St. Thomas Garnet (1575 - 1607)

Thomas Garnet, who was born in 1575 or 1576, came of a staunch Catholic family. His father had been a Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but had been expelled for his Catholicism before Thomas was born. His uncle was the Jesuit superior in England, Father Henry Garnet. Thomas spent part of his boyhood in Horsham, where he attended the Grammar School (now Collyer’s School), and it appears that when he was about thirteen the whole family found themselves for a time in Horsham gaol. The year was 1588, a year when the threat of the Spanish Armada brought suspicion on any known Catholics. At some time, also, he was a page in the household of one of St Philip Howard’s half-brothers, probably Lord William Howard.

At the age of eighteen Thomas had made up his mind that he would offer himself for the English mission as a secular priest. He went first to the newly-opened English school at St Omer in Flanders, and in 1596 began his theological studies at the English College at Valladolid in Spain. He was ordained in 1599, and very soon returned to England.
He spent the next six years ministering to the Catholics in this country. Little is known about his movements – naturally enough, since he was defying the law of Elizabeth I which made his presence in England as a priest a capital offence. His superior was the Archpriest Blackwell, of whom we shall hear more.

In the year 1605 he approached his uncle, Henry Garnet, asking to be admitted into the Society of Jesus. He was accepted, but before he could go abroad for his novitiate both he and his uncle were arrested. Henry was charged with complicity in the Gunpowder Plot and executed. Thomas was imprisoned, in the Gatehouse and then in the Tower, and subjected to constant interrogation, in an attempt to find something to incriminate himself or his uncle. After eight months even Cecil, the head of the Commission, accepted that he had nothing to do with the Plot, and after he was released into banishment. Those eight months, spent in the cold and damp of the Tower, brought on rheumatism or sciatica, from which he suffered for the rest of his life. Even after his release, he was presented with a letter purporting to be written by his uncle, admitting some of the charges against him. A word from Thomas would have validated the letter, but he scornfully rejected it as the forgery it was.

Back on the Continent, Thomas eventually (1607) arrived at the newly-opened Jesuit Novitiate House in Louvain. He was professed after five months, his period of imprisonment being accepted as part of his novitiate.
And so Thomas returned to England, a Jesuit priest. But this time he was not as fortunate as he had been before. Instead of six years, he had barely six weeks before he was betrayed by an apostate priest and was once again lodged in the Gatehouse prison. There he was interrogated by a Commission headed by the Bishop of London. Ordered to take the Oath of Supremacy, he refused. This was a new oath, requiring the person to “abhor, detest and abjure as impious and heretical the damnable doctrine and position that the King of England, if excommunicated” (as Elizabeth had been) “may be deposed or murdered by his subjects.” The Bishop of London put it to Thomas that the Archpriest Blackwell had taken the oath (which was true). Thomas hesitated, but after consideration refused “because he thinketh that it were a violation of the Catholic faith to abjure anything as heretical which the Church hath not defined as heretical, or is not manifest by the word of God to be heretical.” These interrogations went on for eight months, to June 1608. Finally the Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir William Wade, was added to the commission, and soon got Thomas transferred to Newgate – the prison for those whose destiny was death at Tyburn.

From Newgate he was brought to trial at the Old Bailey on four charges. First, that he was a priest and had come into England against the statute of Elizabeth. The prosecution pointed to the words “Thomas Garnet, priest” scratched on the wall of the cell in the Tower where he had been imprisoned two years before. But no proof could be adduced that he was the writer. Second, that he was a proscribed Jesuit; since Thomas would admit nothing, this was also unproved. The third charge was that he had seduced the King’s subjects from their duty and allegiance. This Thomas hotly denied, and produced a form of the Oath which he was ready to take. This paper was torn from his hand and destroyed. The final charge was that he refused to take the Oath of Allegiance; this he admitted, and on that ground he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor.

June 23rd dawned, the day appointed for his execution. Eyewitnesses were all struck by Thomas’s resolute and positively cheerful demeanour. On the scaffold he said, “I am a priest out of the blessed Society of Jesus, though I am most unworthy and one of the worst of them all.” And he added: “I am the happiest man this day alive. This is the happiest day that ever I did see.” He forgave and prayed for those who had betrayed and condemned him. As he sang the hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus, the cart was driven away. Well-wishers weighed down the hanging body, to ensure his immediate death, before the barbaric disembowelling could commence. A friend, posing as a madman, made off with his clothes and other relics.
Thomas Garnet, first martyr from the School of St Omer’s, first novice of the English Jesuits’ house at Louvain, was canonised as one of the forty Martyrs of England and Wales in 1970.

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THE IRISH CATHOLIC MARTYRS

The Irish Catholic Martyrs were dozens of people who have been sanctified in varying degrees for dying for their Roman Catholic faith between 1537 and 1714 in Ireland. The canonisation of Oliver Plunkett in 1975 brought an awareness of the other men and women who died for the Catholic faith in the 16th and 17th centuries. On 22 September 1992 Pope John Paul II proclaimed a representative group from Ireland as martyrs and beatified them. "Martyr" was originally a Greek word meaning “witness”. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter, speaking to those in Jerusalem at Pentecost, claimed he and all the apostles were “martyrs”, that is, witnesses, in this case to Jesus's resurrection. Later the word came to mean a person who followed the example of Christ and gave up their lives rather than deny their faith.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by
expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Individuals formally recognized:

Canonized
12 October 1975 by Pope Paul VI.

Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, 1 July 1681; beatified 1920.

Beatified
15 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI.

John Carey (aka Terence Carey) , layman, 4 July 1594 at
Dorchester, England.

Patrick Salmon, layman, 4 July 1594 at Dorchester, England
22 November 1987 by Pope John Paul II .

Charles Meehan (alias Mahoney), Franciscan, 21 August 1679, Ruthin, Wales; 27 September 1992 by Pope John Paul II.

Margaret Bermingham Ball, 1584, Dublin.

Patrick Cavanagh, 5 July 1581, Wexford.

Edward Cheevers , 5 July 1581, Wexford.

Dominic Collins , Jesuit lay brother from Youghal, County Cork, 31 October 1602.

John Kearney, Franciscan Prior of Cashel, 1653.

Matthew Lambert, 5 July 1581, Wexford.

Maurice MacKenraghty , Chaplain to the Earl of Desmond, 1585.

Robert Myler , 5 July 1581, Wexford.

Terence Albert O'Brien O.P., Bishop of Emly, 31 October 1651.

Conor O'Devany , Franciscan Bishop of Down & Connor, 11 February 1612.

Patrick O'Healy, Franciscan Bishop of Mayo, 31 August 1579.

Peter O'Higgins O.P., Prior of Naas, 23 March 1642.

Dermot O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, 20 June 1584.

Patrick O'Loughran, priest from County Tyrone, 11 February 1612.

Conn O'Rourke, Franciscan priest, 31 August 1579.

Francis Taylor, former Mayor of Dublin 1621.

William Tirry, Augustinian priest from Cork, 12 May 1654.

Other martyrs
Gelasius Ó Cuileanáin , Cistercian Abbot of Boyle , 21 November 1580.

History:
The persecution of Catholics in Ireland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came in waves, caused by a reaction to particular incidents or circumstances, with intervals of comparative respite in between.

Henry VIII:
Religious persecution of Catholics in Ireland began under King Henry VIII (then Lord of Ireland ) after his
excommunication in 1533. The Irish Parliament adopted the Acts of Supremacy, establishing the king’s ecclesiastical supremacy. Some priests, bishops, and those who continued to pray for the pope were tortured and killed. The Treasons Act 1534 caused any act of allegiance to the pope to be considered treason. Many were imprisoned on this basis. In 1537, John Travers, the Chancellor of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, was executed under the Act of Supremacy.

Elizabeth I:
Relations improved after the accession of the Catholic Queen Mary in 1553-58, and in the early years of the reign of her sister Queen Elizabeth I . After Mary's death in November 1558, Elizabeth's Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy of 1559, which re-established the Church of England’s separation from the Catholic Church. Initially, Elizabeth adopted a moderate religious policy. The Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity (1559), the Prayer Book of 1559, and the Thirty-Nine Articles (1563) were all Protestant in doctrine, but preserved many traditionally Cathol ic ceremonies.

In 1563 the Earl of Essex issued a proclamation, by which all priests, secular and regular, were forbidden to officiate, or even to reside in Dublin. Fines and penalties were strictly enforced for absence from the Protestant service; before long, torture and death were inflicted. Priests and religious were, as might be expected, the first victims. They were hunted into mountains and caves; and the parish churches and few monastic chapels which had escaped the rapacity of Henry VIII.

During the early years of her reign no great pressure was put on Catholics to conform to the "Established Church" of the new regime, but the situation changed rapidly from about 1570 onwards, mainly as a result of Pope Pius V 's papal bull
Regnans in Excelsis which "released [Elizabeth I's] subjects from their allegiance to her".
In Ireland the First Desmond Rebellion was launched in 1569, at almost the same time as the Northern Rebellion in England. The Wexford Martyrs were found guilty of treason for aiding in the escape of James Eustace, 3rd Viscount Baltinglass and refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy and declare Elizabeth I of England to be the head of the Church.

Charles II:
During this period, the English persecution of Catholics in Ireland was more lenient than usual, owing to the sympathy of the king, until the Popish Plot , a fictitious conspiracy concocted by Titus Oates, between 1678 and 1681 gripped the Kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Those caught up in the false allegations included:

Peter Talbot , Archbishop of Dublin (died in prison, November 1680)

Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, executed at Tyburn 1 July 1681.

Investigations:
Irish martyrs suffered over several reigns. There was a long delay in starting the investigations into the causes of the Irish martrys for fear of reprisals. Further complicating the investigation is that the records of these martyrs were destroyed, or not compiled, due to the danger of keeping such evidence. Details of their endurance in most cases have been lost. The first general catalog is that of Father John Houling, S.J., compiled in Portugal between 1588 and 1599. It is styled a very brief abstract of certain persons whom it commemorates as sufferers for the Faith under Elizabeth.
After Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the cause for Oliver Plunkett was re-visited. As a result, a series of publications on the whole period of persecutions was made. The first to complete the process was Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop of Armagh, canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI.[7] Plunkett was certainly targeted by the administration and unfairly tried.

Biographies:

John Kearney
John Kearney (1619-1653) was born in Cashel, County Tipperary and joined the Franciscans at the Kilkenny friary. After his novitiate, he went to Leuven in Belgium and was ordained in Brussels in 1642. Returned to Ireland, he taught in Cashel and Waterford, and was much admired for his preaching. In 1650 he became guardian of Carrick-on-Suir, Co Tipperary. During the Cromwellian persecutions, he was arrested and hanged in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. He was buried in the chapter hall of the suppressed friary of Cashel.

Peter O'Higgins O.P.
Peter O'Higgins was born in Dublin around 1602 during the persecution under James I. He was educated secretly in Ireland and later in Spain. With the accession of Charles I in 1625, a limited tolerance obtained and Peter came back to Dublin and was sent to re-open the Dominican house in Naas. The 1641 rebellion, a result of the plantations, evictions and persecutions (but not in County Kildare), brought with it years of conflict between Irish v Old English, Catholic v Protestant; Puritan v Anglican. During this time the William Pilsworth, Protestant rector of Donadea, was arrested by rebel soldiers and about to be hanged, when Fr. Peter O'Higgins stepped forward. Pilsworth later wrote that when he was on the gallows, “a priest whom I never saw before, made a long speech on my behalf saying that this…was a bloody inhuman act that would…draw God’s vengeance on them. Whereupon I was brought down and released.”

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