Mission to a Suffering People: Irish Jesuits 1596 to 1696

By Thomas J. Morrissey

In 16th and 17th century Ireland religion and nationality fused together in a people’s struggle to survive.  In that struggle the country’s links with Europe provided a life line.  Members of religious orders, with their international roots, played an important role. Among them were the Irish Jesuits, who adapted to a variety of situations – from quiet work in Irish towns to serving as an emissary for Hugh O’Neill in the south of Ireland and in the courts of Rome and Spain, and then founding seminary colleges in Spain and Portugal from which young Irishmen returned to keep faith and hope alive. In the seventeenth century persecution was more haphazard.  There were opportunities for preaching and teaching and, at time, especially during the Confederation of Kilkenny in the 1640s, for the open celebration of one’s religion. This freedom gave way to the savage persecution under Cromwell, which resulted in the killing of some Jesuits and others being forced to find shelter in caves, sepulchres, and bogs, the Jesuit superior dying alone in a shepherd’s hut on an island off Galway. There followed a time of more relaxed laws during which Irish Jesuits publicly ran schools in New Ross and, for Oliver Plunkett, in Drogheda, but persecution soon resumed and Oliver Plunkett was arrested and martyred. At the end of the century, as the forces of King James II were finally defeated, some Jesuits lived and worked through the sieges of Limerick and then nerved themselves to face the Penal Laws in the new century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Messenger Publications
• Release date: Aug 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781788123433

Thomas J. Morrissey

Thomas J. Morrissey, SJ, is a graduate of the National University of Ireland, and a former headmaster of Crescent College Comprehensive in Limerick and president of the National College of Industrial Relations Dublin. He has written some thirteen books on Irish Labour, Ecclesiastical, Jesuit, and Educational History. These include Towards a National University: William Delany, SJ, 1835-1924 (Dublin 1983), As One Sent: Peter Kenney, SJ, 1779-1841 (Dublin 1996), William J. Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, 1841-1921 (Dublin 2000), William O'Brien, 1881-1968. Socialist, Republican, and Trades Union Leader (Dublin 2007), Jesuits in Hong Kong, South China and Beyond, 1926-2006 (Hong Kong, 2008), Edward J. Byrne, 1872-1941: The Forgotten Archbishop of Dublin (Dublin 2010), and editor of Social Teaching of James Connolly (Dublin 1991).

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Chapter 1

A New Mission to Ireland: James Archer (1550–1620)

Drawing of ‘Archer, a Jesuit, and O’More, an Irish Chief’

THE seventeenth century marked a new era in Ireland. Intensely wooded, with poor communications and roads, and with a population of less than a million, the country found itself, as the century began, in a devastated state because of past and present wars. For the first time the entire island came under the control of the English government, which had only a limited knowledge of the area it was attempting to rule, and little understanding of the people and their culture.

The population included three major groups. The oldest were the native Gaelic Irish, reaching back to ancient times. Next were the Old English, descendants of those who had settled in Ireland after the Norman invasion of 1169 who, it has been estimated, held some 2,250,000 acres, nearly one-third of the profitable land.⁴ Finally there were the New English who, with official encouragement, had settled in the country from the mid-sixteenth century and who, unlike the other groups, were still relatively few in number and mostly Protestant in religion. Often they were planters, occupying land from which the native population had been expelled.

Social and Political Situation

The country had over forty walled towns at this time, although only the port towns could be considered large.⁵ Many of the people of these towns were of Danish or Norman origin, and they were often bilingual, speaking both English and Irish. They comprised all social classes, ranging from the great nobles, such as the earls of Kildare and Ormond, to humble townspeople.

The native population had little in common with the townspeople and Old English landowners. Although there was necessary interaction between them for trade and barter, and although they shared common religious beliefs, the townspeople and the Old English landowners tended to view the native Irish as almost alien, inferior in language, culture and background. In many ways they had more in common with their English counterparts and were more ready to express loyalty to English monarchs than were the native Irish.

Based on the Old Gaelic kingdoms, the country was divided into northern, southern, western and eastern provinces – Ulster, Munster, Connacht and Leinster. The corresponding ecclesiastical provinces, which were not co-extensive geographically with the civil provinces, were Armagh, Cashel, Tuam and Dublin. Government administration was centred in Dublin and the area known as the Pale, which extended some distance north, south and west of the city. The English monarch rarely visited Ireland, and was represented by a lord lieutenant of Ireland, usually a member of the English nobility. In his frequent absence he was represented by a lord deputy, who was also usually an Englishman.

The Pale

1494

The Pale

1537

The Religious Scene

For most of the sixteenth century, the government of Ireland had been directed by English lords deputy, supported by English troops. At this time of English aggrandisement the Tudor monarchs Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both promoted the Protestant Reformation in Ireland, with the result that in the second half of the sixteenth century opposition to the government’s expansion took on a strongly religious as well as a defensive tone. Hoping for support from abroad, opponents of the government looked to Spain, where Philip II was seen as a leader of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

The great majority of the population in Ireland were Catholic at this time. A small number of the landowners, however, had converted to Protestantism in order to preserve their extensive lands and enjoy government support. Prominent among these were the families of Ormond in Kilkenny and a section of the O’Brien family, with the title of Inchiquin, in parts of Munster. The principal ministers of religion were the Catholic bishops and the diocesan priests, but there were also many members of religious orders living and working in the country. The most prominent among these were the Franciscan friars, who were active throughout the land and especially among the native Irish. Also present were Dominicans, Carmelites and Jesuits. The number of Jesuits was small, but they received particular attention from the government because they were especially associated with active support for the Counter-Reformation in Europe and in England itself.

Jesuit Missions to Ireland

The Jesuits first came to Ireland on a papal mission in 1542, shortly after Pope Paul III had formally approved the Society of Jesus as a religious order. The mission was in response to an appeal from chieftains in the north of Ireland who felt that their status and their religion were being threatened by the aggressive political and religious action of English government forces. The men chosen for what proved to be a short, unsuccessful mission, were Paschase Broët and Alfonso Salmerón, two of the early companions of Ignatius Loyola.⁶

The second Jesuit mission to Ireland began in 1560. It was led by one of the first Irish Jesuits, Limerick-born David Wolfe, who was sent to Ireland as a papal commissary. Virtually on the run from his arrival in the country, and imprisoned from 1567 to 1572, he nevertheless managed to make important recommendations for episcopal appointments, sent a number of young men for training to seminaries on the Continent, and founded a school in Limerick. A relation of his, Edmund Daniel, who was also a Jesuit but not yet ordained, was arrested and hanged in 1572. Six years later, Jesuit Superior General Everard Mercurian judged that it was no longer safe to send anyone to Ireland, and the last surviving member of the second mission, Charles Lea, died in 1586.

The third Jesuit mission, which was to continue until the suppression of the order in 1773, arrived in Ireland in 1596. It was led by Kilkenny-born James Archer, whose family were legal advisers to the lord of Ormond. Archer came with a dual role: to investigate the possibility of inaugurating a new Irish Jesuit mission, and to seek aid for the Irish seminary at Salamanca. The Irish seminaries in Spain, as will be seen, were to play an important part in Ireland’s religious history.

Beginnings in Salamanca

In sixteenth-century Ireland, Catholic parents who could afford it, especially in the towns of Munster and South Leinster, sent some of their sons to Spain and Portugal for education, and at the close of the century a number of these students entered Irish seminaries in those countries. The first of these seminary colleges was established at Salamanca, and it came about through the efforts of Thomas White (1558–1622), an Irish secular priest, originally from Clonmel, County Tipperary.

By the 1580s, Irish students in Spain tended to gather in the vicinity of Valladolid, which until 1561 had been the centre of the royal court and of administration in the country. In 1582, White came to Valladolid where he found ‘many poor Irish scholars in great misery, having neither means to continue their studies, nor language to beg’. In response to their situation, he gathered them together into one house where he maintained them by his own efforts and by appeals to the citizens. This hazardous existence continued for ten years.⁷ At some stage during those years, it became evident to White that the only hope of obtaining regular financial assistance for his project lay with the royal court, and that such assistance was most likely to be given if these youths were prepared to return to Ireland as priests.

White turned his house into a shelter for young men preparing for priesthood in Ireland, and with this in mind he obtained an audience with Philip II in 1592. The king was impressed by White’s initiative, presented him with a sum of money, and gave a commitment for the endowment of a college. Since Valladolid was already over-burdened with groups seeking aid, Philip asked that the college be situated in Salamanca,⁸ about seventy-five miles away. Meanwhile, some ‘Irish gentlemen’ at the royal court petitioned the king that these Irish youths be placed under the care of the Society of Jesus, and Philip agreed.

On 2 August 1592, Philip wrote to the city officials of Salamanca and to ‘the Rector, Chancellor, and the Cloister of the University of Salamanca’, recommending the students to the care of the city officials and to the charity of good men, since ‘they are strangers and poor, and for the service of God have left their own country’.⁹ He pointed out that a house had been provided for them and that they had been granted ‘a good annual stipend’ (500 ducats).¹⁰ He requested the university to consider the students as ‘highly recommended’ so that, ‘as they have left their own country and all they possessed in it, in the service of God, our Lord, for the preservation of the Catholic faith, and make profession of returning to preach in it, suffer martyrdom if necessary – they may obtain in the University the reception which they have reason to expect’.

The College of Salamanca under the Jesuits

In keeping with Spain’s sense of itself as a leader in religious orthodoxy, Jesuit Superior General Claudio Acquaviva, decided to place the overall charge of the Irish College in the hands of the rector of the Jesuit college in Salamanca, while entrusting its ordinary administration to an Irish Jesuit superior. Following a recommendation from White, who by this time had decided to enter the Society of Jesus, Acquaviva appointed James Archer to replace him.¹¹ Prior to this appointment, Archer had acted as chaplain to the Spanish forces in the Low Countries. While in that role, his name had come to the attention of English agents, and their reports would make his future return to Ireland a dangerous undertaking.

As superior in Salamanca, Archer set a high standard for the students from the start, both academically and in their life in community. By this time, Ireland had been in a state of turbulence for much of the past century. Opportunities for formal education at home were few, and there was no institute of higher learning that would set educational standards. Where Irish students were concerned, therefore, it was particularly important to establish a tradition of appropriate discipline, piety and solid learning in any new foundation. About the same time another Irish Jesuit, John Howling, wrote to the Bishop of Ossory from Lisbon, where he too was in the process of establishing an Irish college, saying that compared to other students, a spirit of obedience was lacking among the Irish.¹² A firm hand was required.

On arrival in Salamanca, students promised in writing to be obedient to the college authorities and to observe the rules of the seminary. Subsequently, they were obliged to take an oath pledging themselves to embrace the ecclesiastical life and to ‘go into Ireland to help souls’. Students, who were between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, were required to be ‘of good disposition, determined to lead a virtuous life, and of sound health’, so that they could ‘easily carry out the labour of their studies’. From the Constitutions and Rules drawn up later, in 1600, it is clear that the college was concerned with screening candidates and testing their sincerity, as well as training them for a hazardous future. In order to avoid young men using the college simply to acquire an education or for some other dubious reason, each candidate had to undergo ‘for four months or more, a test of his life, morals, and general suitability’. If a candidate was found unsuitable, he was to be sent away quietly.¹³

Although the Irish College seems to have been characterised by a humane application of its rules, there is a record from the early years of two students leaving because they found the discipline too severe. Another former student, Florence Conry (Flaithrí Ó Maolchonaire, 1560–1629) had unpleasant memories of his time in Salamanca under White, who appears to have been responsible for his dismissal. Conry became a Franciscan and later was made Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. He never forgave White, or by extension the colleges in Spain connected with him and the Irish Jesuits, for the hurt he had experienced.

Archer had three objectives in mind when taking over the college in 1592. First of all, he wanted to establish a tradition of appropriate discipline and solid learning among the students. Secondly, he hoped to develop and maintain friendly and trusted relations between the Irish College, on the one hand, and the university, the civic authorities and the local Jesuits on the other. Finally, he set out to ensure a reliable and adequate revenue for the college. The first two objectives were more easily realised. By 1596, he had obtained notarised testimonials from the university, the civic authorities and the Spanish Jesuit rector asserting the good impression made by the students of the college. The third objective – financial security – continued to present considerable problems.

Some