which made Catholic schooling unnecessary.
Reciprocally, funding such schools would have been impossible if it had been attempted.
Paradoxically this leads to the conclusion that Catholic schools with qualified teachers could
only be found in areas with sufficient wealthy Protestants. Where there were no Protestants
the density of schools and the formation of their teachers were below average. Explicit
confessional formation in a process of differentiation for the other confessions was only
offered in those parts of the countryside that were relatively densely populated with a high
number of wealthy Protestants and equal offerings of Protestant schoolmasters that triggered a
confessional rivalry.
2. Catholic Education in Urban Ireland
Walled cities and towns differed greatly in their educational, political, confessional and
ethnical structure from the rural areas of the Irish countryside. A higher number of Protestants
lived in Irish cities that were often controlled and protected by armed forces, and thereby,
located at the immediate outreach of the crown authorities. Catholic teaching in Irish cities
257
thus faced other challenges than the rural education previously analyzed and teachers had to
develop different strategies to survive and prosper. While in most rural areas Catholic
teaching was the only form of available education, in most cities and larger towns teaching
was provided by Protestant schoolmasters. This led to a higher confessional as well as
qualitative competition among the educators. Urban Catholic schools that sought to attract
Protestant students in order to acquire financial support from wealthy Protestants had to meet
higher teaching standards than their rural counterparts that were mainly attractive because of
their educational monopoly. Many Irish towns also domiciled a number of wealthy Catholics.
These were numerous enough to pay for their own schoolmasters so that many Catholic
schools could subsist even without Protestant support. This rule was valid as long as Catholic
teachers did not cause public annoyance that forced the authorities to react. With the crown
authority closer than in most rural areas, Catholic education in the cities was also more
ephemeral and volatile when it came to government reaction. Schools opened and closed
frequently and only a few institutions existed at the same place for more than a few years.
Nevertheless, Catholic schools never fully disappeared from Irish towns. Quite the contrary,
they often flourished reaching high numbers of students and erecting boarding houses and
libraries. With the connivance or active support of local authorities and citizens some schools
reached outstanding performances, especially the Jesuit institutions that were no more inferior
to those on the continent.
In the Restoration period, Catholic education in Ireland appeared in three categories of urban
settings that were defined by different general aspects. The circumstances under which
Catholic schools were opened and administered depended firstly on the local confessional
majorities. While Protestant settlers formed in most rural Irish areas, a clear minority forced
to deal with an overwhelming majority of Catholic neighbors, most Irish cities had a more
balanced confessional distribution. Consequently Catholic schools had to be adaptable to the
necessities and interests of the Protestant communities especially if they required their
financial support and political goodwill. Secondly, the political standing of the local Lords
was of importance. Where the predominant local authorities and landowners were ill-disposed
towards Catholic teaching, the establishment of schools in Irish cities was naturally more
difficult. But where local magnates such as in the case of the Earl of Drogheda were willing to
support the Catholic clergy, this could be a major advantage for local teachers. Thirdly the
distance of cities to Dublin and other crown strongholds needs to be considered. While the
protection through a local Lord was extremely helpful, direct government intervention
remained a threat to urban Catholic teaching. As Drogheda lies only a few miles north of
258
Dublin Catholic activities there could easily be watched and influenced by the Crown officials
despite the Earl’s support. Distant cities such as Galway and Limerick were only irregularly
visited by government representatives. Therefore, Catholic education could usually develop
much more undisturbed and the attitude of the local Lord towards Catholic schools was of
equally higher importance.
Catholic schools existed in all Irish cities but in the way they organized housing and boarding
they generally depended on these above-mentioned three factors which defined the
confessional, political, and financial circumstances for teaching. The differently strong
manifestations of the categories in each city required different strategic approaches of
Catholic education. The cities analyzed here can be subsumed under three main groups thus
defined. The most difficult ambience for Catholic education was given in those cities where
confessional distribution, religious conviction of the local Lords and distance to the centers of
Protestant authority all disfavored the sustenance of Catholic teachers. In these places
Catholic teaching was only tolerated as long as it was not visible to the public as happened in
Dublin and the strategically important, English-dominated ports of the East and Southeast
Ireland, such as Wexford and Waterford. Diametrically opposed was the ambience in the
western Irish towns of Limerick and Galway where Protestant influence was small and
despite the local armed forces Catholic teachers acted in full disclosure in the public without
fearing regular intervention by confessional opponents.1170
It is seen only in the third group of cities such as Kilkenny and Drogheda that the presence of
Protestant and Catholic teachers was balanced and resulted in greater confessional rivalry.
These towns were usually of balanced confessional distribution and the local Lord’s
confession as well as the distance to any administrative centers favored no specific religious
teaching. The connivance of influential Protestants like the Duke of Ormond in Kilkenny
secured the existence of these schools even in times of persecution. This political space of
connivance allowed for a state of unique confessional and educational competition and thus
propelled an educational network that was in its density and quality comparable to any other
metropolitan region in Europe at that time.
1170
This division line between the south-western and south-eastern ports of Ireland underlines the complex
importance these places had for the Reformation as well the Counter-Reformation forces. According to Brendan
Bradshaw the Protestant government realised too late that the continentally-connected ports were not only
strongholds of the old colonial mentality but also gateway for Counter-Reformation clerics, especially the
Munster-based Jesuits. Why some of the ports could be turned into Protestant strongholds by the second half of
the seventeenth century while others had become nearly incontrollable is a question for further research that
cannot be answered in this context. Cf. Bradshaw, Reformation in the Cities, p. 468.
259
The expansion of Catholic education in urban Ireland is bound to the premise that since
Cromwell’s arrival it had been a target of most of the changing governments in Dublin to ban
all Catholics outside the city gates. The desire to protect the Protestant population in a
scenario of another potential rebellion dominated Irish politics in the second half of the
seventeenth century. Orders to ban Irish Catholics to the countryside were continually issued
throughout the Restoration period but seldom implemented on the local level.
As large Catholic communities were often not permitted to settle inside the city walls of Irish
towns they were built outside of them as separate settlements. The existence of these so-called
Irishtowns was necessary because Catholic workers, servants, and merchants were needed as
workforce in nearly every Protestant household. Consequently there was a notable
discrepancy between official anti-Catholic politics founded on Protestant fear for another
Catholic rising and the economic necessity and social substantiality in Irish towns. The
Protestant Archbishop and Lord Chancellor, Michael Boyle, brought up this issue quite
drastically in 1679 when Protestant paranoia was reaching new heights during the Popish
Plot. Boyle stated that “the English themselves received them in again for their own
advantage, they knew not well how to live without them, they wanted servants, they wanted
tenants, and they wanted tradesmen.” Similar astonishment about the two-faced rhetoric of
those Protestants who “pretend they cannot sleep for fear of having their throats cut by the
Papists, and asperse the government because there are so many of them, though they
themselves are the men that brought them to inhabit their houses in towns and to plant and
labour their lands”1171 was expressed by the Duke of Ormond in the same year. With both
Ormond and Boyle it can be heard that either the fear of the Protestants for a Catholic rising
was not as pronounced among the mass of the cities’ inhabitants, or that Catholic presence in
the urban areas was considered profitable enough to take the risk. And in fact, when the
banishment of Catholics was demanded fear was rarely the only reason for. More likely antiCatholic sentiments were fueled when the economic benefits of an expulsion of Catholics
outweighed their losses. As Lord Lieutenant Essex came to realize in 1673, once a Catholic
sold goods in a town no other Catholic would buy at a Protestant’s shop anymore. Therefore
if Protestant trade wanted to remain in business, it had a strong interest in preserving a trade
1171
Connolly, Religion, Law and Power, p. 32. HMC: Report on the Manuscripts of F.W. Leyborne-Popham,
Norwich 1899, pp. 243-4. Fears of Catholic insurrections were constantly fueled by the Earl of Orrery who
regarded it necessary, to keep at least all garrisoned towns free of Catholics as otherwise the Protestant
strongholds could no longer be protected. Cf. Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, p. 18.
260
monopoly in Ireland.1172 In conclusion the local and official opinion about Catholics in Irish
towns was divided and led to different initiatives during the Restoration period.
After a short time of confessional and political liberalization in Ireland in the context of the
Indulgence politics of 1672, a new wave of persecution, and hence, of campaigns against
Catholics, resurfaced in urban areas.1173 By 1673, again all convents and schools were ordered
by decree to close down and the Catholic population to leave the towns. Such decrees issued
by the Irish government, however, were usually not accurately followed by local
representatives. Peter Borsay argues that although the crown attempted to intervene in town
politics at several stages of the reigns of Charles II and James II, its real influence in local
urban politics was limited. According to Borsay a “mixture of pragmatism and local
obstruction” allowed local authorities to “avoid, delay or mitigate the disruptive effects of
central intervention.”1174 The mayors of Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and New Ross
still permitted secular priests to live in their cities as long as they would not exercise papal
jurisdiction. Some were even permitted to open public chapels.1175 Similarly futile were the
new bans published on 20th November 1678 in a reaction to the developments of the Popish
Plot. The council in Dublin came to realize that many cities and towns had not implemented
the political measures accordingly and that Catholics still assembled frequently within the city
limits.1176 However by the following March nothing had changed and another demand to act
according to the decree was sent to most Irish cities.1177 This repetitive procedure underlines
the incompatibility of the Crown’s politics with the interests of the urban communities.
Catholic presence and consequently Catholic teaching was a fact in Irish cities and apparently
Irish urban élites, Catholic and Protestant, had little interest in changing that.
Cities were likewise the operational basis for Jesuit teaching throughout Europe. After their
arrival to Ireland, Jesuits settled down in many of the southern Irish ports that offered
sufficient financial support for the survival of the order.1178 At the same time the demand for
1172
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 136.
Even after the Indulgence had allowed Catholics to settle in towns the new orders met with difficulties in
many cities where local Protestants would not permit them. Compare for example Hanly, The letters of Saint
Oliver Plunkett, p. 305.
1174
Peter Borsay: The Restoration Town, in: Lionel Glassey (ed.): The Reigns of Charles II and James VII & II,
London 1997, pp. 171-190, pp. 185-7.
1175
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, p. 262. Similar information were given by the Superior of the Jesuits in Ireland,
Andrew Sall, who reported that their members were officially expelled from the cities but that in most places
there were still Jesuits active: ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall,
1663/1664, fo. 258.
1176
Burke, Penal Times, p. 67.
1177
Letters were sent to Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Youghal, Clonmel, Galway, Kilkenny, Drogheda, Kinsale,
Wexford, Athlone, and New Ross. Tuckey, Cork Remembrancer, p. 108.
1178
Bossy, People of Catholic Ireland, pp. 158-9.
1173
261
schooling in urban Ireland was high as monastic education had largely decreased since the
Reformation and only few qualified Protestant teachers had arrived in return. In this state of a
partial educational vacuum, the classical teaching of the Jesuits that focused on Latin, Greek
and Literature was attractive not only to Catholics but also to Protestants. This was especially
the case since the Jesuits in England and Ireland repeatedly emphasized that they did not
intend to convert any Protestant students who attended their schools to Catholicism. Such an
accentuation was particularly necessary since Protestant propaganda blamed the members of
the Society of Jesus as major representatives of an aggressive Counter-Reformation.1179 Proof
of the expressed confessional liberality is given in a declaration of the Jesuit school at
Fenchurch Street in London. The decree from 1688 stated that “there shall be no distinction
made, but all shall be Taught with equal Diligence and Care, and every one shall be promoted
according to his Deserts. (...) There shall not be, either by Masters or Scholars, any tampering
or medling to persuade any one from the Profession of his own Religion; but there shall be all
freedom for every one to practise what Religion he shall please, and none shall be less
esteem’d or favored for being of a different Religion from others.”1180 Although no similar
documents have survived from Restoration Ireland it is likely that the order pursued a
comparable policy hoping to gain acceptance among the Protestant communities. As the more
detailed local analyses of Jesuit teaching in Irish cities will demonstrate, it was a
characteristic of their teachers to welcome students of both confessions without demanding
any conversions thus making themselves agreeable to the local Protestant authorities.
While for the Jesuits in England the political accusations posed the greatest difficulties which
culminated in the Popish Plot in 1678 leading to a heavy decline of members1181 the Irish
branch of the Society of Jesus had more difficulties with the other religious orders. Different
to most Franciscans and Dominicans, the members of the Jesuit order exposed themselves as
strong supporters of the episcopal hierarchy and especially the reform-orientated bishops of
1179
Robert Bireley: Neue Orden, Katholische Reform und Konfessionalisierung, in: Wolfgang Reinhard /Heinz
Schilling (eds.): Die katholische Konfessionalisierung, Gütersloh 1995, pp. 145-157, p. 148. That the Jesuits
themselves saw them discredited as traitors by the government was expressed for example in ARSI, Anglia 41,
fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 258.
1180
--- : The Rules of the Schools at the Jesuits in Fanchurch-street, printed in: Whitehead, “To provide for the
edifice of learning”.
1181
Six Jesuits were among those executed in the aftermath of the political overturn and from previously 128
Jesuits in England and Wales only 87 remained in the country in the following year. Although the order never
completely recovered there were still Jesuits active when James II succeeded his brother to the throne. For the
following five years the Jesuit Society enjoyed greater liberty and opened at least eight larger schools throughout
England. The new king himself supported the two Jesuit schools in London with 1250 pounds. The largest
school was situated in the Savoy palace and reached up to 400 students, most of them Protestants. This period of
prosperity, of course, ended again with the Glorious Revolution. Cf. Miller, Popery and Politics, pp. 242-248.
McCoog, The Society of Jesus, p. 96.
262
the post-Restoration period. In the eyes of the older orders, Jesuit residences were often seen
as intruders into areas that traditionally belonged to them. Additionally Jesuit employments as
secular parish priests that continually fought with the monasteries over the scarce
contributions of the faithful further aggravated the relationship. Another aspect that secured
the Jesuits a unique position among the Irish clerics was the fact that they were less
identifiable with any of the ethnic groups such as most of the regulars and seculars in Ireland.
Consequently they could not be as easily divided through political scheming as the Lords
Lieutenant had tried with the Remonstrance policy.1182 On the other hand their neutral stance
between old Irish and old English qualified them as helpful arbitrators of some value to the
Protestant authorities in order to exert control over the diverging Irish Catholic groups. All
these involvements in the strategies of either party was not in the interest of the Irish Jesuits
because it further politicized their activities in times when their major objective was to
dedicate themselves to teaching rather than to become overly conspicuous.1183 Warned by the
previous developments in England, Irish Jesuits of the Restoration period were eager to
meddle with as few interest groups as possible while re-establishing their educational network
throughout the island. Despite all educating effort, their major objective was the acceptance
by the local Protestant population and the Crown authorities, which will be seen later on. If
schools were ordered to close, the demands were usually met without delay and if Jesuit
superiors were cited to Dublin or other administrative centers they acted as required. All these
aspects lead to the conclusion that Irish Jesuits wanted to be seen as undisturbing, peaceful,
apolitical citizens fulfilling an important task in educating faithful, loyal subjects of the king. In
their teaching the Jesuits mainly focused on basic education for older children until after
1673 when the Irish Jesuit College at Poitiers was erected. Afterwards Jesuit teaching shifted
generally towards younger children amongst whom the most qualified should be elected for
further education in the continental college.1184 And despite all prosecutions and banishments,
Jesuit teaching followed to an astonishingly high degree the general educational codex of the
order, the Ratio Studiorum. Since the first firm residences had been established Jesuits
cultivated a tradition of public theater like on the continent and the staged performances were
enjoyed and fully supported by the local population of both Protestants and Catholics.1185
Jesuit drama formed an important part of the schools since it was seen as a way to convey
1182
Bossy, People of Catholic Ireland, p. 159. For more detailed information of the Remonstrance and the
strategies pursued by the Lords Lieutenant see chapters VI.II and VII.I.
1183
Ibid., p. 159.
1184
Francis Finegan: The Jesuits in Limerick, 1561-1773, in: ---: The Irish Jesuits. Being a Collection of Articles
on the History of the Irish Province, S.J., vol. 1, Dublin 1962, pp. 113-118, p. 116.
1185
Fletcher, Drama, Performance, and Polity, p. 194.
263
complex theories of moral virtues to a large amount of people while instructing the children at
the same time.1186 Such performances in Ireland and elsewhere were usually staged in Latin.
For a better understanding of the plays, pamphlets were distributed in English among the
audience. In consequence the educational activities of Jesuits became an important aspect of
daily life for the urban communities and showed the public desire for entertainment, moral
instruction, and interconfessional dialogue.1187 The strong presence of and demand for Jesuit
theater in Irish cities underlines their policy of peaceful integration into the existing
communities despite all confessional differences. Since public plays were openly visible and
could not develop in hiding they required massive goodwill of the local authorities. Hence
they could only be staged in cities of the second and third categories outlined above, i.e. in
places where the local authorities, if they were present, were not too much disturbed by public
Catholic educational activities either because they were too weak or preferred an open
competition and dialogue between the confessions. Nevertheless, an educational parallelism
in some cities neither necessarily signified such an open dialogue, nor any interconfessional
mixture of communities. To the contrary, in some urban spaces where both Jesuits and
Protestants entertained schools, the higher quality of Jesuit teaching posed such a threat to the
Protestant schoolmasters that the latter were willing to connive at the Jesuit school, as long as
no Protestant students were received. Such agreements often collided with the schoolmasters’
demand to force Catholic students to pay the regular school fees to them even when Catholic
students did not attend Protestant classes.1188 This proceeding could be chosen either for
reason of personal greed, or in order to neutralize one of the Jesuits’ greatest advantages –
their complimentary teaching policy.
Despite the growing number of educational services provided by them there was never a very
high number of Jesuits in Ireland during the Restoration period. Between 1660 and 1690,
there were most likely never more than 35 Jesuits at the same time on the island, which is a
small number compared to England and Wales even after the Popish Plot.1189 This was partly
due to the difficult funding situation Jesuits faced since they could only be supported in a few
1186
Rita Haub: Die Geschichte der Jesuiten, Darmstadt 2007, p. 46.
Simon Ditchfield proposes the controversial theory that the Jesuit missions in the mainly rural hinterland of
Western Europe profited immensely from the extra-European experiences of the order in Asia and South
America. While he mainly refers to the areas with explicitly non-Christian inhabitants the same approach could
be valid for the confessional grey zones of Ireland. The order did not provoke as many controversies as they
could have but tried to be a loyal part of the Irish society making it irreplaceable even for the Protestant
authorities. Cf. Ditchfield, Papacy and Peoples, pp. 196-7.
1188
Kenrick, Reports to Rome, p. 15. Corcoran, Irish Jesuit Schools, p. 420.
1189
McRedmond, To the Greater Glory, p. 87. For the available lists of members in Ireland, their names and
places of residence see footnotes no. 341 and 344.
1187
264
cities with sufficient wealthy merchants. Furthermore, the continuing series of persecutions of
Jesuits created a permanent scenario of uncertainty for them. Most Jesuit establishments thus
were constructed in such a way that the residence could easily be abandoned again once envy,
prosecution, or economic problems forced them to leave their homes.1190 This restlessness,
however, should not only be regarded as a state of constant fear, but can be interpreted as
another facet of the Jesuits’ intention not to disturb the Protestant authorities at any cost.
Being too rooted in one place could easily be understood as impertinence by others in times
of changing political circumstances. If they were banished or evicted it did not take much
time to leave without any further delay that could aggravate anti-Catholic resentments.
It can be concluded that Catholic urban education differed immensely from rural education
because of the inequalities in the legal order that defined confessional, economical, and
political circumstances for teachers. The main difference being the basic assumption that
Catholics were generally not allowed residing in Irish towns. Although they did for most of
the Restoration period and although Catholic schools existed in nearly every Irish city, the
legal ground for teaching individuals there was considerably different to the Irish countryside
where the majority of the Catholic population lived mostly undisturbed. While rural teachers
were usually out of reach for any Crown representatives and were thus not proceeded against
as long as they were not involved in any grievous incidents, Catholic teaching in the cities
was more or less controllable by the government authorities. Despite this general difference,
Catholic teachers were also tolerated or even approved in many cases within Irish towns
because of the high learning standard they offered to a wide range of the Protestant
population, especially in places where an open competition with the Protestant schoolmasters
could develop. As urban teaching was mostly dominated by the Jesuits this stood in stark
contrast to the rural education that was largely secular or managed by the old religious orders.
The Jesuits were partly welcomed in the cities since they offered pedagogical approaches and
teaching methods that only few Protestant teachers could meet. At the same time, however,
they were often identified as the major confessional and political threat to the Anglican élite
of the country. This permanent dissonance between the legal requirements of the Crown and
the local desires of the population, regardless of confessional affiliation, created an
ambiguous situation in urban Ireland. Irish urban citizens were growingly self-confident and
interested in the best education available for the furthering of their own careers regardless of
any confessional propaganda emphasized by the Protestant government. As the Society of
1190
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 90, 90v.: Letter from Jacob Reilly, Dublin, 2nd Oktober 1684, fo. 90.
265
Jesus in Restoration Ireland was willing to offer not only high quality teaching on a European
standard but also to resist a conversion policy in order to not disturb the local authorities, they
were best suited to provide exactly what the urban population was looking for. In the
following chapter, this general description of Catholic urban education will be scrutinized on
the local level in order to reveal under which conditions, expectations and compromises
Protestant authorities, Jesuit teachers and bi-confessional citizens managed to co-exist.
Cities under close government control
As outlined above several Irish towns formed a category of urban spaces where Catholic
education was not entirely nonexistent but more in a state of hiding than elsewhere given the
immediate control of government officials in these cities. While Dublin had been the center of
Protestant rule in Ireland since the Henrician Reformation most of the other towns were
situated along the southern Irish coastlines with Wexford, Waterford and Cork as the ports of
most economic and military importance. These urban centers had a majority of Protestant
inhabitants; they could be easily defended and provisioned from the sea while at the same
time controlling their agriculturally important hinterlands. Although not even in this category
of Irish towns Catholics were ever completely banned, but the organization and functioning of
Catholic education followed its own rules. Since the Catholic orders involved soon realized
that any impertinent visibility of Catholic schools led directly to their immediate dissolution
the construction of larger, permanent institutions was usually avoided.1191 Instead a number of
smaller, more primitive facilities took charge of local education which could be ignored or
willingly overseen by those responsible as long as no general crises demanded public
reaction. Thus Catholic in the cities under close government control was characterized by
micro-schools with a higher fluctuation than in the other city categories. This did not
necessarily mean that less students attended classes, rather that schoolhouses were of a more
primitive nature, regularly changing sites and receiving less open financial support from local
Protestants.
Dublin city was not only the seat of the Protestant government in Ireland, it was also an area
densely populated by Catholics who participated in the city’s trade and contributed to a
noticeable rise of wealth in the town during the peaceful twenty-five-year reign of Charles II.
Contrary to what has been accepted without comment for several decades by most historians
1191
The Cork Jesuits, for example, refused to fetch back the rich endowments of their residence that had been
brought to the continent in earlier times. Since the political circumstances were volatile it had to be feared that
the residence needed to be dissolved once more, therefore the valuables remained elsewhere. Ibid., fo. 88-88v.:
Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo. 88.
266
and in stark contrast to what many of the contemporaries of the Restoration period
emphasized over and over again, Catholic religious orders and secular clerics resided in great
numbers within the city for the whole Restoration period where they maintained schools and
chapels. During times of persecution these establishments went into hiding for some time but
they never completely disappeared. Thus, not surprisingly Dublin also became the Irish city
with the highest number of Jesuits who were engaged in catechizing, preaching, and teaching
all confessions interested. The fact that both Catholics and Protestants were educated in the
capital of Ireland was nothing completely new to the city administration; to the contrary, it
had a tradition reaching back to the days of the Reformation. Only since the beginning of the
seventeenth century the Dublin municipal school had been under secured Protestant control
although it did not enforce conversion on its students as might have been expected. In 1622, a
third of the 122 enrolled students did not attend Protestant Mass and only 100 of the 260
alumni since 1610 that entered institutions of higher education chose the Protestant Trinity
College, while 160 attended Catholic colleges on the continent.1192 This example underlines
that for most Dublin citizens looking for education the confessional adherence of teacher and
student was still quite irrelevant nearly a century after the 1537 “Act for English order, habite
and language”. The non-attendance of the reformed Mass was apparently not enforced on the
students nor did non-conformity hinder the students’ posterior careers apart from the Church
of Ireland. Similarly, when the Jesuits re-opened their schools in Dublin after 1660, a number
of Protestants were permanently enrolled among the Catholic students.
However these
schools were small, scattered throughout the city and poorly furnished, apparently because of
lacking funds. Consequently interconfessional education was required in Dublin by the
citizens of both confessions with only limitation that because of the constant presence of
Crown officials, the Catholic institutions were spatially and financially restricted. This
incongruence between the confessional teaching offers may have favored the development of
Protestant education, especially as Dublin was also the seat of the only Protestant university
of the island, but certainly did it not terminate the existence of Catholic schools which were
additionally attended by Protestants.
Six Jesuits formed the original staff of the Dublin residence in the year of the Restoration
under the Superior of the mission, Edward Locke.1193 Two of them offered classes for thirty
boys in only one small room as long as it was possible to keep this private. But when they
began to accept more students, they became too visible and were forced to close for a whole
1192
1193
Lennon, Education and Religious Identity, p. 71.
MacErlean, The Dublin Residence, pp. 78-9.
267
year.1194 It is remarkable that although Jesuit teaching in Dublin never ceased completely the
closure of single schools once they had caused official disapproval was always quickly
obeyed. And despite the fact that usually no concrete locations of schoolhouses are named in
the Litterae Annuae it would seem as if schools were not re-opened at places where they had
formerly been and dissolved. Only once in late 1670 did the Jesuit order attempt to establish a
larger teaching institution with the support of the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Peter
Talbot, at Saggart, just outside the city of Dublin but the school was shut down a few weeks
later. This incident is described in a variety of sources.1195 Obviously the Jesuits and other
Catholic commentators considered the time-frame of six weeks quite noteworthy even though
the Jesuits in and around Dublin were used to short-lived schools. One of the teachers at the
school, Stephen Gellosse, had formerly taught at New Ross and subsequently was sent to
Dublin for a short time after that school had been closed down as well.1196 The provision of
such a renowned teacher might indicate that the Archbishop as well as the Jesuit order was
eager to expand Catholic teaching in the capital but that this expansion was not considered
possible too close to Dublin’s city center.1197 The intended foundation at Saggart, however,
suggests that the small and unobtrusive Jesuit schools before and after were a deliberate and
conscious decision of the order, only interrupted and confirmed by the Saggart experiment.
Indeed Catholic mass houses seem to have existed in abundance in Dublin without too much
hiding, as long as they retained their poor and discreet appearance or were kept within private
properties.1198 The French traveler Albert Jouvin identified more than twenty houses in
Dublin where mass was said during his visit to Ireland between 1666 and 1668.1199 Whether
this number is correct is hard to confirm but based on the assured data of Catholic facilities in
Dublin it is not unrealistic.1200 The case of the Jesuit school with a class of thirty students can
be considered the maximum tolerable for Protestant Dublin officials. Therefore, classes may
1194
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad
exitum anni 1674, fo. 271v.-272. Compare as well Corcoran, State Policy, p. 85. From Hogan Transcripts, folio
751, Letter of Stephen Rice to Rome, written 13 July 1677.
1195
Among others in Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 166-7. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.:
Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 278v.
1196
Finegan, Stephen Gellous, p. 37.
1197
23rd Febr. 1671, in: Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, p. 216. Corcoran, State Policy,
pp. 82-84. From Hogan Transcripts, folios 757, 779-781, 783, 787.
1198
Andrew Sall described wealthy or noble families that held Catholic masses and assemblies in their rooms
every day and invited a member of the Society once a week to celebrate the communion. Compare for example
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo.
262.
1199
Falkiner, Illustrations of Irish History, p. 410.
1200
The Jesuits alone disposed of several chapels and mass-houses apart from the micro-schools. In 1663 the
Litterae Annuae report quite disappointed that among several existing chapels administered by the order there
was only one where mass was held daily or at least once a week while other opened less regularly. ARSI, Anglia
41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 258v.
268
have ranged in size between ten and thirty in the Irish capital. If only half of the twenty masshouses offered catechizing classes this would at least form a supposed average of two hundred
children receiving any sort of Catholic education in the city by the end of the 1660s.
The existence of Catholic teaching facilities was widely known and more or less tolerated by
the Protestant government. The authorities’ paradox stand between anti-Catholic legislation
and toleration for Catholic schools was obvious in the capital. One exemplary incident is
documented in the Ormond manuscripts. The Duke of Ormond and Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland demanded the persecution of the author of some marginalia found in a book in a
Dublin bookstore accusing Ormond of the practical toleration of Catholic priests and friars
who celebrated mass openly within the city. Archbishop Boyle of Dublin, however, advised
the Duke to keep a low profile in this case because any further enquiry would only
demonstrate that Mass was actually said in Dublin every week.1201 This is only one of many
examples demonstrating that leading Dublin Protestants were fully aware of the existence of
Catholic schools in the city. They knew about the Jesuits and as the Saggart example shows,
they could be quick to find and dissolve them if they really wanted to. But as long as Catholic
activities were quiet, unobtrusive, and mostly invisible they were either considered not
dangerous or even helpful as contributors to a task that was constantly undermanned in
Restoration Ireland.
The danger of losing any Church of Ireland conformists to the Catholic faith could be
considered marginal given the economical disadvantages Catholics had to suffer, a
circumstance that was discussed also by the Jesuits. The Superior of the order in Ireland,
Andrew Sall, supposed in 1663-4 that large groups of Protestants were willing to convert but
he was absolutely realistic about the economic benefits Protestants enjoyed in the city which
they would lose in case of conversion. And he had to admit that persons did not only convert
because of faith but that they also expected some sort of profit from their new confession.1202
But while Sall was quite negative about the prospects of winning over Protestants for reasons
of faith alone, a conversion to Catholicism could indeed pay off financially. Given the
growing number of Catholics in and around the city that purchased goods only from fellow
Catholics, a conversion actually did open some markets that were closed to Protestant
traders.1203 Despite these theoretical fears about conversions for economic reasons expressed
by Lord Lieutenant Essex, the actual number of converts in both directions was low. Nearly
1201
Cf. HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, new series, vol. 6, p. 386.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 258v.
1203
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 136.
1202
269
every conversion achieved by the Jesuits until 1664 was explicitly mentioned in the Jesuit
report making a total of 44 converted Protestants.1204
As these numbers were almost irrelevant in a city of several thousand Protestants, they can be
taken to underline the mission’s ambition to not primarily convert the Irish population to
Catholicism but to become accepted and tolerated above all. This goal was achieved through
attending Protestant needs if they were asked to. Protestants who attended Jesuit schools out
of confessional indifference, silent support for the order or because of the quality of the
teaching were helpful allies in times of stronger anti-Catholic sentiments or even persecution.
As long as a significant part of the city’s Protestant population profited from the Jesuits’
residing in Dublin they did not have to fear expulsion. Consequently they offered catechism
classes and further schooling for girls as well since female education had nearly ceased to
exist after the Reformation.1205 Thus by taking in girls for some basic teaching they hoped to
gain approval even from those Protestants who would have refused to send their sons to a
Jesuit school. All of these offers, however, were not directed aggressively toward Protestants.
Instead the Jesuits tried to attract them indirectly as Andrew Sall explained in his 1665 report
to Rome. Since public preaching or openly approaching Protestants in the streets was
considered too dangerous for the Dublin mission, the fathers had opened classes for servants
each Sunday that were often attended by their employers as well. This way the order hoped to
get in contact with those wealthy supporters they were strategically looking for.1206
The Jesuits’ strategy in Dublin was to establish themselves without causing too much
disturbance but reaching a certain degree of mute connivance with the local population as
well as the government officials. For this reason the Superior of the mission did appear in
front of the Lord Lieutenant when all order Superiors were summoned in July 1663. He was
questioned and let out again after a few days without having been harmed.1207 Apparently he
found some sort of arrangement with the Lord Lieutenant or at least could convince him of
the harmlessness of his order, best documented by the unaggressive proceeding of the
Society’s members in Dublin itself. In the following years, Jesuits in Dublin were
occasionally persecuted as they were in other parts of the country but they were rarely
arrested nor were their schools and chapels closed, although it was known to the officials
1204
This and other references to money being offered for conversion by other Catholics can be found at: ARSI,
Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259. The other way round
disinheritance and refusal by one’s own family could also occur. An example for this can be found at: Ibid., fo.
262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 262.
1205
The same is reported from Waterford where Jesuits instructed boys and girls alike between the age of nine
and eighteen. Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260.
1206
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266-266v.
1207
Ibid.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 262v.
270
where the Jesuits in Dublin lived and worked. An explanation for this silent mutual
acceptance between Jesuit order and state officials was the Jesuits’ involvement in a variety of
social activities such as their teaching that made them helpful instruments for the government
as long as they did not exercise papal jurisdiction or promoted their confessional beliefs too
loudly in public. Apart from the schools the Jesuits succeeded in using their influence as
ethnically neutral arbitrators among the city’s Catholic community settling disputes and
disciplining their flock in a way that complied to Irish Protestant laws. Although these tasks
do not form an important part of the narrative of the Litterae Annuae legal disciplining
involvement of the Jesuits is mentioned from time to time, for example when they prohibited
duels among noble Catholics.1208
In conclusion, the Dublin Jesuits, although numerous, attempted to remain invisible to the
public. They were aware of the political circumstances that disfavored public expansion of the
Catholic Church in the city and consequently limited their teaching activities to small and
private structures, thus assuring the Protestant authorities of their inoffensiveness. In
exchange they enjoyed a degree of tolerance that may have been small compared to other
Irish cities of the second and third category discussed below but that was still remarkable so
close to the epicenter of Protestant rule in Ireland. While other Catholic schools in the country
flourished and expanded to hundreds of students, the Dublin residence never accommodated
more than thirty students despite the presence of usually six and more Jesuits in town. The
Jesuits in Dublin established themselves quietly and waited for better times, winning over
some Protestants from time to time but not in considerable numbers. They convinced solely
the persons who approached them by choice on their own and stayed more focused on the
disciplination and control of the remaining Catholics in the city. Hence until 1685 an
underground network of Catholic houses existed and was more or less tolerated by the Lord
Lieutenant. The Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Francis Marsh wrote on 3rd February to
Ormond declaring that “some such public houses have been overlooked and neglected by the
government”.1209 When James II became king, Jesuit teaching was no longer clandestine. The
first public school that was opened in 1685 was located on Lucy Lane. It is likely that the
Jesuits had been teaching on these premises already before the succession of a Catholic
king.1210
1208
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266.
Burke, Penal Times, p. 68.
1210
MacErlean, The Dublin Residence, p. 79.
1209
271
Apart from Dublin three other coastal cities were of specific strategic and economic
importance for Protestant rule in Ireland – Wexford, Waterford, and Cork. They all had large
numbers of Protestant inhabitants, formed the urban centers of the surrounding rural areas
mostly colonized by Protestant settlers, through them ran most of the overseas trade, and they
were easily accessible from Dublin and England thus being at the immediate grip of the
Protestant government. All these preconditions underline the importance of the cities for the
Protestant authorities and the special interest they had in suppressing any Catholic revival
within the towns. In case of another insurrection of Irish Catholics, these cities needed to be
safe in Protestant hands and possibly rebelling Catholic inhabitants posed a constant threat in
the eyes of many leading Irish Protestants. Therefore, the city of Wexford had been the target
of Protestantization since the brutal attack on the city by Cromwell’s forces in October 1649.
Those Catholic inhabitants who survived the slaughter fled the city and left room for new
settlers that were continually sought to be attracted by the following governments.1211 The
Catholic population of Waterford, on the contrary, remained largely intact but the city was
equally the target of a fierce immigration policy until the early 1670s when Bishop Brenan of
Waterford & Lismore estimated that half of the city’s population was Protestant.1212 The city
of Cork, however, was not even in the times of the Catholic Confederation in Catholic hands
although Catholics continued to live in the town. Since Cork was situated amidst the lands of
the fierce anti-Catholic Boyle family it belonged along with Waterford to those places where
the eviction of Catholics was from time to time actually attempted to be put into effect.
Nevertheless, there were Catholics living in Cork as they were in any other Irish town and the
city disposed of a Jesuit residence and most of the Catholic hierarchy. This was especially
combined in Cork as the vicar apostolic, Dominic Roche, was himself a Jesuit who was able
to restore much of the Catholic community life by the end of the 1660s and the early 1670s.
In 1672 all church offices were staffed apart from that of the bishop, the Dominicans had
recovered their old convent and the Franciscans had settled themselves in the Irishtown
outside the city walls before they re-entered the city in 1685.1213 Equally fruitless were the
banishments of Catholic clerics in Waterford where despite the differing numbers, a Catholic
1211
About the number of Catholic inhabitants of the town in after the Restoration there is uncertainty. The
Wexford settler argued in 1682 that by then the larger part of the population was Catholic again although all
public offices were occupied by Protestants. The Catholic Bishop of Ferns, on the other hand, spoke of not more
than forty Catholics in the city in 1683. Maybe Richards spoke of all the inhabitants including the Irishtown
outside the city walls while it would also be possible, that the bishop counted only those who appeared for Mass
as conforming Catholics in the chapel on High street within the city walls. Furlong, Wexford port, p. 160-1. The
report is printed in Griffith, Chronicles of the County Wexford, vol. 1, pp. 49-56.
1212
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 354.
1213
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, pp. 246-7.
272
community and its clergy survived all political turmoil.1214 Nevertheless, the counties’ bishop,
John Brenan, was constantly concerned about the lack of teachers in the city and he feared
that this personal shortage would force Catholic children to attend Protestant schools.1215 It is
difficult to judge whether the shortage of Catholic instructors in Waterford was actually that
striking. As outlined in the previous chapter the Roman-trained bishop was in many aspects
over-ambitious and tended to lament about circumstances that were considered absolutely
normal for most other Irish Catholic dignitaries.1216
Catholic teachers of different sorts could be found in each of the places despite their
comparably precarious position at the reach of the Crown authority and the strong local
Protestant communities. As in Dublin, Catholic education faced major rivalry from Protestant
teachers that enjoyed the financial, political and social backing of the Protestant population
and government.1217 In Waterford sufficient Protestant teachers were paid to actually compel
all children, Protestant and Catholic alike, to attend their classes as Bishop Brenan reported
with consternation to Rome.1218 Equally in Cork there was nearly an oversupply in highquality Protestant teachers as the matriculation records of Trinity College document.1219 As
this short overview shows, Catholic education was not necessarily required by the Protestant
inhabitants and the Catholic communities were usually not as wealthy or numerous to support
their own teachers. However all three cities retained a variety of Catholic teaching offers
throughout the Restoration period, which functioned nearly under the same conditions as the
Jesuit micro-schools in Dublin. The strong presence of Jesuit teachers is not surprising since
Wexford and Waterford had long traditions of Jesuit residences that were recovered by the
order soon after the Restoration, notwithstanding the generally difficult circumstances for
1214
The Earl of Orrery tried to purge Waterford of “fanatics and needless papists” as he called it in 1663 but the
community soon returned as if it never had completely left. By 1670 the Earl declared that “crowds of Papists
have got into (...) Waterford” and “many convents have in my absence been erected”. He ordered to pull them
down once more but the convents had long returned again before 1678. Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of
Orrery, vol. 1, pp. 130-133. CSPI, Sept. 1669 – Dec. 1670, p. 267.
1215
Corish, The Catholic Community, p. 67.
1216
For example Brenan also wrote about the presence of Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits in Waterford. All
of them were teaching but according to the bishop only one of them was a learned man. Power, Archbishop John
Brennen, pp. 62-65.
1217
In Wexford the local Protestant schoolmaster James Hobson received an appropriate annual salary of 40
pounds since 1659 from the city treasurer and an adequate schoolhouse was assigned to him as well. Hore, Town
and County of Wexford, vol. 5, pp. 326-7.
1218
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 23-4.
1219
59 former students of Schoolmaster Mr. Wilson matriculated at Trinity College between 1676 and 1685
alone. Another 32 had attended classes at the school of one Mr. Tindall since 1672. Additionally 11 students
received their education from a Mr. Scroggs at Cork and another 13 attended the school of Mr. Burgess at nearby
Charleville while other Trinity students were educated by at least five other Protestant teachers. Burtchaeli,
Alumni Dublineses.
273
Catholic clerics in these cities.1220 The Waterford residence was recovered until 1662 when
Andrew Sall, the later Superior, and John Cleere resided in the town.1221 Cork was reoccupied by one Jesuit father until 16631222 and expanded by another one two years later
though their names are uncertain. In the first list of 1662 there appeared one Francis Tirry for
Cork and one Michael Chamberlain but only one member was still registered in the Litterae
Annuae the following year.1223 In 1666 Tirry was joined by Maurice Connell who later
worked mainly in County Kerry.1224 But by 1669 the reports speak of Maurice Connel,
Ignatius Brown and Robert Meade who labored in Cork, of Michael Chamberlain there is no
word for the whole island.1225 Finally in a letter from 1684 Fathers Chamberlain and Thaleus
declared to have conducted a school in the past year and that they just sent ten of the most
qualified students to the Jesuit seminary at Poitiers. The letter gave no specific information as
to where they were located, but Cork is the only place that could be brought in connection
with Michael Chamberlain.1226
These Jesuits proceeded mostly identically to their co-religionists in Dublin in terms of
school-size, conversions, and arrangements with local Protestant authorities and additional
social activities apart from teaching that helped the local government assert control over the
Catholic community. Since this approach differed from the ones applied in cities of the other
categories discussed below it can be concluded that the Jesuits were well aware of what they
wanted, how far they could go and what price they had to pay for some kind of toleration.
They developed a general strategy that could be applied in all cases where the Protestant
community and power was too strong to challenge them and confined themselves to
strengthening of the remaining Catholics and a step-by-step policy. In avoiding confessional
conflicts they managed to establish sufficient confessional connivance for a parallel society
that left the Catholics be under the condition that Jesuits did not intrude into the Protestant
community either. These parallel societies manifested themselves in several expressions and
incidents. In Waterford a decree commanded that nobody not attending the Church of Ireland
service on Sunday was allowed to be on the streets.1227 Although the order was considered
1220
Between 1592 and 1617 ten out of hundred Irish students at Salamanca came from Wexford alone. Corish,
County Wexford, pp. 225-6.
1221
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r. Until the end of the Restoration period
the personnel of the residence underwent some changes. According to Nicholas Netterville in 1678 there were
Francis White, Martin White and John Cleere in the residence. Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
1222
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v.-261.
1223
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r.
1224
Ibid., ff. 148rv, 149v.
1225
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279v.
1226
Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 90, 90v.: Letter from Jacob Reilly, Dublin, 2nd Oktober 1684, fo. 90.
1227
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, p. 351-2.
274
extremely repressive by Bishop Brenan impeding Catholic Masses on Sundays, it could also
be interpreted to the contrary. Since officially everyone was compelled to attend Protestant
service, the decree indirectly accepted Catholics to remain at home or to assemble in private
as long as they did not disturb the official Protestant service in a way that was too visible to
the public. Thus it was guaranteed that both confessional groups did not interfere with each
other’s interests. For instance the Waterford Jesuit school was not regularly attended by
Protestants in considerable numbers since this is not explicitly mentioned as in nearly every
other city.1228 Consequently the output of converts was negligible as it was in Dublin. No
conversions at all were reported from Wexford or Waterford while in Cork only six former
Catholics returned to their old faith until 1663 which again illustrates that the conversion was
not the primary target of the Jesuit mission in Ireland, at least in the cities where they relied
that much on the goodwill of the local Protestant authorities.1229 They were much more
preoccupied with the implementation of Tridentine Catholicism among the existing Catholic
communities.1230 In order to strengthen the orthodoxy in their communities the Jesuits refounded as well the local Sodalities of the Blessed Virgin such as that in Waterford which had
been disintegrated fifteen years before when the city was taken over by Cromwell. Amongst
the members the catechism was taught and the Jesuits preached twice a week during the
fasting period.1231
As in Dublin the Jesuits tried to put themselves on good terms with the authorities by
performing a task of neutral arbitrator among local Catholics apart from the teaching
activities. Until 1674 the Jesuits in Waterford set up a kind of Catholic legal court to
conciliate the disputes among the Catholics who before had to ask the Protestant bishop for
help despite the fact that nothing was supposed to be more fiercely prosecuted than papal
1228
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
1229
Ibid., Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v.
For example, in 1663 a fear of Jansenist tendencies among the local Catholics was expressed in the Litterae
Annuae. Ibid., fo. 260v.-261.
1231
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 264. The
history and importance of the Sodalities in Ireland is until now largely unresearched. Similar Catholic
confraternities existed throughout Europe and were mostly recent Tridentine creations that channelled the
foremost private charity of local Catholics. For the Principality of Orange Amanda Eurich considers the
introduction of similar confraternities as decisive for the lay Catholic revival in the area. Thus a further analysis
of the Sodalities could add most interesting aspects on the history of Irish Catholicism in the early modern
period. Cf. Eurich, Seventeenth-Century Orange, pp. 260-3. Michael Maher emphasises the crucial importance
lay congregations had for the funding of the Society of Jesus. While he only analyses the proceedings in Rome it
can at least be assumed that the existence or revival of the Sodalities in Munster towns and the flourishing of
Jesuit teaching in the same places was a highly related development. Cf. Maher, Financing Reform, p. 129. In
any case the existence and expansion of the Sodalities was characterised by Luise Schorn-Schütte as an explicit
challenge for any Protestant communal activities or regional authorities which usually crowned a successful
Jesuit mission. Cf. Schorn-Schütte, Bikonfessionalität, p. 317.
1230
275
jurisdiction. But as long as the Jesuits only implemented the Crown’s laws in Ireland the local
government saw no reason to interfere.1232 To the contrary, according to a Jesuit report from
Cork the fathers were even protected by the magistrate once public anti-Catholic hysteria
came up in the early 1670s. The then resident Jesuit Brown was summoned before the
magistrate and warned that several enraged Protestants of the city wanted to kill him.1233
The incident underlines in how far the Jesuits were considered helpful elements of the local
societies officially despised though they may have been. As long as they pursued their policy
of non-confrontation the Protestant authorities had no interest in ejecting them. Consequently
all serious attempts to banish the Catholics or only the clerics from the strategically important
Protestant strongholds in the South were condemned to failure. By 1671 not even the Earl of
Orrery, Lord President of Munster, demanded the complete expulsion of the Catholic clergy
but only decreed that no Catholic masses should be celebrated inside the city walls.1234 Until
1678 the situation had not changed very much. Orrery stated in a letter to the Protestant
Primate that in “the citty of Cork, which tho’ within its walls it is partly free from such
dangerous people, yet the suburbs north and south are stuffed with them.”1235 When shortly
afterwards the Popish Plot unfolded Catholic merchants were officially denied access to the
city on 20th November, but not much later the mayor of Cork reported that the order was
usually not executed. Still a year later the chief magistrates of Cork were ordered to finally act
according to the law and prohibit all Catholic meetings within the walls. Hence the Popish
Plot did not really have a serious impact on Catholic life in Cork city.1236
The four given examples all share the same strategic difficulties and the measures applied by
the Catholic teaching institutions, mainly the Jesuits. Because of the political, economic, and
military importance of the cities, the amount of Protestant settlers was higher than in other
places and the control through the central government authorities and military garrisons was
considerable. Under these circumstances the teachers reduced their visibility and the size of
their classes to a minimum in order not to cause any trouble or to seriously challenge local
Protestant schoolmasters. The classes in each case comprised of between fifteen to forty
students, depending on the size of the city they were located in.
Although the conditions under which Catholic education was performed were not as favorable
as elsewhere in Ireland, Catholic teaching and especially the Jesuits returned to all of the
1232
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 282v.
Ibid., fo. 280-280v.
1234
Bolster, Diocese of Cork, p. 261.
1235
Ibid., p. 270.
1236
Ibid., p. 271. Cf. Burke, Penal Times, pp. 52-3. Cf. Tuckey, Cork Remembrancer, p. 108.
1233
276
residences immediately after the Restoration. In their proceedings they were silently connived
at by the local authorities despite the danger that Catholics in walled towns seemed to pose in
the eyes of many Protestant settlers. An explanation for this paradox development is offered
in the Litterae Annuae from Waterford and Dublin. Since Catholic settlements in and around
even the most strategically important cities could not be prevented and Catholic servants,
merchants, and craftsmen were needed for the economic prosperity, the religious orders and
their teachers could offer a simple and tangible help in order to control this growing Catholic
community. As long as they respected the laws of the kingdom and preached loyalty to the
monarch, they even facilitated Protestant rule where the government did not dispose of
sufficient resources. As in the cases of Waterford and Cork the respective teachers were
personally known to the magistrate and even the Protestant bishop and could thus be held
directly responsible for any insurrections, or expressions of disobedience. And similar to the
silent arrangement between the Roman Curia and the British Crown concerning the
promotion of bishops and other dignitaries, it seems as if the local teachers and clerics were
eager to meet the expectations of their heterodox fellow citizens.
Cities far from government control
While the cities of the previous category disposed not only of a considerable number of
Protestant inhabitants but were also through administration and military garrisons in the
immediate reach of the central government, other cities along the Irish coast had other
preconditions. Limerick and Galway were of similar strategic and economic importance
compared to Cork, Waterford and Wexford wherefore they were similarly garrisoned and
prepared for defense but they were situated in an environment that was almost exclusively
Catholic. Different to the ports of the South and East, these cities were geographically far
more distanced from Dublin as well as England and despite their garrisons and Protestant
magistrates they could hardly be permanently controlled. As has been outlined for the
surrounding rural areas of Limerick and Galway, government influence beyond the river
Shannon was limited while only few Protestants could be convinced to settle there.
Consequently the educational background in the two major cities of western Ireland could not
have been more different to the circumstances that the teaching orders faced in Dublin and the
East. Government persecution was less to be feared and teaching institutions were not
restricted to small classes that could easily be dissolved once the political climate changed.
In the western part of Munster Limerick was the unquestioned urban center. There had been a
Jesuit residence for a long time as well as convents of Franciscans and Dominicans in these
areas where the old Irish formed the dominant part of the society. But situated within the
277
territory of the President of Munster it was subject to the same quantity of anti-Catholic
decrees as Cork and Waterford.1237 And similar to these places Catholic community life
persisted in Limerick as well despite all titular expulsions.1238
Catholic education had never been abolished in the city, instead it had officially lasted up to
the 1630s when a Protestant school could finally be established in the town for the first
time.1239 On the other hand, Catholic schools flourished since the 1550s.1240 These general
preconditions already underline the importance and at the same time the liberty of Catholic
education in Limerick city which could rely on a predominantly Catholic population among
whom wealthy merchants offered the same secure financial background that Protestant
communities could offer in other places. These conditions had not considerably changed until
the Restoration wherefore soon after 1660 Catholic clerics returned if they had ever left and
resumed their educational activities in full public. Two of the first to arrive were the Jesuits
Peter Creagh and John Stritch. The latter had been born in Limerick and joined the order in
France in 1629.1241 Creagh (1612-1685) was originally from Cashel and had studied in the
Spanish Netherlands as well as France.1242 By 1666 they were joined by another member
called William Hurley.1243
Their school offered basic teaching and was frequented as well by the sons of Protestant
citizens according to the vicar apostolic of Limerick.1244 But different to other places there
was no reference made to any Protestant teacher. It would be a surprise if there was no
Protestant school at all in Limerick but it appears as if at least the offering was no competition
to the Jesuits. In other places where both confessions were involved in teaching, the Jesuit
sources usually emphasized the quality of the adversary or at least boasted that so many
Protestants came to their schools because of the high standard they offered. In Limerick no
1237
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 1, pp. 130-133. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p.
238.
1238
CSPI, Sept. 1669 – Dec. 1670, p. 267.
1239
In 1583 Queen Elizabeth I comlained in a letter to the Lords Justices Wallop and Loftus about the nonobservance of her orders to erect a school in Limerick. In 1615 James I ordered to survey the Protestant schools
in Ireland. For Limerick the visitators only found a notable Catholic teacher. Only in 1630 Maurice Wall opened
a definitely Protestant institution in the town. Cf. Quane, The Limerick Diocesan School, pp. 107-110.
1240
The Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Richard Creagh, founded a large school in Limerick in 1557 that came
under the control of the Jesuits in 1564 thus starting the long tradition of Jesuit teaching in Limerick city. Ibid.,
pp. 105-6.
1241
Finegan, The Jesuits in Limerick, p. 116.
1242
Ibid., p. 116.
1243
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v.
1244
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 506.
278
such commentaries were to be found which makes it look like there was no Protestant school
or it was too small to sufficiently service even the Protestants.1245
Similarly little reference was made in general to the cohabitation with the Protestant
community. Different to most cities in the South and East, Limerick had only a small
Protestant community and although the official offices were occupied by adherents of the
established Church, no further interference from part of the Crown or the Church of Ireland
was documented. All Jesuit reports speak of the work of the Limerick residence as if it was
located in a Catholic governed country not even mentioning the Protestant authorities.1246
Catholic citizens supported the members in a sufficient way apparently without the
participation of any Protestants since the residence with its two friars was comparatively
small. But it is notable that different to any other Jesuit residence in Ireland the fact that the
fathers were supported by local citizens was not used as a complaint about the miserable
financial condition they were in, rather it was explicitly mentioned that they could live well
off what was given to them.1247 Not surprisingly there was also a Sodality of the Blessed
Virgin in Limerick re-founded after the Restoration but no numbers of its members were
mentioned.1248 All these aspects underline the impression of a predominantly Catholic city
only officially controlled by Protestants. But the controlling authorities seem to have been too
weak to interfere with the public display of Catholic rites as well as Catholic teaching.
The government control over Limerick was limited and the liberty that this offered to the
Catholic community was expressed in a letter by the Earl of Orrery to the Duke of Ormond in
October 1666. His words were a simultaneous combination of capitulation and admiration and
they outlined the reason why Catholic education could not and would not be suppressed in
Irish towns. Orrery reported that there was a Jesuit school lately set up by a man named
Stritch and that he even dared to stage a play with his students in the county hall
notwithstanding the fact that the local Protestant minister, Mr. Andrews, had prohibited it. He
had heard that several Protestants had returned to Catholicism for the fear of hell and ordered
1245
According to the matriculation records of Trinity College there was only one Protestant teacher active in
Limerick who sent students on to the college. Mr. Ryland’s school school registered only ten later college
students between 1678 and 1686 of whom only five had been born in the city or County of Limerick. Therefore
it seems probable that no noteworthy Protestant school existed in Limerick during at least the first fifteen years
after the Restoration. Cf. Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublinenses.
1246
This is especially interesting compared to Cork, Waterford and Wexford where the reports are packed with
information about the good understanding the Jesuits had with the local Protestants and their authorities. ARSI,
Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 264v.
1247
Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88-88v.
1248
Ibid., Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 264v.
279
to prosecute them, “for if fear made them change their religion, possibly fear may make them
discover what those dangers are, which so terrified them.” But he knew that his words were
empty threats because in the same letter he brought it to the point when he wrote about the
Jesuits: “Though I know they are the best schoolmasters in the world, yet it is to be doubted
they teach their scholars more than their books, and imbue them with ill principles.”1249
Orrery saw the danger that Catholic education posed to the Protestant government but at the
same time he was aware that the crown was not capable of avoiding it. Consequently the
proceeding of Catholic teachers and especially the Jesuit order in Limerick was significantly
different to the strategies applied in the cities of the first category. Catholicism did not need to
hide in the Western cities; even though the most powerful and fierce anti-Catholics such as
Orrery knew what was going on there, they were unable to proceed against it in a sustainable
measure. The Jesuits were aware of the different status and security that they enjoyed in the
West and it documented by their conversion practices. In the first category it has been
outlined that conversion was not the primary target if not even completely refused by the
Jesuits in order not to disturb the Protestant authorities and anti-Catholic parts of the local
population. In Limerick this was different, although unfortunately there were no accurate
numbers of converts given in the Litterae Annuae as for the other places. While in general the
percentage of Protestants in Limerick was not as high, several conversions occurred according
to the local Protestant minister. And the fact that the Jesuits did not consider the conversions
at all noteworthy might signify that they were more regular the case and nothing as special as
in Dublin and the Cities of the Southern coastline.
The situation for Catholics was even more liberal in the only urban center of Connaught, the
city of Galway that was not under the official control of a man like Orrery. The proud
merchant town had a long educational tradition since the establishment of the Wardenship of
Galway that guaranteed certain independent rights to the citizens since 1484. It was these
privileges that caused regular dissensions between the Catholic inhabitants and the
Archbishop of Tuam who was eager to extend his influence and jurisdiction into the wealthy
city.1250 Thus the Anglo-Norman foundation of Galway was politically and culturally
separated from the Gaelic-Irish territories that surrounded it.1251 The local parish of St.
Nicholas was controlled by a warden and eight vicars who were officially approved by the
mayor of the city so that in the end the control of the religious leadership of Galway lay in the
1249
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, pp. 73-76.
MacLysaght, Wardenship of Galway, p. 20.
1251
Coen, Wardenship, pp. 1-3.
1250
280
hands of its lay citizens. A school was added to St. Nicholas which came under Protestant
control after Edward VI confirmed the wardenship in 1551 transforming the school into the
Royal College of Galway.1252 But the majority of the citizens remained Catholic and rejected
the Protestant wardenship and the school by creating their own warden with their own
Catholic school, still electing the vicars from the local community. This dual structure of
Protestant and Catholic wardenship remained throughout the whole Restoration period.1253
Even when a new mayor was elected as happened in 1680, the Protestant city officials would
not expect the Catholic community to participate. It was the Protestant mayor that was elected
and as long as they were not disturbed the local Catholics were willing to tolerate him as
such.1254
Officially the Wardenship and the city had come under Protestant control and as in most of
the other Irish cities, attempts were occasionally made to expel at least the Catholic priests but
as everywhere else these attempts had little or no success until the Popish Plot aggravated
anti-Catholic resentments and fears of a rising. The Earl of Kingston undertook the fiercest
attempt to expel the Catholics in 1671 after the Earl of Orrery published an edict to clean the
Irish cities of Catholics and their priests.1255 Nothing had significantly changed, however a
year later when Lord Lieutenant Essex stated that the Catholics of Galway held large
assemblies within the city walls undisturbed in numbers that were much higher than the
whole garrison. Contrary to the Earl of Kingston, Essex was not preoccupied but added that
they met peaceably and in no way disorderly for what he saw no reason to act against
them.1256 Only during the time of the Popish Plot were most of the Catholic families actually
banned from the city what caused Lord Lieutenant Ormond in 1679 to complain that most
houses of the town were deserted and ruined since the Protestant population was not
numerous enough to fill them with life. In order to avoid heavier economic damages he gave
order that the old merchant families should have their houses returned as long as they posed
no threat to the city’s security.1257 This is a remarkable case of official acknowledgement of
the need for Catholic inhabitants in Irish cities, perhaps even provoked by the Catholic
community. By actually leaving the town they demonstrated their power and economic
importance for the whole region thus forcing the Protestant government to react in their favor.
1252
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid., pp. 13-4.
1254
HMC, The Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, preserved at the Castle, Kilkenny, Fourteenth Report,
Appendix, Part 7, vol. 1, pp. 51-2.
1255
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 166-7. Bolster, Diocese of Cork, p. 261.
1256
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 36.
1257
Hardiman, History of Galway, p. 149.
1253
281
In any case, it underlines the fact that Irish cities were in desperate need of the Catholic
population, especially in those parts of the island where urban settlements were scarce.
Similar to Limerick, the Catholic community of Galway seems not to have had the intention
of hiding their confession or at least keeping it low. Exemplary for this self-confidence
Galway was the only place where a nunnery existed with certainty during the Restoration
period as the Earl of Longford had to report after visiting the town in 1683. He complained
heavily about the indiscretion of the Catholics who kept four mass-houses in the town, and
although his hosts assured him that such grievances would soon be remedied he had little
hope that things would actually change.1258 Longford’s trip to Galway illustrated that the
power of the Protestant government was only tolerated as long as an official representative
was in place.1259 Once he left the local garrison the few Protestant inhabitants posed no further
threat to the Catholics and a sort of non-aggression agreement seems to have been made,
although with far more liberties than in the confessionally parallel societies of the cities of the
first category.1260
The unique urban status of Galway in the Connaught area originated a tradition of a variety of
large Catholic teaching facilities since young Catholics were sent to the city from all parts of
Galway, Mayo, and Clare. The city’s wealth paid for teachers of high quality that were
famous throughout Ireland such as Alexander Lynch who taught in the first half of the
seventeenth century.1261 Visitators of the school had to admit “how well his schollers profited
under him, by versions and orations which they presented us”, realizing how valuable such a
man could be had he been a Protestant.1262 Galway was as well the only urban Jesuit residence
in Connaught or Ulster but little reference to it has survived. One member of the Society
1258
HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormond preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series,
vol. VII, pp. 114-5. Burke, Penal Times, p. 69.
1259
This concept of temporary conformity seems to have a long tradition especially in the south-western towns
of Ireland. Brendan Bradshaw demonstrated that already in the context of the Reformation the city
representatives conformed to the newly administered oaths and the religion by law established always as long as
a representative of the crown remained in the town. Once he left nothing indicates that instructions were further
complied with. Cf. Bradshaw, Reformation in the Cities, p. 453.
1260
Oliver Plunkett estimated in 1673 that two thirds of the city’s population was Catholic and only one third
Protestant. He considered the majority of the Catholics very poor but praised in the same letter the fact that they
supported up to three convents and that the church of the Dominicans was the most ornate church in the whole
country. Even if some money came from the Earl of Clanricarde most of it must have been contributed by the
local citizens. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 367-8. In 1665 the Jesuits of Galway reported that
the Earl of Clanricarde had given them the huge sum of 10.000 florenos for their residence which would make it
even more improbable that the other orders or the Catholic wardens would have received something as well.
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
1261
Lynch, De Praesulibus Hiberniae, vol. 2, pp. 183-4.
1262
Dowling, Hedge Schools of Ireland, p. 18. Quoted from O’Flaherty, West or H-Iar Connaught, p. 215.
282
remained in the city during the 1650s and re-opened a school for literature before 1662.1263 In
that year John Talbot, Maurice Ward, and Stephen Brown were registered for Galway,
although it was likely some of them were working in the city’s periphery and not inside it.1264
This was underlined by an annotation from the 1663 Litterae Annuae in which was
announced the death of Maurice Ward that left the Galway residence unattended for a short
time before two new members would arrive.1265 Until 1666 the residence regained its strength
incorporating three members, Richard Burke, a relative of the Archbishop of Tuam, Stephen
Brown, and Dominic Kirwan and they still resided in the city in 1669.1266 Thus, Catholic
education existed in Galway in great variety, given the diversity of Catholic orders and the
additional structure of the wardenship. All these schools were quite well-funded but little
further reference to their quality can be found. They were comparably large institutions
serving students from the whole province, Galway being the only relevant urban residence in
Connaught. However, it would seem as if the Galway teachers cannot be compared to the
high-standard teachers of some cities of the East of Ireland that labored in a situation of
constant challenge by the equally well-trained Protestant teachers. Since such teachers were
not to be found in Limerick nor in Galway, they were not as successful as they might have
been in a confessionally competitive ambience.
In conclusion, Galway was a good example for the ambivalent confessional circumstances in
Restoration Ireland. Normally it was a Catholic-dominated town and although the city’s
officials were Protestant they had little means to interfere with the open profession of Catholic
beliefs. Only when the government intruded from outside be it by force, such as in 1678 ,
because of fear or by official control such as when the Earl of Longford visited the town, the
Catholic community tried at least to comply and behave themselves as loyal subjects.
As has been shown, Limerick and Galway enjoyed a status of some political independence.
Although all the important political offices were occupied by Protestants and there was
always a garrison stationed, the numbers of the Protestant settlers were just too small to run
the cities without Catholic support. Underlined by the Earl of Essex’ commentary, not even
the military force of the garrisons was enough to secure the local Protestant interest in case of
a rebellion which led to a higher degree of confessional toleration. Since the few Protestant
settlers would not risk their lives by excluding the Catholics from community life the Catholic
1263
Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 1, p. 436.
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, fo. 147r.
1265
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v./261v.
1266
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 271.
1264
283
majority could mostly act without interference. The case of the devastated town of Galway
after the actual expulsion of the Catholics could theoretically also be understood as a
demonstration of power by those Catholics who left. Since only after such a short time the
city proved unable to survive the magistrate and even the central government in Dublin had to
invite them back in as the Galway harbor was too important to leave it unsettled.
Despite this considerable degree of confessional tolerance Catholic education was not as
prominent in Limerick or Galway as might have been expected. Similar to the surrounding
rural areas of Connaught the general poverty of the area can be one explanation. On the other
hand Galway was especially difficult to reach not only for the Protestant authorities in Dublin
but also for Jesuit teachers coming from the continent. No other explanation can be given for
the singular case of a temporarily unoccupied residence where in other times up to three
members labored. Once a member died or left the town for the countryside it could take
months until the changes were communicated to the Superior of the mission and
reinforcement arrived at the town. In conclusion Catholic education in Limerick and Galway
was mostly undisturbed but it seems as if the given tranquility did not lead to such intellectual
prosperity that could be found in other places where a vivid competition with the local
Protestant schoolmasters could develop.
Cities of open confessional competition
While some Irish cities with a large Protestant population were more fiercely under the
control of the Crown, other cities such as Galway and Limerick were characterized by only
little Protestant interference in educational matters. Hence, the so-called frontiers of faith
were only marginally felt in these cities. While in Dublin and the southern ports, Catholic
educators adapted themselves quickly to the general political and confessional circumstances
trying not to attract any attention, Catholic community life in the western towns ignored the
presence of a heterodox authority at all. The most outstanding performances of Catholic urban
education in Restoration Ireland, however, were to be found in those cities that had a very
vivid Protestant community, sometimes even at close distance to Dublin and where Protestant
schoolmasters enjoyed widespread recognition. In these cities it would seem that the frontier
of faith was running right through the communities without dividing them completely. In the
case of Kilkenny it must be said that the confessional competition stimulated the
interconfessional community life while the local landlord, the Duke of Ormond, turned a
blind eye to Catholic activities. The examples of this last group of cities can generally be
categorized into three subgroups depending on different circumstances under which they
developed. In the exemplary case of Drogheda it was not the Catholic community of the city
284
that stimulated educational prosperity, but the close distance to Dublin where Catholic
teaching of higher standards was impossible. The local support from Protestant Drogheda
citizens in combination with the support of the Earl of Drogheda, a relative of the Catholic
Archbishop of Armagh Oliver Plunkett and initiator of the school, guaranteed the political
survival and economic well-being for the institution at least for a while. Other cities of a
second subgroup as for example New Ross in County Wexford had only a small Catholic
community but the outstanding teaching performances of local Catholic teachers made the
school a place to go for most Protestants in the surrounding area and even Protestant students
from England and France. And finally a third group exemplified by the city of Kilkenny had
the unique political circumstances under the protection of the powerful Butler clan which
allowed for the development of high standard Catholic as well as Protestant schools that
existed in open rivalry attracting scholars from all over the country. It was in these urban
subgroups where Catholic education flourished most during the Restoration period and it was
there where interconfessional activity or confessional indifference created the most
astonishing results in the fields of learning and knowledge.
The only place north of Dublin where Jesuit education can be proved was Drogheda.
Apparently there was also a Catholic school in the nearby city of Athlone1267 but little proof
of it exists. The school at Drogheda was the only one that has ever been looked at before in
the essays of Timothy Corcoran during the first half of the twentieth century.1268 For Corcoran
it was of certain interest because he regarded it as a foundation of Saint Oliver Plunkett.
Indeed, when the Archbishop started his initiative he had Jesuit teachers brought up North
from other residences in the South and acquired a house where the school could be installed
and where the teachers lived. But as further research has revealed by now there had already
been Jesuit presence in the area of Drogheda before the arrival of Oliver Plunkett. In 1665 a
Jesuit was reported to assist the local parish priest in his duties by catechizing and further
teaching.1269 He was still resident there the following year when Ignatius Carbery appeared in
the list of members of the Jesuit mission for Drogheda.1270 Consequently the archbishop’s
foundation that was considered so revolutionary by Corcoran was nothing new at the time.
1267
MacLysaght, Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century, p. 303, CSPI, 1669/70, p. 226.
Corcoran dealt with the Drogheda schools in several essays, the most summarizing being Blessed Oliver
Plunkett and His Irish Jesuit Schools, in: Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 30, No. 119 (Sep., 1941), pp.
415-424.
1269
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
1270
Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff. 148rv, 149v. One member, probably
Carbery, was still in the town in 1669 according to the Litterae Annuae of that year: ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 271.
1268
285
But still, the fact that a bishop provided for a number of Jesuits to teach in a certain place was
something unique to Irish Catholic education and in the history of the Irish Jesuits. While the
archbishop still disposed of sufficient financial means, the school was expanding and
although the numbers have to be doubted it may be assumed that it was way larger than the
existing schools in Dublin or most other Jesuit schools in Ireland at the time. Thanks to the
archbishop’s letters and the Jesuit reports researchers are well informed of that school and its
integration into the society of a city of which Plunkett himself had written that there were
only a few Catholics in it. In April 1670 he totaled the number of inhabitants to be 6,000,
among them only a small percentage of Catholics. The nearby city of Dundalk he estimated
2,000 inhabitants with no more than a quarter of them Catholics.1271 Even if all the numbers
according to the population of the city and the multitude of students are incorrect, it may be
understood that Drogheda was a place with comparatively many Protestants owed to its
proximity to Dublin and the English coast and that the school revitalized by Oliver Plunkett
was one of the largest teaching facilities of Jesuit origin in seventeenth century Ireland.
The main problem with the Drogheda school is that it only existed for a short time between
July 1670 and December 1673. Considering that schools in Dublin were presumably in
existence throughout the whole Restoration period and that many other Jesuit schools existed
for more than ten years, Drogheda was not only one of the largest but also one of the shortestlived Jesuit schools in the Restoration period.1272 Although there were several reasons for the
closure of the school, it is easy to imagine that such a large institution could not willingly be
overseen by the authorities once persecution was tightened as the Dublin Jesuits feared for
themselves. In this regard, the Drogheda school was not too different from the first urban
category of cities under close watch of the Protestant government. Because of its proximity to
Dublin it could not for long enjoy the interconfessional competition and toleration it was
characterized by in the early 1670s. Nevertheless, its organization, interconfessional open
support, and its sheer size demand that Drogheda is classified among this third category.
The Jesuit school, however, was not the only Catholic school in town. When Plunkett visited
the city in 1670 there were three more convents of other religious orders to be found, one of
the Franciscans, one of the Dominicans and one of the Capuchins. Another Franciscan
convent was located in Dundalk. Given that both cities are not far from one another that made
1271
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 73-75.
Although three years were not a long existence the Drogheda school however forms a different category than
for example the Jesuit foundation at Saggart near Dublin which was closed just after a few weeks. The three
years of existence deliver sufficient inside material to conclude that it was a wholly developed school fully
integrated into the Drogheda society despite its early dissolution.
1272
286
a total of five or six Catholics schools in the walled towns of County Louth, hence an
impressive density of Catholic teaching facilities comparable to any Protestant teaching
network in the area.
The importance of the Drogheda site was the fact that there was a Protestant schoolmaster at
Drogheda as well and that Plunkett considered a school in County Louth as extremely
necessary in order to keep Catholic children from visiting Protestants schools.1273 Thus it may
be concluded that the Protestant schoolmaster active in Drogheda was well qualified. No such
reference exists from cities of the second category although we know that Protestant teachers
did reside in Galway as well as in Limerick. But neither in the bishops’ letters from there nor
from the Jesuit reports do we hear of fears that these teachers might actually attract Catholic
students. Consequently it can be assumed that the teaching standard offered by Protestant
teachers in County Louth was a considerable alternative. In this the city also differed from the
periphery around it as has been analyzed before since in the rural parts of the County
Catholic, basic teaching was the only existing option. During the 1670s basic Catholic
education was well-provided for the cities of Drogheda and Dundalk but it was necessary to
invite the highly qualified Jesuit teachers to have Protestant children visit a Catholic school
and thus securing its political and financial survival.1274 Different to the Jesuit strategy in
cities such as Dublin, Cork, and Waterford, Oliver Plunkett saw the possibility in the County
Louth cities to establish large and public Catholic schools that survived because they were
visible. The publicity of the school and the quality of its teachers guaranteed the attendance of
Protestant children and consequently created a public element of society that even the
adherents of different confessions would not want to miss.
When the residence was built in summer 1670, it was named St. Ignatius and according to
Plunkett, the number of students soon reached 150 along with 25 ecclesiastics.1275 The
schoolhouse additionally had some rooms for boarding students but we do not have further
1273
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 73-75. A further reference to one of the convents in Drogheda
can be found in D’Alton, History of Drogheda, vol. 2, p. 293. According to him, there was a school in one of the
houses at least until 1678 when the teacher, a Mr. O’Heyn was expelled from the city. From the Trinity College
matriculation records it appears that there was only one Protestant teacher in Drogheda and only since 1681. His
teaching, however, can be estimated as of high standard since in such a short time period he sent 19 graduated on
to the College. Cf. Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublinenses.
1274
Plunkett expressed special pride on the fact that the local Protestants who feared and hated the Jesuits that
much had agreed to send their children to them once they saw how good the school was. Hanly, The letters of
Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 331-2.
1275
In other letters from 1672 he declared that the number of clerical students had by then reached 53. To
Propaganda, 26th April 1671 and 27th Sept. 1671, in: Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, pp.
117/122. The erection was welcomed by the Catholic clergy assembled in provincial synod 8th October that year
as well. Ibid., Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2, p. 211.
287
descriptions of the building.1276 Three Jesuits followed Plunkett’s invitation, Stephen Rice,
Ignatius Browne, and a very young Jesuit of the name Murphy.1277 In September 1670 Carlo
Francesco Airoldi, internuncio in Brussels, referred to another Jesuit named Thomas Barton
for whom Plunkett had asked permission to be freely employed wherever he was needed but
this name never appeared again.1278 Shortly after the opening of the school the staff was
supplemented by Edward Drumgoole, a young cleric from Plunkett’s own staff.1279 There
were still three Jesuits and Mr. Drumgoole active in Drogheda in 1672.1280
Contrary to what Plunkett himself reported in his letters, the Jesuits told a different tale of the
first months of the school. According to the Litterae Annuae people could hardly believe at
the beginning that the teachers should have travelled so far in order to teach their children for
free. Most of them had never seen a Jesuit before and only a few students attended classes
during the first two weeks. Once the others realized that no contract or anything had to be
signed and no fees were exacted from them, hundreds of parents were ready to send their
children.1281
By June the archbishop was glad to report to Rome that the standard was so high that many
Protestants sent their sons to them, what he considered a guarantee for the residence’s safety
as those would protect the school “whenever some minor officials exert themselves to cause
trouble.”1282 In addition to the 150 Catholic boys that were taught in the school he referred to
forty sons of Protestants.1283 Apparently Plunkett used the quality of the teachers for his
strategy that no Protestant would harm them if only enough sent their children to the school as
well.1284 This might as well explain why he dared to settle the school in a place with so many
Protestants, so close to Dublin. In fact, the vicinity to Dublin was a special objective of the
archbishop since no larger school was allowed in the capital.1285 What he himself called a
1276
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 281.
Rice had been educated in Flanders before he returned to Ireland, Browne received his formation in Spain.
Murphy left the school after some time and was replaced by the Jesuit Dermot Cronin. Hanly, The letters of
Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 350-1. Cf. Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 82-84. From Hogan Transcripts, folios 757,
779-781, 783, 787. Finegan, Stephen Gellous, p. 37. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 300-302.
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 278v.
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, p. 197.
1278
Millett, Calendar of volume II of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 2, p. 29.
1279
Edward Drumgoole was to be acting as vicar apostolic of the archdiocese after the execution of Oliver
Plunkett. Before he came to the Drogheda schools he had already acted as vicar general of the diocese of
Clogher before the newly nominated Bishop Tyrrell arrived. Mac Phóil, The clergy of Oliver Plunkett, p. 50.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 300-302.
1280
Ibid., p. 318.
1281
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279.
1282
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 127-8/202.
1283
Ibid., pp. 350-1.
1284
Ibid., pp. 186-7/331-2.
1285
Ibid., p. 318.
1277
288
“risky project” seemed not too risky as the viceroy Berkeley as well as the Protestant
Archbishop of Armagh had given their consent for the construction of the school, once
Plunkett had declared that they would not teach disobedience to the king or exert papal
jurisdiction.1286
The legal security that he enjoyed for a time was supplemented by the financial support of the
local gentry with most of whom Plunkett was related or had friendly connections. In summer
1670 the Jesuits received a payment of 600 florenos, given in parts from the archbishop, the
clergy, and Propaganda Fide according to the Jesuit report.1287 But after some time the
financial support seems to have decreased or the project of the archbishop was just too large
to be sustained. Plunkett admitted in a letter that his relative Nicholas Plunkett, whom he
characterized as one of the richest men in the county, had grown tired of the financial
support.1288 But it has to be taken into account that the Jesuits and their school were invariably
provisioned by the archbishop. For the first two years he paid them the sum of 125 pounds,
which would be 60 pounds per annum. Of course, there were Protestant schoolmasters in the
realm that earned more and the Jesuits were three but it was certainly enough to make a
decent living.1289 Even with the approval of most of the Protestants in Drogheda, Jesuit
teaching was still free. When Plunkett secretly demanded student fees of two florenos this
caused a major scandal among the Jesuits and Plunkett had to procure some new money quick
to return the fees to the parents before the residence would have dissolved itself.1290 The
problem of insufficient funding remained urgent until the dissolution of the school in 1673. It
underlined the difficulty to raise sufficient money from the Catholic communities who
already had to finance their parish priests. The building with two to three teachers was so
expensive that even with the support of so many Protestants, it was impossible to secure
adequate provisions without accepting student fees.
The schedule for teaching was described in much detail by Plunkett and the Jesuits as well.
The clerical students had a one hour class in the morning and one in the afternoon by one of
the fathers who instructed them in cases of morality and in the manner of teaching and
catechizing. Another two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon were designated to
1286
Ibid., pp. 186-7. Especially Margetson was renowned for his “eirenic, or perhaps unconcerned, posture”
towards Protestant dissent and Catholicism as Jim Smyth underlines. Ibid.: The Communities of Ireland and
British State, 1660-1707, in: Brendan Bradshaw/John Morrill (eds.): The British Problem, c. 1534-1707. State
Formation in the Atlantic Archipelago, Basingstoke 1996, pp. 246-261, p. 251.
1287
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279v.
1288
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 186-7.
1289
Ibid., p. 383.
1290
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 280v.281.
289
rhetoric. The other Jesuit taught syntax and concordances. The lay boys had classes in rhetoric
and humanities as well as syntax and concordances like the clerics. On feast days and
vacations they were taught the ceremonies and how to administer the sacraments. Plunkett
would have liked to offer more such as philosophy, theology, or controversy but the quantity
of teachers was not sufficient.1291 Since Ignatius Brown was praised by Plunkett for his
teaching in English grammar and Father Murphy for his domination of the Irish tongue it
could also be possible that both languages were taught in addition to Latin.1292 Originally the
school was divided into two classes but once additional students came it was soon extended to
four. The children were taught the humanities with the ambition that everyone should have
some basic knowledge after half a year.1293 Despite all these improvements, Plunkett was
aware that the clerical formation he offered in Ireland could not be enough. A year after the
school had opened he summed up that “the result of this will be that I shall have adequate
parish priests, but not men fit to be leaders or to hold controversy with Protestant ministers or
laity.”1294 He could improve the level of knowledge of his future clergy but he still saw the
gap between Tridentine Catholicism instructed in Rome and the traditional formation that the
mass of the Irish clergy obtained while in Ireland. On the other side he had come to realize
that a Catholic school in Ireland would only be tolerated if the output was no danger to the
Protestant church.1295 In the end the school was a compromise of which it is difficult to say
who profited more from it.
The cohabitation with the local Protestants did not come without difficulties. While many sent
their children to attend the classes, it was especially the school for clerics that rose suspicions
among many others who feared too much Catholic influence in the city.1296 The complaints
finally reached the magistrate of the city who was not pleased about the differences but had to
agree to closer examine the school. In an almost gleeful way the Litterae Annuae describe his
visit to the school that was officially secret but of which the Jesuits had been forewarned.
They sent away the older clerical students and staged a harmless class of young children
learning to read and write so that the magistrate was himself the witness of the
1291
To Propaganda, 26th April 1671 and 27th Sept. 1671, in Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver
Plunkett, pp. 117/122. As well in Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 186-7.
1292
Ibid., pp. 350-1.
1293
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 279279v.
1294
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 247.
1295
Plunkett underlined in several letters, that the children would only be taught in Christian doctrine and
literature, “that thus they might be useful for the State, and for the service of the King, and that otherwise they
would become vagrants, and highway robbers, and disturbers of the social order.” Letter from 12th November
1673, in Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, p. 82.
1296
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 281.
290
inoffensiveness of the school.1297 True or not the story fits the image of the reluctance of
officials to deal with Catholics and their schools, partly because of the mutual benefit these
institutions brought with them, and partly because there was little they could do about them.
Similar to what happened in Dublin the Jesuit missionaries were helpful to the Protestant
governors when it came to abolish civil disorder. They overrode swearing and heavy drinking
among the Catholics as well as gambling.1298 If there was no general political crisis as in 1673
when the schools were finally forced to close, the local support of some influential members
of the gentry and wealthy merchants was sufficient to guarantee a peaceful co-existence.1299
After the dissolution of the school, there is astonishingly no proof of further attempts of the
Society to re-open it as happened in many other places presumably because of the devastated
finances of the archbishop. When Nicholas Netterville was questioned by the Protestant
Bishop of Meath in 1678, he mentioned Hugh Johnson as the only one living north of
Dublin.1300 According to Leonard Howard a Jesuit school existed in the town between 1680
and 1682 but Howard did not name any sources for this assumption.1301 Mr. Johnson may
have been identical to a Father Thally because both names appear in some documents. It was
this Mr. Thally who rented a house and ruined church in St. Saviour’s Row in Drogheda in
1687 under James II in order to open a school there.1302 Given the constancy of localities that
the Jesuit order cultivated in Ireland, it may be that this was the exact place where Oliver
Plunkett’s school was founded in 1670. In conclusion, The Drogheda school was successful in
its attempt to establish public and visible Catholic teaching in a city which was predominantly
Protestant. The quality offered and the fact that it was free persuaded a great number of local
Protestants to tolerate the Jesuit teachers and even a Jesuit school for Catholic clerics. The
project, however, remained fragile since it depended on financial supply that could not for
long be guaranteed by the Catholic archbishop. Charging the Protestant students was
unacceptable to the Jesuit teachers and would also have weakened that school’s public
acceptance. Eventually, the financially unstable institution was located so close to Dublin and
the center of Protestant rule over Ireland that despite the local support by many Protestants, it
did not survive the first grave political unrest. Its three-year existence, however, underlines
the general demand for high standard Catholic teaching on an interconfessional level
surmounting any frontier of faith.
1297
Ibid., fo. 281.
Ibid., fo. 281v.
1299
The school had to close eventually in November 1673. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 389.
1300
Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
1301
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, pp. 197-8.
1302
Mac Phóil, The clergy of Oliver Plunkett, p. 61.
1298
291
Exemplary for the second subgroup stands the city of New Ross, a merchant town between
Kilkenny and Wexford. The city’s Jesuit school can be doubtlessly described as the most
renowned of the Restoration period, a fact that guaranteed its continued support from local
Protestants. According to the Litterae Annuae the school even attracted Protestant students
from England and France thus surmounting every confessional frontier there may have been.
The school at New Ross is also the best documented Jesuit school in all Ireland. This
documentation is mostly owned to its leading character, Stephen Gellosse, the most famous
among the Jesuit teachers in the Restoration period. Large parts of the Litterae Annuae were
dedicated to his work in New Ross before and after the Restoration which gives us a vivid
insight into the daily life of an Irish Jesuit teacher of that time and his dealings with the
Protestant authorities in his resident town. This was interesting because Gellosse did not
possess the proper connections to the gentry, merchant families, or the government, such as
Oliver Plunkett, Stephen Rice, or Thomas Quircke. If the reports are true he was totally
dependent on local financial support coming mostly from Protestants who esteemed his work
as a teacher, thus excluding nearly all the political circumstances.
Gellosse was born in 1613 in Dublin and entered the Jesuit order on 17th March 16391303 at
Mechelen. His father was no nobleman but a carpenter who sent him to the school of one
Edmund Doyle, a secular cleric. He continued his studies in the Dublin residence of the
Jesuits until he was sent to the continent where he studied, being ordained as a priest in 1643
in Antwerp. He then returned to Ireland where he labored as a teacher in the Kilkenny Jesuit
school. On a trip to Waterford in 1650 he met the son of a nobleman who asked him for help
with his dying father near New Ross. Gellosse accompanied him to his hometown and stayed
there during the whole period of the Commonwealth.1304 As soon as he could, he started a
small school there accompanied by a chapel in a forest where he taught the catechism.1305 The
school was re-opened or expanded by him in 1660 shortly after the Restoration and lasted
until 1670 when it was dissolved for a short time. Gellosse went to Dublin where he taught in
the Jesuit school at Saggart before he returned to New Ross in August 1673.1306 The reopened school was not as successful as it had been before and was closed again in the same
year although it cannot be said if for lack of money and students or for the intervention of the
1303
His date and place of birth is given differently by McDonnell. According to him Gellosse was born in 1614
in County Meath but Dublin seems more likely given his education in the city. The profession of his father
makes a living in the capital probable as well. Cf. McDonnell, early Irish Jesuits, pp. 328-9.
1304
Finegan, Stephen Gellous, pp. 30-1. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae
Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 272v.
1305
Ibid., fo. 273v.
1306
Hore, Town and County of Wexford, vol. 1, pp. 100-1.
292
old Protestant opposition.1307 If Gellosse kept on teaching in private or what happened to him
is uncertain. According to the final document in which he appeared, he remained in New Ross
until 1678. After that his trace was lost.1308
New Ross had come into the possession of Arthur Annesley, Earl of Anglesey and was
consequently not controlled by a resident landlord who pursued political interests as was the
case for example in Kilkenny.1309 A Jesuit residence was established between 1625 and 1629
before the parish of St. Michael’s came under Jesuit administration in 1649. It was in that
time that a local school first became famous for its classical teaching. The parish church was
in ruins by 1684 when Robert Leigh described the town but he still mentioned that it was
formerly “made use of by the Jesuits”.1310
The cohabitation in New Ross shifted between the political extremes. Gellosse and his
companions were forced to repeatedly appear before the magistrate or the bishop and the
school was temporarily closed. But other citizens favored their teaching so much that they
always returned and were never actually harmed. The permanent sympathy of many local
Protestants even surprised the superior of the Jesuit mission as he admitted in his 1664 report.
Since most of the other residences also received support from Protestants, the emphasis laid
on the situation in New Ross stands out as something extraordinary.1311 In the same year it
was reported from the town that the local mayor was very hostile to the school and all the
Catholics. In consequence the school was divided into four different private houses outside
the city walls.1312 This case of division of schools in order to reduce their size to a level that
was tolerable by the Protestant officials was similar to the Jesuit accommodation strategy in
the cities of the first category. To find this in a small city as New Ross, however, is
astonishing and underlines the importance of the school and its teacher, Stephen Gellosse.
Considering that the Dublin micro-schools never exceeded the size of thirty students,
Gellosse’s school must have been notably larger before its temporary subdivision.
In the beginning the school had only been a small cottage in the woods three miles outside the
city where a few children could find a place. In 1663 there were no more than 29 students in
it.1313 After the Restoration Gellosse was joined by a second member of the Society, the later
1307
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 283.
Finegan, Stephen Gellous, p. 37. Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
1309
Hore, A Chorographic account, p. 453.
1310
Ibid., Town and County of Wexford, vol. 1, pp. 74/100/367-8. Corish, County Wexford, p. 228.
1311
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 264.
1312
Ibid., fo. 263v.
1313
Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260. There were detailed
descriptions of this first school in a special segment of the Litterae Annuae compiled in 1674. For example the
1308
293
famous Stephen Rice who compiled many of the Litterae Annuae as the Superior of the Irish
mission, and the school expanded.1314 First they had a new house built in the same place. Up
to 120 children were taught at a time, 35 of whom were boarding students; 17 of these
boarders were of the Protestant confession.1315 The money for the house was offered by a
Protestant captain and local Justice of the Peace who asked the Jesuits to educate his two sons
in return. If they agreed he would build the house and allow all other children to participate in
the classes. But the house was not only for teaching. There was one room for assemblies and
plays and another part of the house was used by Gellosse and Rice as an infirmary. This again
underlines the value that a well-equipped Jesuit residence could have for a town and its
Protestant inhabitants as they performed public welfare that was not offered by the
government.1316 Another Protestant citizen paid for the interior of the house. By 1665 the
school even possessed a library.1317
Although information exists that Gellosse was not very eager to admit Protestants in the
beginning, he was likely convinced by the necessities of finance. Only few Protestant students
were willing to convert; among the first group of students there were only two who changed
their confession.1318 The fact that these numbers are explicitly mentioned seems to indicate
that the numbers were generally realistic. There would be no reason why Gellosse should
have exaggerated the number of students which would have made the converts seem even less
important. In the school Gellosse endeavored to apply the usual Jesuit teaching. He was
famous for his Greek classes that were demanded from many parents and he prided himself of
the high number of alumni that had become academics. Famous were the plays he and his
house had a hidden room that could only be entered through a secret door in the back of a wardrobe to hide from
persecutors. Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 276v.
1314
Rice was born in Dingle, County Kerry, in 1625 and joined the order in Kilkenny in 1648. Subsequently he
was educated on the continent before he returned to Ireland in 1662 to join the New Ross residence. He first
became Superior of the Mission in 1672 and died in Dublin in 1699. McDonnell, early Irish Jesuits, p. 330.
1315
Raymond Gillespie summarized the output of the school in the 1660s with 45 alumni of whom only 18 were
Catholic but 27 Protestant. Gillespie, Church, State, and Education, pp. 49-50.
1316
Astonishingly the Jesuit could choose in those days between several offers of support. Another Protestant
captain had offered them a place for a school in reward for teaching his children but Gellosse declined his offer
as ridiculous since the father did not even want his children to be taught the Lord’s Prayer. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo.
262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 263-263v. Ibid., fo.
258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260.
1317
Ibid., Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
1318
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 82-84. Finegan, Stephen Gellous, pp. 34-5. (Unfortunately Finegan does not
quote his sources) Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, pp. 202-3. As has been mentioned before low
conversion rates in cases where Protestants attended Jesuit schools are reported from continental territories as
well. Andreas Lindner argues in the case of the Jesuit school at Erfurt that the Jesuits laid more emphasis on a
peaceful co-existence and the transmission of knowledge than an aggressive Counter-Reformation. Cf. Lindner,
Schulwesen Erfurts, pp. 43-4, 49.
294
students staged in the city of New Ross.1319 While many enjoyed the output of his work,
Gellosse made himself many enemies among the Protestant community as well, or so it
seems. In 1666 he was legally accused of being a Catholic schoolmaster but when the Jesuit
proved that he had never taken any student’s fees the judge saw no reason to convict him but
suspended his teaching to what he obeyed for three days. Then several influential Protestants
assured him of their unconditional support so he could resume his post.1320
In 1668 the
situation in the city had relaxed so much that the school could first be established within the
city walls. In the last phase of the school the Jesuits had even 25 boarding students from
outside of Ireland, from England and France, seven of whom were Protestants. Two of the
foreign students had converted to Catholicism by the end of the year.1321 But again Gellosse
was cited before the Protestant Archbishop and prohibited to teach for two months. In the
meantime his companion took over the classes.1322 Subsequently the residence was reinforced
with another member. In the 1669 report of the Litterae Annuae three members were
mentioned for the city of New Ross although no names were given and the third brother did
not appear elsewhere.1323 In summary it can be stated that the Jesuit school enjoyed
widespread support among the local Protestant community although it must not be neglected
that Gellosse had certain enemies among the city officials that continued to disavow the
institution. Their radicalism in opposing the school exceeded the opposition faced in other
cities of the third category, leading to legal convictions. This could be explained by the
apparent lack of any serious Protestant teaching alternative, although at least for some years
there was a Protestant schoolmaster living in the town. No matriculates at Trinity College had
previously attended a Protestant school in New Ross.1324 Consequently convinced Protestants
who would not send their children to Catholic teachers for confessional reasons must have felt
excluded and disadvantaged, thus aiming at an equalization of chances by dissolving the
Catholic school as well.
Despite this fierce opposition, the public acceptance of the school and the confessional
tolerance thus displayed can best be seen with Jesuit theatre plays that formed an important
1319
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 263v. Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 82-84.
1320
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo.
266v. Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 276v.-277.
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 82-84.
1321
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 276v.
1322
Ibid.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 277v-278. Corcoran, State Policy,
pp. 82-84.
1323
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad
exitum anni 1674, fo. 271.
1324
Compare Burtchaeli, Alumni Dublinenses.
295
part of the school activities. In his dramaturgical involvement, Gellosse underlined that he
intended to have his classes no different from any other Jesuit school on the continent. A first
play of the name Musa in Iberniam reduces was staged in 1664.1325 But the dramatical output
of the school reached its peak after it had been transferred into the city. In 1669 a tragedy was
staged in the chief square of the town with official approval by the mayor and other city
officials. It lasted three hours, had a rich decoration, and was enjoyed by Protestants and
Catholics alike.1326
But after these interconfessional highlights the political climate in the city must have
changed. In 1670 a great opposition rose led by the local Protestant schoolmaster.1327 The
school was forced to close for some time under heavy complaints of those who had enjoyed
the benefits of it before. Finegan cites an unquoted source that commented: “They bewailed
the fact that their boys would now be deprived of a good education. For it was well known
that boys in great numbers were shaped in a brief space of time at the school (...).”1328
Different to most other Jesuit residences in the country the three fathers left New Ross
completely and did not just go into hiding. Gellosse went to Dublin to labor in the newly
founded school by Archbishop Talbot while Rice became schoolmaster at Plunkett’s school in
Drogheda. The third father who had been the last to join them went on to Waterford.1329 Since
there was a Protestant schoolmaster in New Ross the Protestant support for Gellosse clearly
demonstrated his abilities. But it also documented the internal divisions between the
Protestant Irish into those who cared less about confession for the benefit of the education of
their children and those that would never tolerate any Catholic teacher of whatever quality.
Surely it has to be taken into account, that many of those who had officially converted to
Protestantism in the last decades may have remained inwardly Catholic. At a time when no
actual repressions for Catholics were to be feared, it may have been tempting for those to
raise their children in the old faith.
The New Ross school outlines the possibilities that Catholic teaching had in several cities of
Ireland if only the teaching offered met the requirements of the local population. The rich
endowments Gellosse and the other fathers received from prominent Protestants also
demonstrate the public’s wish for teaching services on a certain level, regardless of the
1325
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall, fo. 263.
Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 278.
1327
Corcoran, State Policy, pp. 82-84.
1328
Finegan, Stephen Gellous, pp. 36-7. Most likely the quote is the English translation of the Latin original of
the Litterae Annuae. Cf. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum
anni 1674, fo. 278v.
1329
Ibid., fo. 278v.
1326
296
confessional backgrounds. If the quality of the teacher and the popular demand for teaching
coincided with a political environment that was not completely anti-Catholic and
geographically not at the immediate reach of higher Protestant authorities, Catholic schools
could easily grow to considerable size and fame and exist for a longer time period.
The third subgroup represented by the city of Kilkenny was more than all other Irish cities
characterized by an open interconfessional competition. The unique historical, economic,
political, and personal local conditions all favored an ambience that allowed both Catholic
and Protestant schools to flourish nearly without any interruption despite all edicts, laws, and
crises. During the 1640s Kilkenny had not only been the capital of the Confederation but also
the center of Catholic teaching with large institutions, supervised by the Jesuit order.1330
Fourteen members of the order resided in the town until its fall and the fathers initiated a
Sodality of the Blessed Virgin for the most renowned citizens.1331 Then as after the
Restoration Kilkenny was the home town to the Duke of Ormond, James Butler, who was
willing to support Protestant schools in a more committed way than many others in Ireland
while at the same time, Catholicism enjoyed certain toleration in these areas.
The Jesuit school in Kilkenny was re-opened between 1658-1662 when Thomas Quirck
returned to the city and was joined by James Tobin.1332 The school they established was
located on Back Lane in the parish of St. Mary’s.1333 Quirck was very well-connected in the
County; he was esteemed by Ormond himself which guaranteed him a degree of security. But
contrary to most of the southern merchant towns, there was no native Jesuit coming from
Kilkenny although the city had a long tradition as a Jesuit residence.1334
Kilkenny prospered shortly after the Restoration and soon regained much wealth that had
been lost in the decades of war.1335 The Irishtown outside the city gates especially flourished.
In 1667 there were 73 freemen of Catholic confession offering the same goods and services as
their Protestant counterparts within the city walls. Two years later this number had increased
to 104 among whom there were 27 citizens.1336 These numbers document that a growing
group of Catholic middle-class established itself in Kilkenny whose confession seems not to
1330
Leonard, A University for Kilkenny, p. 17.
Ibid., pp. 51-53.
1332
Both appear in the 1662 list of members of the mission as well in that from 1666. Pontifical Irish College
Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f. 147r. Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, ff.
148rv, 149v.
1333
Finegan, Jesuits in Kilkenny, pp. 19-20.
1334
Ibid., pp. 20-1.
1335
Despite all political crises the Restoration period was a time of comparable economic prosperity for many in
the British Isles and the increasing wealth reached increasing groups of an originating middle class. Cf. Glassey,
Introduction, p. 10. Hutton, The Triple-Crowned Islands, pp. 85-89.
1336
Neely, Kilkenny, p. 103.
1331
297
have limited their economical welfare. The local Catholic clergy could rely on these men
apart from possible Protestant support. While the Jesuits in Dublin and especially New Ross
were nearly entirely dependent on the financial goodwill of the local Protestant community,
Catholic teachers in Kilkenny could in large parts subsist from their own fellow Catholics. This
quite solid fundament supported not only the Jesuits but a variety of Catholic teaching
facilities of which more or less proof exists. Franciscans, Capuchins, and Dominicans all had
residences in the town and maintained several public chapels that were cause to some political
dissensions from time to time.1337 Among these institutions there was most likely a medicine
school as well. After James II succeeded his brother, one Nicholas Shee petitioned to him for
legal recognition of such a medical school in 1686 which he obtained a year later. It is most
likely that the school in its origins was already in existence before 1685.1338
The confessional tolerance in Kilkenny was comparatively high. No numbers of the
population and its distribution in Protestants and Catholics exist but the strong presence of
Catholic merchants in combination with the mostly Catholic Butler family must have
guaranteed certain connivance. The Jesuits reported it as something special to Ireland that
Catholic teaching was never completely interrupted in Kilkenny and that all the Protestants in
the town were fully aware of the Catholic schools. Even the local Protestant bishop would
tolerate them, esteeming the high quality of learning the fathers offered.1339 Different to most
other cities in Ireland where Protestant teachers often forced the dissolution of Catholic
schools to secure their own living, Kilkenny was characterized by an open competition. Soon
after the Restoration the Duke of Ormond invited a prominent Protestant schoolmaster into
the city to rival the Jesuits and both schools existed nearly without interruption for the whole
Restoration period.1340 The Jesuit school was forced to close only for a short time in 1664 but
soon re-opened. The author of the Litterae Annuae of that year commented that the local
mayor had come to realize what grave loss it meant to the city and ordered to allow the Jesuits
to resume their teaching.1341 In their report the Kilkenny Jesuits also expressed their
appreciation of the Protestant teacher who taught the children philosophy and classical
1337
Compare for more detail the chapter X.III. Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 77.
Neely, Kilkenny, p. 132. Cf. CSP, Dom. Series, 1686-87, p. 214.
1339
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259v.
1340
The last reference to the Jesuits in Kilkenny before the end of the Restoration period came from the Catholic
Bishop of Ossory who spoke of two members after his visitation in 1678. Moran, Spicilegium Ossoriense, vol. 2,
p. 254. When Nicholas Netterville was questioned about the members of the mission in Ireland the same year he
only mentioned Thomas Quirck so it is not sure what happened to Tobyn. Burke, Penal Times, p. 54.
1341
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88.
1338
298
literature as they themselves did.1342 The Protestant Bishop of Ossory, John Parry, even
planned in 1677 to establish a second College of the University of Dublin located in Kilkenny
and asked Charles II for support but the plan was never put into effect.1343 Higher education
only came to Kilkenny when the Catholic Bishop of Ossory, James Phelan, converted the
school founded by the Duke of Ormond, into a College in order to make educational
emigration to the continent unnecessary. When it opened in 1686 Dr. William Daton became
rector. Other teachers were Edward Tonnery for philosophy, James Cleary for rhetoric,
William Phelan for literature and humanities, and Francis Barnwell and John Meagher for
grammar.1344 Although these names do not appear in earlier sources it seems probable that
they were active in the diocese of Ossory and most likely in the city of Kilkenny already
before the succession of James II.
But Kilkenny only formed the nucleus of the educational heartland of Restoration Ireland. In
the close-by cities of Clonmel and Cashel there were also Jesuit schools and residences that
enjoyed the influence and tolerance of the Butlers. Similar to Kilkenny they had long
traditions of religious houses and Jesuit residences, although Clonmel was only poorly staffed
after the Restoration. No Jesuit was living in the town in 1662 or in 1666 when most of the
other former residences had already been recovered. The Litterae Annuae mention one
member resident in the town in 1665 although he was living near the city in the land house of
a member of the gentry.1345
There was more presence of the old orders in the town; by 1672 there was a convent and
novitiate of Franciscans with four priests and one lay brother in it, joined by four novices.1346
The novitiate was still there when Bishop Brenan visited the town for the second time and he
also gave hint of a stronger Jesuit presence by then. At least the members of the Society had
established a Sodality of the Blessed Virgin and according to a Jesuit report Clonmel was
used as a place of refuge for the Jesuits in the larger residence of the nearby Cashel. Every
time the political circumstances forced them to leave the town, they fled to Clonmel where
they were hidden by wealthy Catholic citizens, most likely the members of the Sodality.1347
Andrew Sall, the author of the Litterae Annuae of 1665 even pretended that the local
Protestant pastor declared he would convert to Catholicism if his personal losses were not too
1342
Ibid., Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 259v.
Leonard, A University for Kilkenny, pp. 20-1.
1344
Ibid., pp. 25-6.
1345
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
1346
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 27-34.
1347
Ibid., pp. 62-65. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall,
Dublin 1665, fo. 267v.
1343
299
high. When in Clonmel, the Jesuits from Cashel held assemblies in private houses, celebrated
mass, and catechized with the approval of the local representatives of crown and army, many
of whom allegedly attended the meetings as well.1348
The city and archdiocesan town of Cashel formed the last part of the educational network
surrounding the urban centers of Counties Tipperary and Kilkenny. Peter Creagh had resettled there as early as 1657 and opened a school with the connivance of the local Protestant
schoolmaster as long as he promised not to take in any Protestant students.1349 The
relationship with that teacher must have been surprisingly good as it was mentioned in the
Jesuit reports. Creagh had come to the agreement after a friendly meeting with him, and the
author of the report even complained that such a good and intelligent man was lost for the
Catholic confession. But their understanding turned out to be helpful as the schoolmaster
convinced the mayor and city administration of the peaceful intentions of the Society so that
they were tolerated and met with courtesy.1350
The good understanding between Catholics and Protestants on a local level allowed the
establishment of a Sodality of the Blessed Virgin such as in Kilkenny and Clonmel. In 1663 it
already had forty members which gives an impression of the great number of Catholic citizens
and the wealth they commanded.1351 Only a year later it had expanded up to eighty members
that were personally chosen by the vicar apostolic and the dean of Cashel1352 and in 1665
there were even a hundred members.1353 The constant increase underlines the growing
prosperity of Irish city life after the Restoration and clearly demonstrates how much part in it
the Catholic communities had. A hundred members would mean no less than fifty families
and although no estimates exist of the local population at that time, one could daresay that
such a number would have posed an important percentage of the total. Since there were both a
vicar apostolic and a dean present in the city in 1665 it can be assumed that Catholic religious
life was quite openly performed and tolerated because they did not hide privately but
nominated members for the Sodality without being molested.
In 1669 the local hierarchy was completed with the appointment of William Burgat as new
Archbishop of Cashel. He resided near the town until his death in 1674 when John Brenan
1348
Ibid., fo. 267v.
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, p. 195. ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae
written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v. Pontifical Irish College Rome Archives MS17-18, Liber XX, f.
147r.
1350
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 265.
1351
Ibid., fo. 258-261v.: Ex Ibernia Litterae written by Andrew Sall, 1663/1664, fo. 260v.
1352
Ibid., fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littera Anni 1665 written by Andrew Sall, Dublin 1665, fo. 266v.
1353
Ibid., fo. 267v.
1349
300
took over the office. Burgat’s arrival to the city was celebrated with a public play staged by
the students of the Jesuit school to welcome him.1354 Already in 1666 Andrew FitzBennet Sall
returned, one of the most prominent Irish Jesuits of the seventeenth century and son of the
city. He had studied under John Young in Clonmel before his consecration in the Spanish
Netherlands in 1642. In 1663 he became Superior of the Mission being the author of several
of the Litterae Annuae. After his term of office he returned to his native town where he
remained until his death in 1686.1355 Sall received special attention from researchers as he was
often confounded with his younger cousin, Andrew FitzJohn Sall who was a Cashel Jesuit
before he converted to Protestantism in 1674, causing a serious scandal amongst Irish
clerics.1356 He explained the motives for his conversion in several sermons in Christ Church
Cathedral Dublin to what the Society replied with theological tracts.1357 Nevertheless, the
decision was made not to attack him personally because of esteem for his life as a scholar. He
finally became renowned for his participation in the re-publication of the Irish New
Testament in 1681 but died just a year later.1358
Of the school that was maintained in Cashel we have little precise information. According to
Sall’s own report in 1664 the school was set up in a private home but was visited by a number
of Protestant children who enjoyed “occasionem habeant aliquid á Nostro discendi” as he
commented to the very point. Although we lack any numbers of students there were
presumably quite a few. In 1663 sixteen students were sent off to the continent to attend the
seminaries at Compostela, Seville, and Lisbon, not counting the Protestant alumni if there
were any. In conclusion, the school was probably not much inferior in size to the one in New
Ross.1359 The residence was one of the best-staffed in the country at the end of the 1660s. In
1669 there were four members living in the town.1360 As in every other city that has been
looked at the Jesuits were not only popular for their teaching and the public plays but for their
medical assistance as well.1361 The political climate changed, however, after the failure of the
indulgence politics and the school had to close for two years. In this time two of the members
1354
Corcoran, State Policy, p. 85. Letter of Stephen Rice to Rome, written 13th July 1677.
Breeze, Two Irish Jesuits, pp. 175-6.
1356
Millet, Calendar of volume III of the “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, Part 2, pp. 62-3.
1357
Mostly involved in contradicting Sall’s arguments was the Jesuit Ignatius Brown culminating in the delayed
publication of An unerrable Church in 1678.
1358
Both cousins were outstanding examples of well-educated Irish Jesuits. The younger Sall had studied in
Spain and was consecrated in Valladolid before he returned to Ireland. Cf. Breeze, Two Irish Jesuits, pp. 175177.
1359
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 262-265v.: Ex Ibernia Littere Anni 1663 styli nov. Anno 1664 written by Andrew Sall,
fo. 265v.
1360
Ibid., fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae Societatis Iesu ab ineunte 1669 ad exitum anni
1674, fo. 271.
1361
Ibid., fo. 272.
1355
301
left the residence since they were no longer needed for teaching.1362 The school re-opened
afterwards but the religious toleration of the 1660s did not return. Maybe economic decline
played an important part in the downfall of the residence as well. After Oliver Plunkett had
visited the town in 1676 he wrote in a letter to Tanari that there was “not a Catholic who can
give a night’s lodging, and there is only one diocesan priest in the whole town.”1363 At least,
there were still Catholics residing in the city but the prosperous Catholic community and its
hundred members of the Sodality had obviously disappeared.
Thus Kilkenny and its surrounding cities marked the most outstanding case of peaceful
confessional rivalry in Restoration Ireland. Different to the cities of the first category, schools
were absolutely visible and the presence of a number of Catholic teachers was well-known by
the cities’ officials. The schools classes were not limited in any way but expanded up to very
high numbers that can easily be compared with the size of other Catholic schools on the
continent. Different to the cities of the second category, teaching in Kilkenny was of very
high standards as can be concluded from the Duke of Ormond bringing some of the best
Protestant schoolmasters in all Ireland at that time to the city to rival them. Since Kilkenny
and the other cities of the third subgroup were all controlled by members of the Butler family,
any interference from further Crown officials was not to be feared, James Butler being
himself the highest representative of Protestant government authority in Ireland for much of
the Restoration period.
Conclusion
Catholic education in Irish towns was Jesuit education in most cases. Apart from the Scottish
dominated towns in the Northeast they were present in most of the towns and usually even the
Protestant authorities would welcome them. But still, there were regional differences, mainly
depending on the number of Catholic inhabitants, the political standing, or interest of the local
landlord, the presence of Protestant teachers, and the financial background of those who were
supposed to pay for the schools. Catholic inhabitants and especially priests were officially
banned from the walled cities from time to time but they usually never left completely or they
just settled in the Irishtowns outside the walls. As a general fact the Protestant communities
had little interest in expelling the Catholics as customers, merchants , or servants. What could
happen to a town when they actually left was demonstrated in the case of Galway.
Nevertheless, tolerance for Catholic education was more constant in some places than in
1362
1363
Ibid., fo. 281v.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 475.
302
others and in some Protestant strongholds such as Dublin or Cork schools were only connived
at as long as they were not too visible. Another aspect to the Jesuit residences was the
helpfulness in controlling a place. Their activities as doctors as well as lower judges among
the Catholic community was contrary to the law but complied with a task that was difficult or
impossible to fulfil for the Protestant authorities. Dissenting or Catholic meetings as well as
schools could not be effectively abolished by the crown given the numerical minority of
conforming Irish Protestants that had a sincere interest in a confessionally homogeneous
Ireland. In August 1683 the Duke of Ormond got to the heart of the problematic task he had
tried to perform for so many years when writing to his son: “Dispersing of conventicles, if
nothing more follow that may make them weary of meeting, is no better than scattering a
flock of crows that will soon assemble again, and possibly it were better to let them alone,
than to let them see the impotence of the government, upon which they will presume.”1364
And equally unsparing was the judgment of the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Michael
Boyle, to Ormond in the same year where stated that “the thin make and constitution of this
government, according to the present establishment, is not as such to enable it to serve his
Majesty as fully and as effectually as is desired or may be necessary.”1365
Generally, Catholic education in the cities can be divided into three categories. There were
Catholic schools in mainly Protestant dominated places because of the especially high
standard of the teaching which attracted Protestant students and thus guaranteed for a while
the political protection of the teachers. On the other side Catholic schools existed in those
cities that were mainly Catholic inhabited and wealthy enough to support them without the
help of the usually better off Protestants. Such combinations were only to be found in the
most western parts of Ireland, in Limerick and Galway, that were too far away from the
central government to be constantly controlled or threatened. A third category can be
identified as the densely populated urban agglomeration mostly in southern Kilkenny and
Tipperary. These cities presented a quite balanced population structure and many could count
on the political assistance of the large Catholic Butler family. These cities also had a long
tradition of teaching and highly estimated qualified teachers of what confession so ever. As a
result this was the area of main confessional rivalry but on an intellectual level. Anti-Catholic
laws were usually not applied because the economic damage they would cause was greater
than the confessional profit that could be hoped for in the eyes of the contemporaries.
1364
Tapsell, Personal Rule, pp. 170-2. HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, new
series, vol. 7, p 102.
1365
Tapsell, Personal Rule, pp. 170-2. HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde,
preserved at Kilkenny Castle, new series, vol. 7, p. 68.
303
IX. “Erasmian Accordance”?
As has been discussed in the previous chapter an intellectual understanding between Catholics
and Protestants could be found in Restoration Ireland. Despite the difficult general political
circumstances, the local authorities and the representatives of the Catholic Church in Ireland
were eager to find a way of compromise, assistance, and considerateness in many cases.
While the examples analyzed above focused mainly on the local level, similar esteem for
learning was to be found on all social and individual levels, starting with the highest
authorities. The phenomenon of interconfessional appreciation of intellectual achievements
was nothing new to the seventeenth century. Although the confessionalization was certainly a
movement promoted chiefly by intellectuals, the admiration of some elements of European
education and culture was something that was shared on a transconfessional basis.1366 The
contents of late Humanistic teaching in Protestant or Jesuit schools were not too different and
thus produced as Anton Schindling put it, the fundament of the baroque culture of the
seventeenth century.1367
Far from the dissensions of daily confessional politics Protestant and Catholic dignitaries
were doubtlessly able to communicate in a way beyond limited confessional categories in
Ireland as in most parts of Europe. The king’s laws and the Church of Ireland may have
demanded anti-Catholic measures but privately Protestant Lords Lieutenant and Catholic
Bishops corresponded with each other throughout the Restoration period expressing their high
esteem for the capabilities and ambitions of one another. Many of them had had themselves
experiences in the other confession during their formation and were able to discuss the
differences and similarities in a civilized way. John Brenan, the Bishop of Waterford and
Lismore and Archbishop of Cashel was a highly educated man and strong supporter of the
Tridentine reforms in Ireland. He was certainly not of the opinion that everyone should
choose his confession according to his personal preferences, but when he came into contact
with local Protestants, educated men of the other confession, he showed them kindness and
admired their formation. He accepted invitations from the Protestant gentry and conversed
with their pastors in order to find a way to live peacefully. If it came to repressions he saw
them as intruding from outside and not originated by the Protestants he was in contact
with.1368 Referring to Lord Lieutenant Essex he called him a “lover of justice”1369 and a “true
1366
Heinz Schilling: Das konfessionelle Europa, in: J. Bahlcke/A. Strohmeyer (eds.): Konfessionalisierung in
Ostmitteleuropa. Wirkungen des religiösen Wandels im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert in Staat, Gesellschaft und
Kultur, Stuttgart 1999, pp. 13-62, p. 58.
1367
Schindling, Schulen und Universitäten, pp. 564-566.
1368
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, pp. 260-1.
304
gentleman”1370 something that well expressed that both men shared some common views on
law and order despite their confession and that Brenan would have no problem to enter into a
dialogue with that man, despite the fact that he was the representative of a Protestant king.
Similarly Brenan corresponded with the Protestant Bishop of Ossory and was even invited by
him. Afterwards the archbishop reported that “he showed great politeness, and manifested the
best intentions not to cause me any molestation”. Nevertheless, he was aware of the fact that
the political circumstances could change and that good personal relations might be helpful but
would not secure the Catholic interest in Ireland if London’s foreign policy made a shift.1371
But it was a mutual respect that characterized intellectual discourse in Restoration Ireland.
The Catholic bishops would not have been able to act as they did if the representatives of
Crown and Church would not have let them. While John Brenan constantly travelled through
his dioceses, the Crown authorities were permanently informed about what he did and where
he was but they let him proceed relying on his personal understanding of the situation.1372
Lord Lieutenant Essex was full of praise for the Catholic Bishop of Killlaloe, John
O’Moloney, whom he described as a “very discreet, wise man” and “without doubt ye ablest
of all those of ye Roman persuasion”. That O’Moloney was travelling through Ireland and
labored openly in his diocese did not disturb Essex, only the thought that the bishop might
have been employed by France as an informer caused him trouble.1373 When the Jesuits
wanted to hold a national synod in 1673 in Dublin, their Superior was afraid to disturb the
Lord Lieutenant. He resolved to pay him a visit and to inform him previously of the meeting
affirming that it was only spiritual matters to be discussed there and that the order had no
political intentions whatsoever. Convinced by the arguments Essex allowed them to convene
for a day.1374
1369
Ibid., p. 352.
Ibid., p. 261.
1371
Ibid., p. 354. Cf. Smyth, The Communities of Ireland, p. 252. Brenan’s awareness of the importance of local
bonds over state and church policy as well as its fragility in times of grave political crises was shared by many
European intellectuals. Similar conclusions have been drawn for France and the United Provinces by Philip
Benedict and Willem Frijhoff. Cf. Alexandra Walsham: Zu Tisch mit Satansjüngern. Geistliche und weltliche
Soziabilität im nachreformatorischen England, in: Andreas Pietsch/Barbara Stollberg-Rillinger (eds.):
Konfessionelle Ambiguität. Uneindeutigkeit und Verstellung als religiöse Praxis in der Frühen Neuzeit,
Heidelberg 2013, pp. 285-313, pp. 311-13. Philip Benedict: Un Roi, Une Loi, Deux Fois. Parameters for the
History of Catholic-Reformed Co-existence in France, 1555-1685, in: Ole Peter Grell/Bob Scribner (eds.):
Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, Cambridge 1996, pp. 65-93. Willem Frijhoff: The
Threshold of Toleration: Interconfessional Conviviality in Holland during the Early Modern Period, in: Ibid.
(ed.): Embodied Belief. Ten Essays on Religious Culture in Dutch History, Hilversum 2002, pp. 39-65.
1372
Smyth, The Communities of Ireland, p. 254.
1373
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 76.
1374
ARSI, Anglia 41, fo. 271-283v.: Litterae Annuae Missionis Hibernicae 1669 ad exitum anni 1674, fo. 282282v.
1370
305
These few examples document that apart from the confessional and political struggles, the
personal relationships between members of the different confessions were respectful and
aimed at a locally peaceful co-existence as long as this was possible in the greater political
context. In the following shall be analyzed the most important developments on this
transconfessional level along the examples of the most distinguished and best documented
representatives of the Catholic Church in Ireland – Oliver Plunkett and Peter Talbot.
1. Plunkett
When Oliver Plunkett reached Ireland as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland in
1670 he was naturally playing an important and influential role considering his position in the
church hierarchy. But apart from his office he descended from one of the most important old
English families of the Pale being related or befriended to most Catholic and Protestant
noblemen in the counties of Louth, Dublin, and Meath. These private connections made him a
public person and socially acceptable to even the highest Crown authorities despite his
confession and his position as a representative of papal jurisdiction in Ireland.1375
Although his relations were of crucial importance for his success they were also a constant
source for incriminations against him by other Catholics who accused him of being a
collaborator with the enemy. Considering the way in which Plunkett used every possibility to
boast his intimacy with leading Protestants these accusations may have sounded even more
plausible.1376 The heaviest complaints were brought forward in 1677 when Propaganda Fide
started inquiries about him. Archbishop John Brenan acted as informer in Ireland but it has to
be borne in mind that both archbishops had been friends for a long time. Irish clerics accused
Plunkett of heaving too much contact with Protestant ministers which Brenan denied. All
contact he had was with the Protestant archbishop and his vicar general and everything was
just for the good of the Catholic Church. However, Plunkett did have regular contact with
members of the government, Brenan ascertained, and he saw nothing disturbing in it. He
would not want to know how many priests would have been imprisoned by then if Plunkett
had not made so many friends among the Protestant authorities.1377
But certainly, with different viceroys Plunkett fared differently. When Lord Robartes resigned
his office after only a very short term Plunkett feared the worst. Robartes had been a close
friend of his relative, the Earl of Drogheda, to whose house he even retreated after leaving his
1375
Jane Ohlmeyer: Making Ireland English, New Haven 2012, p. 140.
CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st, 1676, to February 28th, 1677, pp. 473-4.
1377
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, pp. 473-4.
1376
306
office.1378 But soon it turned out that his successor Berkeley was as inclined towards him
personally and towards Catholicism in general, and Plunkett’s good relations were confirmed.
He had regular audiences with Berkeley in Dublin, spending two hours with him on each
occasion. Berkeley’s sympathy for the archbishop was probably not selfless. His wife and
daughter as well as his secretary were most likely Catholics and a Catholic mass was
regularly celebrated in Berkeley’s residence. If he himself ever converted is uncertain but it
could well be possible.1379 In one letter Plunkett cited Berkeley with the statement that if the
king ordered the persecution of the Irish Catholics, he would never obey in this. For sure,
Berkeley’s resoluteness was never put to the task since his term in office fell in times of
comparative confessional and political relaxation.1380
Things became more difficult with the Earl of Essex who took over office in 1672 and forced
Plunkett to close down his school at Drogheda. Despite this, Plunkett still got along
comparatively well with him and expected Essex to be a man of moderation and good sense
as he wrote to Airoldi. Indeed the personal correspondences continued after Essex’ arrival.1381
Soon afterwards he considered him “nowise inferior to his predecessor in his kindness
towards me”.1382
Most difficulties arose with James Butler, Duke of Ormond, when he took office for the
second time in 1677. Different to Berkeley and Essex, Ormond was not personally fond of the
archbishop and would not risk anything by defending him publicly when accused during the
Popish Plot in 1679.1383 But still, his estimation for the qualities of the archbishop turned out
to be astonishingly high as he privately did everything possible to avoid Plunkett’s execution.
He was also well esteemed by the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, James Margetson, his
direct opponent in Ulster. But despite their differences, both men came to certain agreements
on grounds of education. Margetson even gave his permission for the Catholic school
Plunkett was planning.1384 Both men met only once in person but apparently liked each other.
Margetson had stayed in Ireland during the rebellion but was among the eleven Protestant
bishops who congratulated Ormond in 1646 to the peace he had established with the
1378
Plunkett informed Bishop Brenan in a letter, that Robartes had resigned his office, staying with the Earl. The
good relation they had was grounded on the friendly welcome Robartes’ son had received on a visit to Rome
organized by the Primate for what he was still grateful. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 81.
1379
Ibid., pp. 83-4.
1380
Ibid., pp. 127-8.
1381
Ibid., pp. 287/305.
1382
Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, p. 115.
1383
After his arrest when questioned by the Earl of Longford Plunkett declared, that he never received any
money or kindness from Ormond and that he received from the Lord Lieutenant “far less kindness and civility
(...) than from the two precedent Governors.” Burke, Penal Times, p. 85.
1384
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 127-8.
307
Confederates. After his return to office in 1661 and promotion to the Archbishopric of
Armagh, Margetson followed a course of confessional tolerance but was generally eager to
promote education, founding a free school in his own English hometown Drighlington.1385
More connection had the archbishop with Margetson’s vicar general, Dr. Loftus, whom he
considered Catholic in his beliefs. He praised him as a very learned man and highlighted that
he was “on very familiar terms with him” though mainly because he did “hope for some
important advantage from this, namely the non-molestation of the Jesuit Fathers whom I
brought into the province.”1386 Similar support did he receive from the Earl of Charlemont
who promised him that no man would lay a finger on him. Moreover he supplied Plunkett
with a cottage for his own, a garden and two fields to live off.1387
The esteem that Plunkett received from these politicians and functionaries was not only based
on family relations, rather Plunkett was open to cooperation and to serve the interests of his
counterparts as well. Once he realized that Berkeley was willing to co-operate with him and
leave some space for Catholic activities in Ireland he wrote to Baldeschi in 1670, asking him
to “write a strong letter, urging that we, the bishops, refrain from involving ourselves in civil
and political affairs”1388 in order to appease the politician. On the other side Berkeley found
honorific words for the other Catholic bishops, especially the Bishop of Ossory and promised
“that he would close his eyes” on them.1389 Nevertheless, Berkeley used his good relation
with the archbishop to have influence in church politics in order to prevent any problems that
could arise. When he was informed that one Dr. Duffy was expected to be promoted to an
Irish see he demanded of Plunkett to prevent this nomination since Duffy was not liked by the
king. This was clearly an open intervention but at the same time Berkeley assured the
archbishop, that “the king will not be an annoyance to you” if they respected his wishes.1390
Plunkett was willing to compromise and thus a helpful contact for the viceroy who had no
interest in fueling the already existing confessional dissensions. Similarly anticipative was his
intervention in Dromore in 1671 where Sir George Rawdon suspected a Catholic rising. Most
surprisingly to Rawdon the archbishop appeared on his own at Hillsborough to render himself
as security in case any Catholic would take up arms.1391 He was received courteously and
invited to dinner which arouse suspicions from other Protestant guests such as Major Joseph
1385
Greaves, James Margetson.
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 138.
1387
Ibid., pp. 166-7.
1388
Ibid., p. 92.
1389
Ibid., p. 258.
1390
Ibid., p. 268.
1391
CSP, Dom. Series, January to November, 1671, p. 339.
1386
308
Stroud who later complained to the Earl of Conway how “we are courting the Irish to cut our
throats, that have cut so many thousands before, and are as ready now to do it as ever”. It is
unknown if the rising was ever planned but Plunkett left Hillsborough as a free man.1392
Plunkett’s influence and support were also required when the threat posed by the tories in
Ulster became uncontrollable by the government. More and more raiders attacked travelers,
towns, and even castles for which the archbishop was asked for help. In a letter from
September 1670 Berkeley informed Secretary Arlington that the Catholic Primate was of a
moderate temper and that with his help already fifteen of the Tory leaders had agreed to
surrender and to be transported out of Ireland.1393 Plunkett summarized his involvement by
writing that “it cost me no more than the labor of one sermon which lasted an hour.” Of
course, Plunkett could not solve the Tory problem entirely on his own but the king was so
pleased by his help that he offered the Catholic Primate an annual pension of 800 scudi,
approximately 200 pounds, money that Plunkett desperately needed for his school.
Unfortunately only a half-year rate was ever paid of the money promised, the reasons for
which are uncertain. Plunkett accused his Dublin colleague Peter Talbot of interfering with
the payment but it cannot be said with certainty whether he was correct or not.1394
When Essex took over the government he plainly proposed to Plunkett that he would prefer to
be kept informed whenever the Catholic bishops wanted to hold synods or meetings “so that
he might not be caught on the wrong foot when informed by our adversaries intent on giving
it a wrong interpretation”. The archbishop granted him his request and emphasized that those
meetings were only on spiritual purposes and that all the clergy tried to behave as good
citizens.1395 This open dialogue was surely helpful to both sides and it was possible because it
was led by people who acted on the same grounds of Humanistic education without being too
radical about their confessional aims. Essex realized the immense political value that the
archbishop had with his capabilities and family connections. He made that clear in a letter to
1392
Ibid., p. 340.
CSPI, Sept. 1669 – Dec. 1670, pp. 270-1.
1394
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, p. 277. Kenrick, Reports to Rome, p. 17. Cf. W.M. Brady:
Episcopal Succession in England, Scotland, and Ireland, vol. 1, Rome 1876, p. 228. Moran was of the opinion
that the money was not paid as a reward for Plunkett’s help with the tories but in order to better control him.
Once the government had to realize that he was not willing to let himself control in everything the payment
ceased. This theory cannot be proved and it seems unlikely although not completely impossible. Moran,
Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, pp.139/224. Lord Lieutenant Berkeley characterized Plunkett’s
employment by the word that he used him and not asked for his help what would support Moran’s theory of the
Primate as a tool of the government but Berkeley’s comment is the only one on the matter. CSPI, Sept. 1669 –
Dec. 1670, p. 271.
1395
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 322-3. Similar agreements had been made already under
Berkeley. When Plunkett hold his first synod of the dioceses of Kilmore and Ardagh in 1670 the Protestant
Archbishop and the Lord Lieutenant were well informed about the place and time and did nothing to prevent it.
CSPI, Sept. 1669 – Dec. 1670, pp. 225-6.
1393
309
his brother in 1673. According to him Plunkett was “one of ye best men of his Persuasion I
have mett wth; & tho’ I doubt not but he is industrious enough in promoting his own religion,
yet I could never finde but he was of a more peaceable temper & more conformable to ye
Goverment then any of their Titular Bps in this Country.” Because no danger would rise from
the Catholic community in Ireland under Plunkett’s guidance, and he was also well disposed
to converse with him rather than to start a rebellion, Essex wanted to make sure that he
remained unharmed, despite all political developments. Hence he concluded the letter asking
his brother that he and “some of our Friends, secure this Gentleman from any such severitie,
wch should be singly & and personally inflicted on him.”1396
The fact that in the end all personal support could not save the later saint showed plainly the
limitations of transconfessional agreements. As long as local aspects in Ireland were
concerned, Plunkett’s network of contacts served him well but his Protestant friends would
neither have risked their office nor wealth to save him in times of acute political crisis.
2. Talbot
While the Archbishop of Armagh enjoyed the favor and personal contact with many leading
Protestant politicians and intellectuals, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Peter Talbot, was
less esteemed by many. Talbot descended from a similarly prominent old English family and
boasted himself of being well-connected at the court in London.1397 Notwithstanding, the
characterizations of the former Jesuit were mostly depreciative although it has to be reminded
that many of these judgments were purported by Oliver Plunkett and both archbishops were
far from being friends as shall be discussed below.
Trying to leave the subjective parts out it may be concluded that where Plunkett looked for
assistance in Dublin, Talbot turned directly to London in order to achieve his goals.1398 In
parts he was successful with this policy but often he had to face another difficulty since his
1396
Airy, Essex Papers, vol. 1, p. 126.
William Burgat, advisor to Propaganda Fide on Irish affairs, informed Antonio Manfroni, pro-secretary to
Propaganda in 1665 that Talbot belonged to an old-English family of the Dublin diocese. He had studied in
Rome and was member of the Jesuit order for twenty years. Why he left the order and if he left voluntarily was
uncertain. Burgat suspected that his obedience had suffered from his times at the court but gave no further
evidence. Benignus Millett (ed.): Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna” in Propaganda
Archives, Part 1, ff. 1-102, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 38 (1996), pp. 59-81, pp. 72-3. The exiled Bishop of
Ferns, Nicholas French, had a different version. According to him Talbot left the Jesuits voluntarily because his
membership could so easily be used to damage his relative’s reputation in London. Ibid., Calendar of volume I
of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 111-115.
1398
Internuncio De Vecchi reported to Cardinal Rospigliosi on 4th October 1664 after a visit to London that there
he met with Peter Talbot who was in favor with the king and queen more than ever. He considered him a good
priest although he meddled too much in politics. Cathaldus Giblin: Catalogue of material of Irish interest in the
Collection Nunziatura di Fiandra, Vatican archives, Part 1, vol. 1-50, in: Collectanea Hibernica, No. 1 (1958),
pp. 7-125, p. 124.
1397
310
travelling or even writing to London was considered threatening by the Lords Lieutenant who
feared Talbot’s influence at court and the possible resentments his relatives and friends might
stir against them.1399 On the other hand the characterizations of Peter Talbot all agreed in the
point that although he was an intelligent man he was vain when it came to his family, shorttempered and insolent so that some truth may be found in it.1400 Especially him formerly
being a member of the Jesuit order and the unknown circumstances why he left the Society
were a source for speculations and accusations, mostly in relation with his excessive contacts
to the king’s court that might have been simple expressions of jealousy. William Burgat
suspected in one of his reports that Talbot had been accompanying the exiled Charles II
through Europe without the order’s permission. His final statement revealed much of the
resentments he and many Catholic clerics in Ireland had against him: “Let an impartial judge
decide wether it is right that he who rules a diocese and its clergy as bishop or archbishop is
one whom the Jesuit Fathers assessed as unworthy of being in their Society; a prelacy is
brought into disrepute by such a promotion.”1401 These words were drastic but they
underlined the difference between the worldly focused, highly educated old English Peter
Talbot and the average Irish clergy. They might have received higher education on the
continent as well but only few were so rooted within the Irish élite as Talbot and his family.
But the high standing of his relatives could also pose another problem. The Talbot family was
especially disliked but the Butlers whose main representative, James Butler, 1st Duke of
Ormond, acted so many years as Lord Lieutenant. Thus, again, Talbot’s advantage could be
dangerous as well, especially since he was the Archbishop of Dublin and in daily contact with
the Irish authorities.1402
But despite the personal differences Talbot was also an able administrator and networker who
tried in his own way to deal with the political circumstances of his time. His broad family
1399
In a letter to Bishop John Brenan in May 1670 Oliver Plunkett related not without contempt that the new
viceroy Berkeley was an enemy of the Talbot family and did not believe the pretexts under which Talbot had
asked permission to travel to London. Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 83-4.
1400
Again according to Plunkett Talbot had written an impertinent letter to the viceroy after his denial of
permission to travel in 1670 which the Lord Lieutenant showed to Plunkett himself. Ibid., p. 93.
1401
Millett, Calendar of Irish material in volume 16 of “Fondo di Vienna”, Part 1, pp. 73-4.
1402
In London Talbot and his brothers had openly conspired against the then Lord Lieutenant and were maybe
partly successful since Ormond was eventually dismissed from office in 1669. As early as January 1665 the
internuncio De Vecchi informed Rome about these conflicts. Peter and two of his brothers were shortly arrested
because one of them had publicly threatened the Duke of Ormond. But because of the many influential friends of
the family they were soon released. Giblin, Catalogue of the Collection Nunziatura di Fiandra, Part 1, p. 125.
When Talbot was to be promoted to the Archbishopric of Dublin William Burgat mentioned the dissensions
between the Talbots and the Butlers. But in the end he came to the conclusion that the other candidate, John
O’Moloney, later Bishop of Killaloe and member of an old Irish family was even less acceptable to Ormond and
without the contacts to court Talbot certainly enjoyed. Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture
riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 83-4.
311
connections and high esteemed education opened him possibilities most of the Irish clergy
lacked. Different to Plunkett Talbot followed court politics with the sensitive notion not to
trespass any invisible lines in order not to re-stir the anti-Catholic feelings too much.1403 He
continuously demanded to slow down the expansion process, especially of the Jesuit
residences in Ireland, characterizing them as “rash, imprudent, precipitous, and vain”.1404
With his relations to the London court Talbot had a good sense for how bearable Catholic
growth was to English politics although maybe the Irish viceroy did not feel himself
threatened. When the king’s Indulgence policy finally failed in 1673 and parliament ordered
to close down all Catholic novitiates and schools and to expel the clerics from the island, it
can be said that Talbot, short-tempered and insolent as he might have been, had the right of
it.1405
Because of his education, Peter Talbot was able to converse with Protestants on the highest
intellectual level but he was less inclined towards compromise than Oliver Plunkett.1406 His
appearances at court revealed that he had no problem in dealing with the other confession but
he was especially negative about internal dissensions and those Protestants who tried to
instrumentalize them. His radical behavior became clear during the dissensions of the
Remonstrance affair. The highly esteemed Bishop in exile Nicholas French commented in
1668 to Brussels that he admired the steadfastness with which Talbot acted against the
followers of Peter Walsh.1407 It can be imagined that such pertinacity was not very much liked
by the Irish authorities, Ormond above all, who wanted to use the divided clergy in order to
control the Irish Catholics.
Disliked as he may have been, he was an active part of the Dublin intellectual community and
present as a guest to many noble houses. Similar to Oliver Plunkett he met regularly with the
Lords Lieutenant and was on familiar terms with them and other leading Protestants.1408 For
most of his years in Dublin he resided in the noble house of his brother Colonel Talbot, later
1403
Talbot himself referred especially to the situation amongst the English Catholics who had made themselves
even more suspicious through their internal divisions. Ibid., pp. 140-142.
1404
Plunkett to Oliva, 22.11.1672, in Moran, Memoirs of the most Reverend Oliver Plunkett, p. 115.
1405
Kenrick, Reports to Rome, p. 16.
1406
Lord Lieutenant Berkeley made it clear that he despised Peter Talbot as much as Peter Walsh for their being
too radical for his taste. He preferred to work with Oliver Plunkett “who is of a more moderate temper than
either of the two Peters” and with whom cooperation in questions of daily politics was possible. CSPI, Sept.
1669 – Dec. 1670, pp. 270-1.
1407
Millett, Calendar of volume I of the Collection “Scritture riferite nei congressi, Irlanda”, pp. 111-115.
1408
How cordial the relationships could be was, for example, expressed in a letter of the Lord Lieutenant to
Secretary Arlington from 19th April 1673 where he informed about a meeting with the Catholic Archbishop.
From the mere words it could not be seen that such a meeting was with a man whose sheer presence in Ireland
was against the law and could well have been interpreted as treason. Cf. CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October
31st, 1673, pp. 156-7.
312
Earl of Tyrconnell, until he was arrested there during the Popish Plot on 11th October
1678.1409 Until then no government authorities had bothered to arrest the well-known Catholic
Archbishop. For this reason the Duke of Ormond was accused of protecting his old enemy
which he considered extremely ridiculous. On 7th December 1678 he pointed out in a letter,
that those who “would attribute it to my indulgence towards him, are ill-informed themselves
or maliciously conceal the well-known distance I have kept myselfs at from that busy, hotheaded man whom the very Jesuits themselves thought too busy for their Society”. On the
other hand those who accused him seemed to have forgotten how “publicly in the time of a
former governor he did the honours of his brother’s house at feasts and entertainments”.1410
As a representative of the Catholic faction at court and a friend of the Duke of York, Talbot
was even more likely to be arrested than Oliver Plunkett. If his excellent network of
influential friends would have spared him the fate the Irish Primate had to face will remain
unknown since he died of disease in a Dublin prison in 1680.1411 If he had lived, his contacts
to the court of James II would have been useful after the latter’s succession to the throne in
1685. But because of his many enemies in Ireland on Protestant and Catholic sides it seems
improbable that he would have outlived his antagonist Plunkett. Politically his late arrest in
1678 turned out problematic enough for the Duke of Ormond therefore to release him again
could have been fatal and it has to be doubted that Ormond would have taken that risk.
3. Plunkett vs. Talbot: Different Visions of Cooperation
In conclusion it can be stated that two of the best educated and connected Catholic clergymen
of the Restoration period had totally different concepts of transconfessional activities. If they
had been able to overcome more regularly their personal differences the situation, especially
of education in Catholic Ireland might have improved significantly. But the ways in which
they tried to discredit one another sadly illustrated the biggest problem of the Irish Catholic
clergy since the Reformation.
When Oliver Plunkett had successfully established his school at Drogheda he mocked his
opponent in letters to Rome by the fact that he had achieved something so close to Dublin that
Talbot was not able to do. But as the yearly rent of eight hundred scudi promised by the king
was revoked in 1672, Plunkett blamed Talbot for his bad influence with the court. Plunkett
1409
HMC, The Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, preserved at the Castle, Kilkenny, vol. 2, p. 277. The
arrest followed the accusations made by Titus Oates on 28th September 1678, written down by Secretary
Williamson. According to Oates Talbot had contrived the death of the Duke of Ormond and conspired with the
Jesuits to raise the Irish in rebellion. CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st, 1678, to December 31st, 1678, p. 426.
1410
HMC, The Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, preserved at the Castle, Kilkenny, vol. 2, p. 282.
1411
Millett, Survival and Reorganization, pp. 54-5.
313
even suspected that Talbot had joined the Protestant Earl of Ranelagh in his opposition to him
because he was so jealous Plunkett had got a pension and he himself not.1412 If either of these
accusations were justified is hard to say but they illustrate that both archbishops were more
interested in destroying or devaluing the work of the other than to fulfil their task of
Tridentine confessionalization.1413
Both of them came from large and important families of the Pale. While Oliver Plunkett was
esteemed in Dublin by most of the Lords Lieutenant and asked for his cooperation on a
transconfessional level, Peter Talbot enjoyed the esteem of king and queen in London. The
fact that both lost their lives in the end, one at Tyburn, the other one in a prison cell, gave
evidence of their personal failure as well as different dimensions of Irish politics that were so
deeply felt when it came down to education. For a while the personal support of important
Protestants, influential friends and, of course, money, were certainly helpful. But once the
situation changed dramatically as happened during the Popish Plot, the interest in
transconfessional dialogue vanished and neither money, nor friends, and not even the king,
could rescue them.
4. Carolan
But to speak only of Talbot and Plunkett as representatives of a transconfessional educational
approach would be too limited of an approach. Transconfessional dialogue was not only
restricted to the bishops but was practiced by many of the continentally trained priests that
labored throughout Ireland as was described amongst others by John Brenan and has been
shown in the previous chapters.1414 Naturally, those lower clerics have left little traces of their
work and it is impossible to estimate how much they were acquainted with transconfessional
approaches of Humanistic education. The more astonishing are those who did leave some
sources of their activities on the borders of Catholic and Protestant confession, above all, the
convert priest and teacher Neill Carolan. After a long career in the Catholic Church on the
continent as well as in Ireland he converted to Protestantism in 1679 and published an
apologetic tract on his life and the theological background of his conversion in 1688.1415
1412
Hanly, The letters of Saint Oliver Plunkett, pp. 331-2.
According to Plunkett the Archbishop of Dublin accused Plunkett’s school project as a “foolhardy
innovation”. Once the king’s pension was revoked, Plunkett wrote to Airoldi on 1st August 1672 that Talbot’s
brother “gave people to understand that I had a large pension from Rome and had therefore no need of it.”
Compare: Ibid., p. 318.
1414
Power, Archbishop John Brennen, pp. 260-1.
1415
Cogan, The diocese of Meath, vol. 1, p. 287. Cf. James Ware: History of the Writers of Ireland in two Books,
newly translated in English, revised and improved with many material Additions, and continued down to the
Beginning of the present Century by Walter Harris, Dublin 1764, p. 204.
1413
314
Interestingly, Carolan’s work was in no way aggressive or very much persuasive but a
tranquil description of the development of his thoughts. During the whole text he was eager to
underline how difficult the decision was for him being raised in one confession and having
received the Catholic communion for so many years. Finally, his basic explanation was no
radical outcry but his personal realization that he thought the Church of Ireland “more
agreeable to the Word of God”.1416 He appreciated the fact that he was born in a Christian
community but according to him, the Catholic Church had distanced itself too much from the
original belief since the Tridentine reforms.1417
Carolan was consecrated in 1662 in some place in Ireland and left for Paris the same year. For
five years he received a higher education returning to Ireland in 1667. For the following two
years he taught a private school in the Borders of Meath until he was finally installed as a
parish priests to the parish of Slane. Where his school exactly was cannot be said with
certainty.1418 In the following ten years Carolan dedicated himself to reading, especially two
books that had been recommended to the clergy by the Primate Oliver Plunkett, Archdekin’s
Theologia Tripartita and the Touchstones of the Reformed Gospel. The latter was especially
designed to prepare the parish priests for controversies with Protestants and to enable them to
confute their arguments. But contrary to what the author and the Primate aimed at, Carolan
came into even closer contact with Protestant pastors discovering that not all what was written
in them was true about the Church of Ireland. He commented: “This unfair proceeding,
charging the Protestants with Doctrines, which they either totally deny, or do not
acknowledge without previous distinctions, bred a dislike in me to the Book, and
consequently put me upon an inquiry into those Doctrines of the Protestants which the Author
of it had so fouly misrepresented, and the more I read in their Writings the better I was
reconciled to their Opinions, and the worse I liked those of the Church of Rome.”1419 It was
probably not as easy as Carolan described it but he gave an impression of how close
Protestant and Catholic clergy were in Ireland. Lacking confessional education on the one
hand and daily exchange between each other on the other hand must have created a highly
transconfessional or at least interconfessional relationship. Of course, such relationships could
only exist in those areas where there was a Protestant pastor and where the Catholic priests
had received a Tridentine formation and had not just inherited the office from a relative.
1416
Carolan, Motives of conversion, p. I.
Ibid., p. I.
1418
Ibid., p. I.
1419
Ibid., p. II.
1417
315
The reasons for his conversion that he displayed in the following chapters were mostly
characterized by mutual respect. The Catholic Church should not monopolize the right for
salvation since every man should be able to reach heaven: “Some men make the Belief of
Jesus Christ, and submission to his Laws, sufficient to bring a man to Heaven; and if so, it is
very uncharitable to exclude Protestants from it, that believe so much, as well as
themselves.”1420 A highly embracing theology on an intellectual level is portrayed in this
sentence and he concluded the aspect that divided the two confessions: “The Worship of
Images, the Adoration of the Cross, the Worship of Angels and Saints, the half Communion,
the Adoration of the Host, and several other things are points of practise, and not properly
matters of Faith.”1421 Carolan could not see many fundamental differences in the original faith
but blamed the Tridentine reforms for a delimitation of confessions that he considered
unnecessary and that he probably did not experience himself when in Ireland. This unique
document outlined the transconfessional daily life many Irish clerics had to face once they
had received above-average education.
Thus it may be concluded that many Protestant as well Catholic authorities in Ireland, be it on
a local level or in the highest spheres of Irish politics, were not separated by the frontiers of
faith suggested by the confessionalization paradigm. As has been outlined along the examples
of Plunkett and Talbot, common interests could include different confessions as well as
exclude members of one’s own belief. When it came to education most persons involved
shared a general desire for its promotion, although given circumstances and personal divisions
could hinder its implementation. It can be stated that many of the important characters were
willing to focus more on actual and local decisions while leaving out general problems of
theology. Under the Humanist valuation of learning there was an astonishingly liberal and
fluent variety of confessional convictions that was only disturbed when national or
international politics interfered with the local developments. In cases such as the Popish Plot,
the Erasmian Accordance was not sufficiently sustainable leaving room for a repressive
confessional policy overriding the mutual agreements for the disadvantage of education in
Ireland.
1420
1421
Ibid., pp. 4-5.
Ibid., p. 16.
316
X. Family Traditions
In his work on Kinship, Community and Christianity in Western Europe from the XIVth to the
XVIIth Century from 1973, John Bossy developed the theory of a highly clan-based western
European society that was slowly broke up by the confessionalizing parties thus making way
for control through the early modern state as well as a new concept of individual belief and
action. Old family bonds, structures of power, relation, and patronage were replaced by
episcopal hierarchies and centralized functionaries. Nevertheless, Bossy admitted that this
process was slow and that especially remote areas were only slightly affected if at all.1422 The
development of such new structures was certainly delayed when Ireland is concerned. The
Catholic Irish society was highly clan-based, locally rooted and distinguished by its focus on
the monastic institutions that had shaped it for centuries. The eighteenth century historian
Mervyn Archdall still came to observe in his Monasticon Hibernicum that “the English
interest here was weak, and consequently unable to carry to effect the plans projected in the
sister kingdom.”1423 Responsible for the little effect penal laws and Anglicization had had
were according to Archdall the local monasteries. He realized “how rooted the affection of the
less intelligent natives for the Monastic institution”1424 still was and that all crown initiatives
had not been able to change that.
Thus the social bonds between religious orders and local population remained of essential
importance in most of Ireland, especially when the implementation of new orders, politics,
and governmental structures were concerned. Ute Lotz-Heumann has emphasized that the
importance of the old orders in the West of Ireland and their entanglement with most of the
old Irish families may have been of high relevance for the survival of Catholicism as well as
traditional local structures alike. This general hypothesis, however, still requires a more
detailed study which is not the task of the present work.1425
Despite their official disbandment, the influence of the religious orders on the local
communities certainly remained high most of all in those areas where the influence of the
central government was rarely noticeable. Consequently an arrangement with and even the
open patronage of the inhabitants of the old religious houses was of crucial importance,
1422
John Bossy: Blood and Baptism: Kiship, Community and Christianity in Western Europe from the XIVth to
the XVIIth Century, in: Ibid.: Sanctity and Secularity. The Church and the World, Oxford 1973, pp. 129-143, pp.
129-131.
1423
Mervyn Archdall: Monasticon Hibernicum or a history of the abbeys, priories, and other religious houses in
Ireland, London/Dublin 1786, p. xi.
1424
Ibid., p. xii.
1425
Lotz-Heumann, Die doppelte Konfessionalisierung, pp. 389-391.
317
especially for the few surviving old patron families although they themselves may have
conformed to the established church.1426 The enforcement of local tenure rights and the
promotion of family interests in terms of economy as well as social disciplination was hardly
possible without the local support of the mass of the population. And such support was
usually not to be had without the support of the traditional clergy. Consequently it can be
observed along the examples of three of the most powerful Irish families – the Burkes of
Clanricarde, the O’Briens of Thomond, and the Butlers of Ormond – that the Irish
landowning élite of the Restoration period had to manage a difficult balancing act. While on
one side their property and power came from the Protestant crown and they profited
immensely from the secularization process of the sixteenth century, they also needed to rely
on the local support of their mostly non-conforming tenants and subjects. If they acted too
openly with their pro-Catholic views they run the risk of losing their property or at least their
influence at court, but if they actually implemented the anti-Catholic legislation on their lands
they had to fear decreasing economic benefits or even open rebellion while the memories of
1641 remained fresh.1427
As has been shown before, Catholic education was found especially in areas where it was
actively supported or at least tolerated from the local landlord, many of whom were
Protestants. The three examples discussed in this chapter represent different models of
patronage and connivance in the confessionalizing and disciplining context of their time.1428
But it has already become clear that also many members of the lesser gentry protected and
financed Catholic schools, several still clinging to the Catholic confession. As Raymond
Gillespie has pointed out, it would be a terrible mistake to think of all Catholic landowners
after 1660 as dispossessed and impoverished. Though most of the former magnates had
vanished and lost their property many of the smaller Catholic landowners came to some
1426
Interestingly in this context Thomas Winkelbauer has shown for the example of the Austrian landed
aristocracy, that confessional elements in landlord’s regulations of social, religious and economical life were
mostly identical and could be adapted to each other in case of the conversion of the landlord. Cf. Winkelbauer,
Grundherren, p. 327.
1427
In her most recent analysis of the Irish aristocracy in the seventeenth century Jane Ohlmeyer tends to leave
out this inner political necessity of confessional ambiguity among the greater houses. Although the aspect of
personal bonds with many family members serving in the Catholic Church stressed by Ohlmeyer was an
important aspect of aristocratic tolerance the examples discussed below suggest that especially after the 1641experience a certain degree of confessional openness was deemed necessary if not helpful to many Irish peers.
The fact mentioned by Ohlmeyer that religious repression in Stuart Ireland was never very strong among the
aristocracy sustains the argument that confessional ambiguity or at least indifference was without risk while it
procured helpful local support. Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, p. 136.
1428
Such liberality where education was concerned is not observed by Winkelbauer in the Austrian and
Bohemian territories. Even in cases of converted landlords it would seem if the educational coherence of their
subjects was of the utmost importance to most of aristocrats concerned. Ibid., Grundherren, pp. 332-3.
318
wealth after the Restoration or were able to preserve some of their former possessions.1429 It
was these landowners who were mostly responsible for the survival of Catholic teaching in
Ireland although most of their names are unknown and they cannot be of further relevance
here.1430
1. The Burkes of Clanricarde and the Dominicans in Connaught
The predominantly old English Burkes of Clanricarde formed an important outpost of Crown
control in the old Irish dominated province of Connaught. Together with the Earls of
Thomond and Inchiquin, they represented the influence of English government in a territory
beyond its immediate reach. Being two of the four largest landholders in Ireland in 1641 with
152,131 acres and 120,230 acres respectively, they and their kin enjoyed a high degree of
independence accompanied with court influence.1431 The Crown’s dependence on the
Bourke’s regional influence was underlined by the fact that they did not conform to the
established Church until the conversion of the heir to the earldom in 1680 (discussed below).
Their high standing at court allowed them to establish strong links to the English nobility
when Richard Burke (1572-1635), Earl of Clanricarde since 1601 married Frances, widow of
Sir Philip Sidney as well as Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and daughter of state
secretary Sir Francis Walsingham in 1603.1432 In the following decades their high standing at
court let them enjoy religious liberties no other Irish Catholic could avail of so that they
remained Catholic until the late Restoration period. Since 1604 the Earl of Clanricarde had
acted as President of Connaught, obtaining legal immunity as a Catholic from both James I
and Charles I.1433
His heir, Ulick Burke (1604-1658), 1st Marquess of Clanricarde, followed the loyal politics of
his father. He was educated in England and married a daughter of the Earl of Northampton,
succeeding his father in 1635 as 5th Earl of Clanricarde and 2nd Earl of St. Albans. Burke
remained interested in Irish and Connaught politics, opposing Wentworth’s land politics in
1429
Raymond Gillespie: A Question of Survival: the O’Farrels and Longford in the Seventeenth Century, in:
Ibid./Gerard Moran (eds.): Longford: Essays in County History, Dublin 1991, pp. 13-31, pp. 13-15.
1430
Before the outbreak of the 1641 rebellion still about 59 per cent of the Irish land was owned by Catholic. At
the end of the Commonwealth this number was reduced to 9 per cent. As a consequence of the 1665 Explanatory
Act of the land settlement a minority but at least some of those Catholics entitled to restoration of their property
were compensated by the authorities. Therefore by 1670 22 per cent of Irish land was again under Catholic
control although, with exception of very few, this land was divided into a multitude of the small estates here
referred to. Cf. Hutton, The Triple-Crowned Islands, p. 81.
1431
Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, pp. 85-88.
1432
Colm Lennon: Burke, Richard, fourth earl of Clanricarde and first earl of St Albans (1572–1635), in: Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/67043, accessed 21
Nov 2013]
1433
Ibid.
319
the 1630s. But when rebellion broke out Burke remained loyal to the crown despite his
Catholic confession, thus making himself highly unpopular in the eyes of many Irish Catholic
landowners. A reward was provided for his loyalty and he was given the title of Marquess of
Clanricarde in 1645 before he had to flee to London in 1653 where he died a few years later.
Cromwell never officially pardoned him but allowed him a pension of 600 Pounds and
decreed that his wife should have 4000 acres of land out of his possession. His only child and
daughter married Charles, Viscount Muskerry, so that the Earldom passed on to his cousin
Richard after his death.1434
When Charles II was restored to the throne the marchioness of Clanricarde could regain some
of the former property in addition to the castle of Kilcolgan. More of the family land was
returned after the Acts of Settlement and Explanation a few years later.1435 In 1666 William
Burke (died in 1687) became the 7th Earl of Clanricarde. He remained Catholic like his father
and uncle, despite being a close political ally of the Duke of Ormond and the king. As a
strong supporter of his faith it was a major blow to him and Irish Catholicism when his son
and heir, Richard, Lord Dunkellin, converted to Protestantism in 1680 following the wishes of
his wife. Wooed by the Protestant Church Richard upheld his new confession even after the
death of his wife four years later. Thenceforward his father refused him every financial
support but could not impede his succession to the Earldom in 1687.1436 Considering his son’s
conversion as “the irreparable ruin he has already brought on me”1437 as he wrote to the
Primate of all Ireland in 1683 this might as well explain his charity towards Catholic
institutions on his premises, knowing that his property would be lost to the Catholic cause
after his death.
During centuries of Catholicism the Burkes of Clanricarde had developed a strong connection
to the Dominicans of Connaught. Many members of the family joined the order and rose high
while many members of the order served as confessors to the respective Earls. The most
important endowment to the order was to Athenry Abbey when Dominic Burke, former
confessor of Ulick Burke, became prior in 1638. The Earl ceded the friars a secluded piece of
land near the town where they soon started to teach theology and philosophy under the
guidance of prior Dominic until his death in 1649.1438 In return for the land the friars had to
1434
Jane Ohlmeyer: Burke, Ulick, marquess of Clanricarde (1604–1658), in: Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3996, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
1435
Fahey, Diocese of Kilmacduagh, p. 300.
1436
Anne Creighton: William Burke, seventh earl of Clanricarde (d. 1678), in: Dictionary of Irish Biography,
Cambridge 2009. Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, p. 163.
1437
CSP, Dom. Series, January 1st to June 30th, 1683, p. 113.
1438
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century, pp. 173-175.
320
read three masses per annum for the Earl and his family. According to unreliable accounts,
the institution at Athenry was elevated to the level of a university college in 1644 by the order
central in Rome.1439 In any case the college was revived after the Burkes recovered their lands
in Connaught in 1660 and existed at least until 1691.1440
The relative splendor of the buildings was praised by several visitors and students. In his De
Praesulibus
Hiberniae John Lynch described: “Corruentia enim conventus aedificia
restauravit, et novis concinnioribusque amplificavit, oppiparoque apparatu provinciale
capitulum excepit, Ullecho de Burgo Clanricardiae marchione (cui, dum Dominicus vixit, a
sacris erat) potissimam utriusque sumptus partem suppeditante.”1441 Many famous members
visited the schools and recalled it in later times such as the former Athenry student John
O’Heyne. When he entered the college in 1665 it was under the guidance of Frs. Thomas
Tully and MacMahon and allegedly had more than three hundred students. Father Cornelius
MacMahon left the college a few years later for Kilkenny where he was prominently engaged
in teaching as well until his death in 1674.1442 The close relationship of the Burke family and
the Athenry friars continued for the whole Restoration period. Dominic Burke, nephew of the
founder of the school at Athenry attended the school himself before joining the order at the
age of eighteen. In 1671 he was promoted to the Bishopric of Elphin thus representing the
ecclesiastical as well as secular power of the Burke clan.1443 In exchange the most promising
alumni of the school were often employed as confessors and chaplains in the household of the
Earl. John Davock stayed with the old Marquess in England for several years, Christopher
Walsh was confessor to Richard Burke, 6th Earl of Clanricarde, until Richard’s death in 1666,
and Teige Daly lived for many years in the household of William Burke, the 7th Earl.1444
Others enjoyed different promotions through the Earl as well. In June 1678 John Brenan,
Archbishop of Cashel, visited the Archdiocese of Tuam and the Earl of Clanricarde. Burke
welcomed him warmly and allowed him to stay in his house as he did with every Catholic
cleric according to Brenan. On this occasion the Earl persuaded Brenan to write to Rome in
favor of a friend of his, Maurice Donnellan to receive promotion to the see of Achonry. Burke
had already won the support of the Bishops of Elphin and Clonfert which is not surprising
because the Bishop of Elphin was a relative of his and former student at Athenry. Donnellan
had studied in Spain and now had a school of philosophy in Ireland for twelve years. Brenan
1439
Fahey, Diocese of Kilmacduagh, p. 304.
Coleman, Ancient Dominican Foundations, pp. 84-5.
1441
Lynch, De Praesulibus Hiberniae, vol. 2, p. 296.
1442
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century, p. 181. Burke, Hibernia dominicana, p. 576.
1443
Lynch, De Praesulibus Hiberniae, vol. 2, p. 296.
1444
Coleman, The Irish Dominicans of the seventeenth century, pp. 185-187/211-213.
1440
321
did object that it was not in his power to interfere in the matters of other archdioceses but he
wrote to Rome in Donnellan’s favor nonetheless with the meaningful remark, that he “should
not refuse this request to such a pleader, the more so as I am convinced that the favour he
petitions for will redound to the advantage of our holy faith in this kingdom.”1445 The
dependence of the Catholic hierarchy in Ireland and the influence secular Lords and patrons
enjoyed is seldom revealed in such an open fashion. Rome was apparently not as inclined to
please the Earl as were the Irish bishops. Donnellan was not promoted until 1695 when he
was named bishop to the diocese of Clonfert.
The Burkes protected the Dominicans generously since the order supplied family members
with high offices in return which guaranteed the Earls the benevolence of their flock. When
John Burke, vicar apostolic of Killala, was arrested in 1674, it was his relative the Earl of
Clanricarde who finally paid the considerable bail of 80 pounds to have him released.1446 And
after Dominic Burke became Bishop of Elphin in 1671 the Earl gave him a large farm to
supply him with enough income for his episcopal duties, an accommodation of which most
Irish bishops could only dream.1447 But it was not the Dominicans alone that were supported
by the Burkes. Already in 1665 the three members of the Jesuit residence at Galway received
ten thousand florenos in order to set up a school and residence.1448 But even though William
Burke never did anything to hide his Catholicism, he was seldom accused of any serious
conspiracy. Their loyalty to the crown had earned the Burkes a certain trust by the authorities
so that when someone accused the Earl in 1681 of hiding arms and allowing rebels to exercise
on his grounds, the Lord Lieutenant only replied to Sir Leoline Jenkins: “Whoever writ it, is
no enemy to scandalous lies, for no such number of arms is seized nor is it possible that
numbers enough to make two complete companies can have been exercised near Lord
Clanrickard’s house or anywhere in Ireland without the observation of some Protestant and
notice given to the government.”1449
Other minor landowners in the neighborhood of the Burkes seem to have been equally
supportive of the Dominicans. Sir Dermot O’Shaughnessy as one example was among those
34 men who were immediately restored to their lands in 1660 as well as the Marquess of
Clanricarde. The property of the O’Shaughnessys of 2000 acres was at Gort in the very
1445
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, p. 59.
Myles O’Reilly: Memorials of those who suffered for the Catholic Faith in Ireland, in the 16th, 17th, and
18th Centuries, New York 1869, p. 370. O’Reilly does not mention his sources.
1447
Pochin-Mould, The Irish Dominicans, pp. 146-148.
1448
ARSI, Anglia 6a, fo. 88, 88v.: Andrew Sall, Catalogus rerum Missionis Hibernicae, Dubl. 1st Febr. 1665, fo.
88v.
1449
CSP, Dom. Series, September 1st, 1680, to December 31st, 1681, p. 176.
1446
322
proximity of Athenry Abbey so that they were aware of the college and supported it as
well.1450 When Sir Dermot died in 1673 he bestowed something to not less than twelve clerics
who were to hold masses and pray for him. More money was given to the Dominicans and
Augustinians at Galway and to the Dominican friary at Inish.1451
In conclusion the Burkes of Clanricarde were powerful enough to retain their property and
their confession at nearly all times. Their staunch retinue in western Connaught made them a
political factor too big to ignore, something that even Cromwell had to acknowledge when he
treated the Marquess and his wife with comparative clemency. The Catholicity of the family
and their involvement in the hierarchy as well as the older monastic structures assured them
the support of the Catholic inhabitants while the financial support of the order paid for
schools, bishop’s dignities and church interiors. Only when the dissensions between William
Burke and his son led to the latter’s conversion to Protestantism this entanglement of clan and
church politics came to an end.
2. The O’Briens of Thomond. Interconfessional Mobility in different Family
Branches
A different approach to patronage and local family clientelism was exercised by the O’Briens
of Thomond. This old Irish family dominated most of the areas of the modern counties Clare
and Limerick and preserved their power after the Reformation when Murrough O’Brien
decided to cooperate with Henry VIII and to integrate his family into the English hierarchy.
As a reward the O’Briens got all the dispossessed monastic land in Thomond in 1541 and two
years later Murrough was officially “Anglicized” as an Earl of Thomond for what he received
additionally the former property of Clareabbey, Canon Island, Inchicronan, Kilshanny,
Corcomroe, and Killone. The rich monastic lands of Ennis and Quin were excluded, Quin was
given to Murrough’s younger brother Donough, later 2nd Earl, and Ennis went to Dr. John
O’Neillan, chaplain to the O’Briens. Though the land property changed, it would seem that
the friars were still tolerated.1452 Especially Ennis friary with its rich traditional sepulture of
the family continued in high valuation and was neither harmed nor plundered. The friars
persisted there for at least another decade and kept returning there even later until the Earls of
1450
Fahey, Diocese of Kilmacduagh, p. 301.
Ibid., pp. 302-3.
1452
This was nothing unique in Gaelic Ireland. As Brendan Bradshaw emphasised the dissolution of the
monasteries usually meant nothing more than a change in ownership from ecclesiastical to secular. Ibid., The
dissolution of the religious orders, p. 207.
1451
323
Thomond eventually converted to Protestantism and transferred their burial place to the
Church of Ireland cathedral at Limerick.1453
In 1644 the friary was re-built under the Franciscan guardian Eugene O’Cahan at a place near
town. O’Cahan opened a school with Bonaventure Grady but was forced to close it shortly
after when Cromwell reached the city.1454 The building was destroyed and the few remaining
friars were executed. In 1659 the Franciscans returned to the place.1455 In 1666 they were
again arrested because of their refusal to sign the Remonstrance, contrary to the friars at Quin.
They were soon let out again on bail.1456 Until 1670 the situation had improved, the friars
returned to the town where they even possessed several rich ceremonial items.1457 Teaching
was common to them but the friary was one of the few Franciscan residences that did not
have a novitiate since one was founded as late as 1687.1458 In general, it would seem that the
O’Briens were mostly inclined toward the Franciscans although the one family member being
promoted to the bishopric of Emly, Terence (1600-1651), had been member of the Dominican
order.1459
The different branches of the O’Brien clan were fighting constantly for power since the
creation of the Earldom under Murrough O’Brien. When Donough O’Brien became the 4th
Earl in 1581 he was the first who had been educated in England as a Protestant and returned
to Ireland to enforce English politics in Thomond subduing different lower branches in
rebellion.1460 In the Nine Year’s War the family fought on the side of the crown. Daniel
O’Brien, brother to the 4th Earl, even gained himself a knighthood in 1604 before he
surprisingly converted to Catholicism. By 1613 he had become one of the most distinguished
representatives of the Catholic interest in the Irish House of Commons.1461 The advancement
of the Catholic family branch was paralleled by the Protestant Earls. Barnabas (1590/911657), second son of the 4th Earl inherited the title from his brother Henry in 1639 and was
made governor of the newly established County Clare in the same year. Being a Protestant he
1453
Conlan, The Franciscans in Ennis, pp. 18-20. Compare as well Bradshaw, Reformation in the Cities, p. 455.
Ibid., p. 23.
1455
Ó Dálaigh, religious practice in Ennis, 1651–1842, p. 16.
1456
Ibid., pp. 16-7. Conlan, The Franciscans in Ennis, p. 26. Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, p.
91.
1457
Conlan, The Franciscans in Ennis, pp. 26-7.
1458
Ibid., p. 28.
1459
Alison Forrestal: O'Brien, Terence (1600–1651), in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004.
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20467, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
1460
J. J. N. McGurk: O'Brien, Donough, fourth earl of Thomond (d. 1624), in: Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20453, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
1461
Donough O’Brien: History of the O’Briens, London 1949, p. 83.
1454
324
even made his way up to the Privy Council.1462 When rebellion broke out he did not join the
Confederation but remained loyal to the king what brought him in disfavor with the
parliamentarians.1463 As a result the clan was divided not only into several branches of more
or less relevance, but also into Catholic and Protestant branches, both of distinguished
political importance though all of them were dispossessed under Cromwell.
With the Restoration the surviving branches returned to Ireland claiming pieces of the vast
family property. Apart from Donat of Leamaneh they were soon successful in their claim. Sir
Daniel of Carrigaholt even obtained the title of Viscount O’Brien of Clare in 1662, being
called the Viscounts Clare to distinguish them from the Lords O’Brien, the Earls of Thomond
and Earls of Inchiquin.1464 The property gains differed immensely and represented the
changed nature of O’Brien clan structure. While Daniel O’Brien of Dough received a grant of
2,000 acres the Earl of Inchiquin obtained 57,000 acres and the Earl of Thomond even had a
share of 84,339 acres.1465 Finally the formerly five powerful O’Brien branches had been
reduced to three. The Earls of Thomond were completely anglicized and lived as absentee
Lords in England. In Ireland remained the Catholic branch of the Viscounts Clare, the
Catholic Earls of Inchiquin, and the O’Briens of Leamaneh and Dromoland of lesser
importance at the beginning of the Restoration period.1466
That conversions and religious flexibility were not uncommon with the O’Briens was best
shown by Murrough O’Brien (1614-1674), 6th Baron Inchiquin. Being born a Catholic he was
raised as Protestant ward by the Baron of Kerry and Lixnaw and later since 1632 by Sir
William St. Leger, President of Munster, thus being automatically involved in the
confessional politics of his time.1467
When war broke out, Inchiquin stood on the side of the parliamentarians and committed
several atrocities as when he sacked the rock of Cashel, earning himself the nickname of
Murrough the burner. Surprisingly he changed sides with the second Ormond peace treaty for
which he had to flee the country after Cromwell’s victory, going into exile with Charles II.
But even more unexpectedly he converted back to Catholicism in 1657 for reasons that are
still unknown. His wife and his eldest son remained Protestant while his two youngest sons
1462
A. F. Pollard: O'Brien, Barnabas, sixth earl of Thomond (1590/91–1657), rev. Bernadette Cunningham, in:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20440,
accessed 21 Nov 2013]
1463
Ibid.
1464
Ivar O’Brien: O’Brien of Thomond. The O'Briens in Irish history 1500-1865, Chichester 1986, p. 95.
1465
Ibid., p. 96.
1466
Ibid., p. 103.
1467
Patrick Little: O'Brien, Murrough, first earl of Inchiquin (c.1614–1674), in: Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20463, accessed 21 Nov 2013]
325
followed his example in 1659. Politically and personally the conversion alienated him from
the king who notwithstanding restored him to his properties after the Restoration.1468
Regardless of his belief Inchiquin had no problem acting in an interconfessional way. He
found a way of co-existence with his old rival Lord Broghill, Earl of Orrery, even marrying
his heir William to one of Orrery’s daughters but when he died a Catholic in 1674 he
bequeathed a considerable amount of money to the Franciscan friars at Ennis “as well for the
performance of the usual duties of the Roman Catholic clergy, as also for other pious
uses.”1469
The most important branch of the O’Briens, the Earls of Thomond, started with the 4th Earl,
Donough O’Brien in 1581. When his father died he could only rest his power on the military
support of the English who had assisted him in several feuds against his own kin to enforce
the English right of succession of the eldest son. In exchange for their support he offered his
son and heir Donough to be brought to England and raised as a Protestant.1470 However
financially and politically the alliance with England paid off for the Earl he and his branch
alienated themselves immensely from their own tenants until the outbreak of rebellion. First
Henry until 1639 and later his younger brother Barnabas brought in English settlers and
officials and even began speaking English instead of Irish. When Barnabas pleaded his
tenants at Ennis in 1641 not to join the rebellion he had lost nearly all his moral authority.1471
The Earl entrenched himself at Bunratty Castle. When a parliamentary fleet arrived in 1646
he was quick to hand it over and go into English exile to join his wife and children who had
lived there their entire lives. For the next hundred years the Earls of Thomond would visit
Ireland only occasionally.1472 But the distance to his Catholic tenants remained tragic even to
his heir Henry and he showed interest in designs for education and conversion of the young
Irish Catholics. In a meeting of the Committee of the whole House of Lords of Ireland in
1674 he showed willingness to indulge such number of Catholic clergy in Ireland as there
were Protestant ministers, but that everyone should be put to death if he tried to convert any
Protestant. Most important to him was the spreading of schools according to the laws in
existence as he demanded that “the Bishops be commanded to obey the law concerning their
erecting and endowing free schools, and to put able men into them” as well as that “the Bible
and the Common Prayer be forthwith turned into Irish, and good numbers of them printed”, a
1468
Ibid.
Ibid. O'Brien, O’Brien of Thomond, p. 101.
1470
Brián Ò’Dálaigh: From Gaelic warlords to English country gentlemen, the O’Briens of Thomond, 15431741, in: The Other Clare, No. 25 (2001), pp. 40-42, p. 40.
1471
Ibid., pp. 41-2.
1472
Ibid., p. 42.
1469
326
thought that was still extraordinary to many of his contemporaries.1473 In a conclusion he
outlined that it was mostly Catholic friars and Jesuits that brought up the Irish youth. “They
persuade the young men to go beyond the sea and not to fall into trades, by which the
kingdom is greatly damnified, and their affections stolen from the Crown of England and
placed elsewhere.”1474
The branch that rose highest after the Restoration was the Viscounts O’Brien. A younger son
of the 3rd Earl of Thomond Daniel O’Brien remained Catholic. During the war he fought with
the Confederates but made his peace with Cromwell in 1651 for what he was exempted from
the Act for the Settling of Ireland along with 25 other major landholders, probably because
two of his daughters were married to Protestant magnates. Irrespective of his arrangement
with Cromwell he was allowed to keep his property after 1660 and was even rewarded for
loyal service with the title of Baron Moyarta and Viscount Clare.1475 From the time of the
restitution of property, a conflict remained with the Protestant Bishop of Killaloe who
claimed some of O’Brien’s lands for his diocese, a claim that was officially over-ridden by
direction of the king in 1665 but burdened their relationship for the whole Restoration
period.1476 In 1666 he was followed by his son Conor who had sat on the Supreme Council of
the Confederation of Kilkenny. But most likely the title was meant to honor his grandson,
Daniel (1630-1690), who was to become 3rd Viscount Clare in 1670 after his father died.1477
This Daniel had been a close friend to the king in exile and remained loyal to him and his
brother which cost him his lands in 1690. The whole family possession of 56,930 acres was
confiscated.1478
In the meantime Daniel O’Brien demonstrated peculiar confessional
flexibility. First he fought on the continent on the side of William of Orange before he was
accused of espionage and forced to return to Ireland where he actively supported the Catholic
clergy and teachers. Already in 1666 the Earl of Orrery had written to Ormond that colonel
O’Brien had showed his readiness to suppress any Irish Catholic rising in the Southwest for
which he effusively thanked him.1479 But on his own property the Viscount did not show such
fierceness against Catholic activities. Only one year later Orrery informed the Lord
Lieutenant about the seizure of several Franciscan friars in Brentry. Their questioning
1473
CSP, Dom. Series, November 1st, 1673, to February 28th, 1675, pp. 157-8.
Ibid., p. 162.
1475
O’Brien, History of the O’Briens, p. 87. Jane Ohlmeyer: O'Brien, Daniel, first Viscount Clare (1577?–1663),
in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20447,
accessed 21 Nov 2013]
1476
CSPI, 1663-1665, p. 567.
1477
O’Brien, O’Brien of Thomond, pp. 95-6.
1478
Ibid., History of the O’Briens, p. 88.
1479
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, p. 8.
1474
327
revealed that the land where the monastery was established belonged to one Morrice
O’Connell, a tenant of the Viscount, who definitely knew about the convent. The morning
before they were arrested their guardian had left the convent to visit Mr. O’Connell and from
there he had planned to go on to the Lord of Clare’s.1480 The Franciscans enjoyed all liberty
and had built a monastery enjoying sufficient wealth to possess chalices, vestments, and caps.
A second monastery existed close by at Quin but those were not molested as they were
willing to subscribe to the Remonstrance of Peter Walsh.1481 The ever-shifting policies of the
Viscount made him increasingly unpopular with the Protestant authorities. In 1673 Lord
Lieutenant Essex confessed to Arlington that the “truth is, this lord has, in an action this last
winter of stopping a ship in the Shannon, almost ruined the trade of Limerick, and in that
affair behaved with much disrespect towards me, for which reasons I cannot give him much
credit (...).”1482
Another escalation was reached, when in 1681 the Protestant Bishop of Killaloe, John Roane,
accused the Viscount of protecting a Catholic teacher at Ennis, one Mr. Cargill. But it was not
enough that O’Brien connived at the man. Instead he asked the Protestant bishop to license
him in order to legalize his school. Furious the bishop stated that he should never do that. In
the aftermath two more Catholic teachers were arrested by a Captain Purdon but they were
soon released by the Viscount.1483 Of course, it has to be remembered, that the Bishop of
Killaloe had some very personal interests in incriminating the Viscount who had obtained
land that the bishop had claimed for his own see. Another peak of dissension was reached
when the Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, John O’Moloney, was searched for arrest in 1681. The
notorious John Roane reported in consequence: “I had certain intelligence where his parents
were, and amongst other places he was at the Lady Clare’s house near Inish, and having got
notice he was there, I sent a party to enquire for him, but he was gone. The Lord being at
Inish – which was more than I knew – he was displeased and sent me the enclosed letter ho
will he resented it. I cannot say that the Lord himself was at any time in Molony’s company. I
have got me many enemies of the Irish for my enquiries after Bishop Molony so that I was
advised by a friend to have a care of myself, which caused me to write to my lord Primate to
befriend me for my removal when occasion offered.”1484 It could never be proven that
1480
Ibid., pp. 110-1.
Ibid., pp. 108-9.
1482
CSP, Dom. Series, March 1st to October 31st, 1673, p. 555.
1483
Howard, Irish Catholic Education 1669-1685, pp. 200-1. Roane to Ormond, 23 April 1681, in: HMC,
Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, preserved at Kilkenny Castle, new series, vol. 6, p.
39. Ó Dálaigh, Religious practice in Ennis, p. 17. Ibid., Religious persecution, p. 61.
1484
Burke, Penal Times, p. 102.
1481
328
O’Brien actually did hide the bishop but shortly after this O’Moloney left Ireland on a small
ship from Kilrush, a little port very close to the Viscount’s land.1485 In the end, all these
occurrences showed plainly how limited governmental or ecclesiastical power was in county
Clare. As long as the Viscount had no interest in implementing anti-Catholic laws there was
little to force him and if action was taken it was mostly symbolical and of short duration.
But most interesting about the Viscount’s protection of Catholic teachers at Ennis was the fact
that by then he had already officially become a Protestant. In the chaos of the Popish Plot he
suddenly declared his conversion that nobody could really believe in. Paradoxically enough in
a letter to the Earl of Essex from March 1681 he wrote of the danger arising from the number
of Catholics but pretended that even worse were those Protestants who favored their interests.
The Popish priests were to be turned away from the kingdom and the Protestant bishops
should be obliged to keep Protestant schoolmasters to educate the youth, otherwise a
generation of rebels would grow up such as was shown in the examples of 1588 and 1641.1486
When he informed Ormond about an alleged Catholic conspiracy in the same year and
petitioned the court in the following year to act more rigorously against Irish Catholics, he fell
in disfavor. Politically isolated he returned to Catholicism and enjoyed again royal support
after the accession of James II to whom he remained loyal until his final defeat.1487 His sons
went into exile again where his heir Daniel died in the Battle of Marsaglia in 1693.1488 This
form of multiple conversions was not singular in early modern Europe. Comparable cases can
be found without difficulty throughout the continent.1489 Martin Mulsow has characterized
1485
O'Brien, O'Brien of Thomond, p. 107.
CSP, Dom. Series, September 1st, 1680, to December 31st, 1681, pp. 201-2.
1487
Harman Murtagh: O'Brien, Daniel, styled third Viscount Clare (c.1630–1690), in: Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20448, accessed 22 Nov 2013]
Although Ormond and O’Brien seem to have had little else in common Jane Ohlmeyer has shown that the Duke
did feel at least some compassion for the Viscount who was confessionally as well as politically and
economically not so different from his own situation. She quotes a letter to the Earl of Arran from 1681 where
the Duke expresses that O’Brien “is a man of known courage, conduct and intrigue, of a broken and indeed
desperate fortune, burdened with a title very unsuitable to it. He is of a noble family, of great esteem and
numerous dependences among Irish Papists, and he is seated on the county of Clare side, a transplanted country,
and therefore full of Irish.” Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, pp. 165-6. The compassion expressed by
Ormond for the Viscount coincides with the analysis by Thomas Winkelbauer that especially the aristocracy
understood the external necessities that produced conversions and did not subject them rigid moral criticism. Cf.
Thomas Winkelbauer: Karrieristen oder fromme Männer? Adelige Konvertiten in den böhmischen und
österreichischen Ländern um 1600, in: Frühneuzeit-Info, No. 10 (1999), pp. 9-20, p. 11.
1488
Thomas Seccombe: O'Brien, Charles, styled fifth Viscount Clare (1670–1706), rev. P. J. C. Elliot-Wright, in:
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20442,
accessed 22 Nov 2013]
1489
Along the example of Henri-Charles de La Trémoille, prince of Tarente, Christian Kühner has demonstrated
in a yet unpublished essay a most parallel case of aristocratic stubbornness as well as confessional flexibility.
Being a member of one of the leading Protestant French families in the second half of the seventeenth century
despite his father’s conversion to Catholicism in 1628 Tarente constantly faced opposing identity options. He
served in the French army as well as the Dutch until his final conversion to Catholicism in 1670 anticipating the
1486
329
them as a special form of confessional indifference that could well be seen as the prototype of
trans- and interconfessionality that usually raised suspicions of political opportunism.1490
Following Mulsow’s analysis it must be differentiated between the representatives of a group
of intellectuals that were religiously indifferent based on transconfessional Humanism and the
adherents of a political religion, mainly members of the landed aristocracy, who adapted
themselves to the confessional preferences of their monarch while being personally
indifferent.1491 For many individuals of the early modern period their religious indifference
was the result of an experience of the confessional multiplication. Being confronted with
ever-changing confessional demands led in many biographies to a state of indifference up to
atheism.1492 This interpretation can be perfectly applied to the case of Viscount O’Brien who
simply lost touch to any of the confessions he was struggling with in the context of his own
exile experience and, for example, the radical conversion of his relative Inchiquin.1493
The third branch of O’Briens was the one who first fared worst after the Restoration. Donat
O’Brien (1642-1717) was the eldest son of Conor O’Brien and Mari Rua, two active Catholic
rebels. After his father had died in 1652 his mother unconventionally married the Protestant
parliamentarian officer Cornet John Cooper in order to preserve the family estate.1494 The
shift of allegiance caused no problem to Donat who was educated as a Protestant in London
when Charles II came to the throne. Immediately he declared himself a loyal subject of the
king but was denied the restoring of his family lands until 1663 when he received support
from his uncles, Murrough O’Brien of Inchiquin and Daniel O’Brien, later 3rd Viscount Clare.
Nevertheless, the 2,867 acres he was restored to was little or nothing in comparison to what
his relatives held.1495 He himself remained a Protestant throughout his life but his mother
upcoming Dutch-French War. His sudden death in 1672 prevents us from learning if the French court believed in
his conversion or if as in O’Brien’s case it discredited him. In any case Kühner’s analysis makes clear that
Daniel O’Briens conversions were nothing unique in seventeenth century Europe. Cf. Christian Kühner: Adliger
Eigensinn im Grand Siècle: Der Prinz von Tarent und seine Memoiren, unpublished.
1490
Martin Mulsow: Mehrfachkonversion, politische Religion und Opportunismus im 17. Jahrhundert. Ein
Plädoyer für eine Indifferentismusforschung, in: Kaspar von Greyerz/Manfred Jakubowki-Tiessen/Thomas
Kaufmann/Hartmut Lehmann (eds.): Interkonfessionalität – Transkonfessionalität – binnenkonfessionelle
Pluralität, Heidelberg 2003, pp. 132-150, pp. 133-5.
1491
Ibid., pp. 144-5.
1492
Ibid., pp. 147.
1493
A less radical approach has been presented by Kim Siebenhüner according to which early modern converts
often never really left the grey zone between two confessions, adhering more or less to both in parts after their
official conversion. They thus created ambivalent and hybrid forms of belief that incorporated multiple and often
contradictory religious identities. Consequently, the change of confession did not seem such a decisive or
compromising step to them as it did to others. Kim Siebenhüner: Glaubenswechsel in der Frühen Neuzeit.
Chancen und Tendenzen einer historischen Konversionsforschung, in: Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, No.
34 (2007), pp. 243-272, p. 258.
1494
Ciarán Ó Murchada: The richest commoner in Ireland: Sir Donough O'Brien of Lemenagh and Dromoland,
baronet (1642-1717), in: Dal gCais, No. 10 (1991), pp. 7-13, p. 7.
1495
O’Brien, O’Brien of Thomond, pp. 96-98. Ó Murchada, Sir Donough O'Brien, pp. 7-8.
330
apparently died a Catholic as she bequeathed a variety of Catholic clergymen and monasteries
in Thomond with little donations of never more than five pounds.1496
In the following decades Donat O’Brien turned out to be the economically ablest of the
O’Brien clan renting and buying huge amounts of land, profiting mostly from the disinterest
of his relatives, the absentee Lords of Thomond and later Inchiquin. By 1688 he had an
annual income of about 6,000 pounds which earned him a nickname as the richest commoner
in Ireland.1497 As a loyal Protestant Donat O’Brien was unsuspicious of protecting Catholics
but he did at least connive at them through his under-tenants. This was revealed when a
Franciscan residence near Tubber was discovered by some unofficial report. The friars
resided in a house belonging to one Mortagh Hogan who was working as an agent for
O’Brien. The risk he was taking must not have been too high as though the residence was
discovered he persisted in O’Brien’s service whom he asked for support of a group of nuns in
1696 that were by then living in the former Franciscan house.1498
The clan of the O’Briens of Thomond was mostly in decline during the seventeenth century
but while parts of them disappeared, others rose high and fell alike, some remaining Catholic,
others converting to Protestantism and back again. Religious flexibility was characteristic for
this family as well as for others when it came to the question of survival and so one branch of
them stood always on the winning side. Even when they had long since converted to
Protestantism the local convents and traditional Catholic burial grounds were serviced what
secured them the continuous support of the local inhabitants. The one branch of the family
that broke with this tradition had to flee the country never to return although it is telling that
another Protestant O’Brien who rented the lands of the Earls of Thomond used them to
protect Franciscan friars, nuns, and teachers without ever being charged for it. And at the
same time the O’Brien who tried to use his conversion to gain political power fell in disgrace
and only recovered his position when a Catholic king ascended to the throne.
3. The Butler Family between Crown Loyalty and Local Responsibilities
Contrary to the Burkes and O’Briens the Butler clan was old English and centered in the
Southeast. As Earls of Ormond they had reached a powerful position in Irish politics,
expanding heavily in the sixteenth century. After the Reformation parts of the family
converted to Protestantism while others remained Catholic. In 1570 it was Walter Butler
(1559-1633) who inherited the Kilcash property of the family from his father, a younger
1496
O’Brien, O’Brien of Thomond, p. 101.
Ó Murchada, Sir Donough O'Brien, p. 8.
1498
Ó Dálaigh, Religious persecution, p. 61.
1497
331
brother of the 9th Earl. He was raised in the household of his Protestant uncle, 10th Earl of
Ormond.1499 During the Nine Year’s War he fought for the crown but was increasingly
criticized for his confession. When suddenly in 1613 he became heir to the Earldom of
Ormond after the unexpected death of Viscount Tulleophelim the government intervened,
interrupting the male line of inheritance but giving land and title to his Protestant cousin,
Elizabeth Butler, the only surviving child of Earl Thomas. When Walter protested he was
taken prisoner and lost the wardship for his grandson, James, who was sent to London to be
raised in the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He persisted in prison until 1623
when he acknowledged the changed inheritance.1500 A few years later in 1629 Walter finally
achieved a consolidation of the Butler territories marrying his grandson to the only daughter
and heir of Elizabeth Butler and her second husband.
While this marriage united most parts of the family property in the hands of the Protestant
raised new Earl of Ormond, James Butler, the lands of Kilcash were passed to Walters’s third
grandson, Richard, after his second grandson had died young in 1636. Different to his brother
James Richard remained Catholic and joined the rebellion of the 1640s with many other
family members, thus causing a new fundamental division. It was not until 1649 when the
brothers joined forces after the second Ormond peace treaty and fought together against
Cromwell.1501
After the Restoration both returned from exile but only James was restored to his property.
Nonetheless he achieved to have his claim to Kilcash recognized as well, pretending that it
never legally belonged to Richard and consequently gave it to him. This new line of Kilcash
developed to be a major stronghold of Catholic support in the next decades, be it for James
Phelan, later Bishop of Ossory who served the family for eight years as a chaplain and even
ordained priests at Kilcash in 1670 and 1671 or James Brenan, Bishop of Waterford and
Lismore and later Archbishop of Cashel who wrote many of his letters from Kilcash.1502 In
1672 he characterized his host as a “most zealous Catholic” who had “always been a protector
of the clergy. His palace has always been a sanctuary and refuge for ecclesiastics.”1503 Phelan
already accompanied Richard Butler while in exile and returned with him in 1660.1504 He was
also well-acquainted with James Butler’s nephew, Walter Butler, who hid him several times
1499
John Flood: Kilcash, 1190-1801, Dublin 1999, pp. 37-39.
David Edwards: Butler, Walter, eleventh earl of Ormond and fourth earl of Ossory (1559–1633), in: Oxford
Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 2004. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4212, accessed 22
Nov 2013] Flood, Kilcash, pp. 39-41.
1501
Ibid., pp. 42-44.
1502
Ibid., pp. 46-49.
1503
Power, A Bishop of the Penal Times, pp. 23-4.
1504
Carrigan, Diocese of Ossory, vol. 1, p. 117.
1500
332
in his house at Garryricken.1505 The Butlers of Kilcash were not the only family branch and
not the only family in the region that supported Catholics. In Cahir and Carrick other parts of
the family exercised the same indulgence to the clergy since they as well had remained
Catholic but also the local lords of Curraghmore who had converted to Protestantism did the
same as the family had done traditionally for over a hundred years.1506 And in Thurles, where
the Catholic mother of James Butler resided, there were Jesuits teaching the locals every time
they passed through.1507
But most interesting were the activities of James Butler and his own family, him being one of
the most important political figures in Restoration Ireland and a Catholic converted to
Protestantism. Together with his two surviving sons, Thomas (1634-1680), Earl of Ossory,
and Richard (1639-1686), Earl of Arran, he was shifting between loyalty to the king and the
Church of Ireland on one side and his Catholic family members and relations in a place that
had for several years been the capital of a Catholic Confederation on the other side. Ormond’s
personal politics were always dominated by the awareness, that he was watched eagerly by
his Protestant political adversaries and that at the same time he was committed to his family
tradition. So while the Catholic bishops complained about his fierce anti-Catholic policy he
was accused by the Earl of Orrery and others of not applying the laws to his own territories.
In fact, with exception of a short time during the Popish Plot there was no open persecution of
Catholics in Lower and Upper Ormond until the time of Queen Anne.1508
What Ormond’s own preferences were can hardly be said. He complained with regularity
about his Catholic relatives even though he did everything to protect them and their clientele
before others.1509 In 1678 he said as much when he stated that he was “taught by nature and
also by instruction that difference in opinion concerning matters of religion dissolves not the
obligations of nature; and in conformity to this principle, I own not only that I have done but
that I will do my relations of that or any other persuasion all the good I can.”1510 Most likely
his duty to family and Catholic tradition was something he would have preferred otherwise,
but what he executed over and over again. Already in 1675 he had written to Sir Robert
Southwell: “It is my great grief that my brother, Mathew, and many other of my relations are
1505
Burke, Penal Times, pp.103-4.
Power, Waterford and Lismore, pp. 44-5.
1507
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, p. 366.
1508
Dermot Gleeson: The Last Lords of Ormond: A History of the “Countrie of the Three O’Kennedys” during
the Seventeenth Century, rev. edition, Nenagh 2001, p. 138.
1509
When his cousin entered a convent at Ghent in 1667 he even made a personal donation to the abbess Mary
Knatchbell. Most probably he received shelter in the convent during his years in exile and felt personally
committed to the place as well as to his own blood. Cf. Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, p. 148.
1510
HMC, The Manuscripts of the Marquis of Ormonde, preserved at the Castle, Kilkenny, vol. 2, p. 280.
1506
333
Papists; and I would go far and do much to make them other; but in the meantime our
difference, in my opinion, cannot remove our relations to a further distance; and I think ought
not to abate our natural affection; and therefore finding him exceeding capable to manage my
affairs, and being very confident that his natural honesty (which I hope may be found in many
that dissent from us), his kindness to me and care of his credit will make him faithful and
diligent. I have trusted him very far in the affairs relating to my estate with good success, and
shall do still; the rather that I find him equally careful of my concerns whatever religion the
parties are of with whom he has to deal.”1511 In the end, Ormond saw the gains he could make
from his loyal Catholic family and that outweighed the risk of being accused by
Protestants.1512 Indeed, his brother Mathew remained his steward as he was again the source
of criticism in 1680, shortly after Ormond’s eldest son had died. Maybe the prospect of being
left with only one male heir made him even more determined not to exclude the larger part of
the Butler clan.1513
Family matters concerned him more than religious convictions and he knew how to use them
to his own advantage. When it came to interconfessional marriages, he openly revealed his
thoughts along with planning one in 1667 for one of his wards. Throughout his wellconnected Catholic family James Butler acted several times as a warden being the only
Protestant relative when the court of wards was finally suspended in 1662.1514 Ormond
planned to marry his ward and nephew, Charles James, Earl of Clancarty, to a niece of the
Earl of Orrery, his main political opponent.1515 Two years earlier Patrick Moore characterized
the relationship between both men in a letter to Ormond with the words: “all your
correspondency as to affairs were but teeth outwards, and that you loved not one another.”1516
But this animosity did not stop either of them from marrying a Protestant woman to a
Catholic ward. Orrery euphemized this declaring that Clancarty was a Jansenist and that
according to what he had learned, being a Jansenist was nearer to being a Protestant than to
1511
Ibid., pp. 260-1.
Jane Ohlmeyer underlined the fact that after his accession to the earldom Ormond tried to commercialize his
estates by evicting traditional Butler kinfolk and replacing them with English Protestant settlers willing to pay
higher rents. Similar to the Earl of Thomond it was thus little surprising that he faced such fierce opposition
from among his own relatives and former tenants when rebellion broke out in 1641. But different to Thomond
Ormond remained in Ireland for obvious political reasons. The 1641-experience, however, certainly influenced
his post-Restoration polity that aimed at re-including his Catholic kin and family in order to prevent similar
secessions. Cf. Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, pp. 111-2.
1513
Carte, Duke of Ormonde, vol. 2, p. 510.
1514
Ohlmeyer, Making Ireland English, p. 162.
1515
HMC, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, preserved at Kilkenny Castle, New Series,
vol. 3, pp. 283-4.
1516
Ibid., p. 180.
1512
334
being a Catholic.1517 The only problem arose when the earl’s niece declared in January 1667
that she would have scruples being married by a Catholic priest and when as a result the
future husband desired to abandon her as he would never be married but by a priest. Orrery
offered to contact his sister Lady Barrimore who had herself married the Catholic Jack Barry
in order to investigate how the problem should best be resolved. He understood the fear of the
girl that once married she could be forced by her husband to convert to Catholicism but only
recommended her to the favor and protection of Ormond. To appease the groom he even
ordered the mayor of Waterford to release an arrested Catholic priest who pretended to belong
to the household of the Earl of Clancarty. All the laws of the kingdom and anti-Catholic
resentments were of no interest here where the advancement of the family through a
beneficial wedding was at stake.1518
The personal and the complexity of inner-familiar interconfessional linkage was nowhere
more obvious than in the very center of Butler power, Kilkenny. The important trading place
had always been an intersection of Catholic activities in Southeast Ireland. All of the religious
orders were represented there, the Jesuits had founded a large teaching institution there in the
1640s and well-connected Catholic tradesmen secured the city the wealth from which the
Butlers in particular profited. Nowhere else was it more obvious that the Duke could not
afford to annoy his Catholic tenants, consumers, and tax-payers, even though he tried. Since
1660 he started to bring over some of the 170,000 French Huguenots that fled to England and
settle them mostly in the area of Carrick near Kilkenny to strengthen the local woolen
industry whose export restrictions were loosened in 1667. Around 150 people accepted his
offer to settle in the vacant houses of Carrick and Clonmel paying only a symbolical rent for
three lifetimes. But their number was never high enough to lessen the Duke’s economic
dependence of the local Catholics.1519
How important the Catholic trader community was to the city life was shown when James
Butler celebrated the visit of his youngest son in 1672. The considerable sum of 60 pounds
was paid for acquisitions to nine different merchants, seven of them being Catholics. One of
them gained the main profit by selling wine at a value of forty pounds.1520 These transactions
1517
Morrice, Letters of Roger, Earl of Orrery, vol. 2, pp. 87-89.
Ibid., pp. 133-135.
1519
Power, Carrick on Suir, pp. 57-8. The Duke’s behavior and prioritization fits in the European pattern
observed by Winkelbauer. If they engaged themselves in disciplining and confessionalizing their subjects this
was primarily motivated by their intentions to commercialise their domains. Since a conversion of his own
family and the majority of his subjects was not the personal aim nor feasible for Ormond the offered connivance
was in the case given the best choice for such a commercialization. Cf. Winkelbauer, Grundherren, p. 335.
1520
Neely, Kilkenny, p. 107.
1518
335
document the wealth that Catholics could obtain in Kilkenny and offer an explanation for the
vividness of the Catholic community and the density of Catholic clerics in the town.
Apparently the Duke and his sons were not too interested in acting against them as long as
their presence was not highly visible. According to Bishop Phelan of Ossory, a protégé of the
Duke’s brother and mother, there were 56 clerics in and around the town shortly before the
turmoils of the Popish Plot began in 1678.1521 They were actively converting the people, or at
least so the Franciscan guardian Philip Kelly pretended, stating that the local convent of his
order had ten friars and another member was acting as a parish priest in the town.1522 During
the Popish Plot only the largest mass-house was closed for a short time and markets and fairs
with Catholic participation were held outside the city walls, another indication that Ormond
tried not to execute anti-Catholic laws as long he lived of their community.1523 Nevertheless,
officially he rej