Patriotism and the Papacy in Ireland
����������� The Catholic Church has always played a major role in the history of Ireland. Since the time of St Patrick most Irish have been Catholic. Probably among the basic information most anyone knows about Ireland is that the Irish are Catholic, their color is green and they have had a lot of trouble with the British. However, the Catholic Church did much more over the years than minister to the spiritual needs of the Irish. The Church has long taught that faith should be the center of your life, touching on everything you are and everything you do and that the reign of Christ the King is universal. Christianity, in short, has a temporal as well as a spiritual sphere and it is not so well known just how involved the Catholic Church was over the years in supporting the Irish effort to liberate themselves from British rule.
����������� Among the ranks of those who not only stood with the Irish in their struggle for liberty but who actually committed men and money to aid in the war effort are two men in particular: Pope Gregory XIII and Pope Innocent X. The catalyst for these events was, of course, the imposition of Protestantism in England, and by extension Ireland, starting with King Henry VIII. The Church is not a revolutionary sort of institution and does not normally condone much less support armed rebellion. However, when a government embraced heresy and begins persecuting the Church and the people simply for their devotion to that Church there are few other options but armed struggle. At no other point in Irish history up to that time had the Church and the Catholic people known such persecution as during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
����������� The cruelties of Elizabeth sparked a number of rebellions but it was the effort to expel all Catholics from the province of Munster which sparked the Second Desmond Rebellion, led by James FitzMauriceFitzGerald. He had launched the First Desmond Rebellion in 1569 which was quite easy given the widespread anger of the people in southern Ireland at the plantation efforts of the Tudor monarchy in England. However, the rebellion was not well organized or very well coordinated and the lord deputy of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney soon defeated the Irish and Fitzgerald went into exile in Spain, which is where the real fun begins. By this time the Catholic Reformation had been launched to deal with the outbreak of Protestantism and the British Isles were becoming especially crucial. Pope St Pius V had absolved all Catholic subjects of Queen Elizabeth I of England of their allegiance to her and supported her replacement by Mary Queen of Scots, the legitimate candidate for the throne.
����������� James Fitzgerald immersed himself in the revitalization of the Church in the Catholic Reformation. In 1579 he returned to Ireland prepared for what he called a Holy War of the Catholic Irish against their Protestant tormentors. He had tried to enlist the help of Queen Catherine in France and King Philip II of Spain but neither had been enthusiastic. He did, however, find help in Rome when he met with Pope Gregory XIII. The goals of the campaign were uniquely Catholic. They were fighting against the Protestant policy of ruining the land and driving off the Catholics, they were fighting for Gaelic culture as opposed to the dominance of English culture on their country and they were fighting for the feudal, localized government against the centralization being pushed by Elizabeth I. Yet, this was not simply a nationalistic fight as James had met with and earned the support of numerous English Catholics in Rome who wanted to see Elizabeth I removed and the Catholic Church restored to its old place. As a sign of how non-nationalistic the English Catholics were, they also supported the Fitzgerald plan to make Giacomo Buoncompagno, the nephew of Pope Gregory XIII, the King of Ireland.
����������� The first expedition was a false start when King Sebastian of Portugal convinced the English Catholic leader, Captain Thomas Stukley, to take a side adventuere to Morocco where both were killed. A new invasion force was gathered by Fitzgerald and the English priest Father Nicholas Sanders who served as the papal representative on the mission. The force consisted of 600 Italian, Spanish and Irish troops on four ships which left for Ireland from Spain in June of 1579 all funded by Gregory XIII. Once they landed and established themselves they raised the papal flag, Fitzgerald read out his commission from the Pope and declared a crusade against Queen Elizabeth I. Arriving on July 16, the group was joined nine days later by 100 additional Spanish troops. In August they were also joined by John Fitzgerald of Desmond and his brother James Fitzedmund Fitzgerald who brought 3000 Irish troops with them and some foreign mercenaries. Still keeping things in the family, the Earl of Desmond attempted to rally Irish forces to oppose his relatives but found no popular support for his position.
����������� There were setbacks though, especially the following month when Sir William Winter landed at Smerwick, capturing their fleet and cutting them off from Europe. Worst of all to the moral of the freedom fighters was the death of James Fitzmaurice himself while on a raid in Connacht where he tried to rally the populace. Burke forces clashed with his own and James was killed, leaving John of Desmond in overall command. Nonetheless, the English simply did not have the strength to put down the rebellion in Munster where it had widespread support from the outset. Nicholas Malby moved against them with 1,700 English troops from Dublin in October, destroying all Desmond lands as he went. This only further enraged the population and strengthened the opposition to English rule. Further, Malby was to do the Irish an additional favor with his arrogance when he demanded the castle of Gerald, the Earl of Desmond. The Earl naturally refused and so he was promptly declared a traitor by England and was therefore left with no other course but to join the papal army along with most of the rest of the Fitzgeralds who were still holding aloof.
����������� This was a major blunder for the English as the Earl of Desmond took command of the rebel forces and led them in a stunning attack on Youghal. The city was captured on November 13, 1579, the English army was annihilated and the local English officials were hanged. England was stunned and more and more Irish flocked to take up arms. The chief of the MacCarthy clan, MacCarthy Mor, joined the rebel army by sacking Kinsale. The Irish were inspired and the English were terrified, but these actions did prompt the English to take drastic measures and more brutality was to follow. A massive Anglo-Irish army was dispatched to sweep through Desmond lands, destroying everything in their path. They took up this mission with a vengance and devestated the counties of Limerick, Cork and Kerry, massacring civilians and destroying property at will. This army finally broke the back of the resistance by capturing Carrigafoyle castle in March of 1580, cutting off the Desmond armies from their support city of Limerick. One fortress after another fell to the English and several clan chiefs surrendered so that by the beginning of summer the war looked to be over.
����������� However, before the summer was up the English were faced with another disaster in eastern Ireland when Feagh MacHugh O?Byrne joined the rebellion in July. Joined by other local leaders and even the devout Catholic Englishman Lord James Eustace, Viscount of Baltinglass, they declared Creon MacMurrough Kavanagh King of Leinster and began attacking government posts in the east. Viscount Baltinglass met with Father Sanders and John of Desmond to cooperate their campaigns but little coordination was possible. The effect of having the rebellion spread inspide the Pale was horrifying for the English though and 6000 English troops were immediately dispastched from London under Baron Grey de Wilton to suppress the rising in Leinster. Viscount Baltinglass met them in August as Grey attempted to storm their mountain lair. The Irish ambushed them and inflicted over 800 casualties on the English, forcing them back. The English had been defeated, but not destroyed and the Irish, although victorious, could not take the most fortified cities and so were reduced to raiding. The English could not stop them and so responded with reprisals, executing many Irish people for real or imagined treason against the King of England. In fact, many of these victims were Old English people who were killed mostly because of their continued adherence to the Catholic Church. English or Irish, all Catholics were to suffer equally under the reign of the Protestants.
����������� Still, the game was not up for the Church and on September 10, 1580 a small Papal army of about 600 men sent by Pope Gregory XIII and commanded by Sebastiano di San Guisseppi landed in Smeriwick to reinforce the rebel Catholic forces. The Desmonds and Lord Baltinglass tried to unite their forces with those of San Guisseppi but they were intercepted and cut off by superior English forces under Baron Grey and the Earl of Ormonde. English naval forces then sailed in to bottle up the papal ships and cut off the land forces from any hope of escape or reinforcement. Isolated, San Guisseppe had no choice but to barricade himself in a fort at Dun an Oir. The following month Baron Grey besieged the 600 Italians, Spanish and Irish with 4,000 soldiers along with siege artillery brought up by ship which made short work of the hastily erected fortifications. The papal commander made a brave show of defiance for three days but was forced to surrender.
����������� What followed was one of the most horrific acts in Irish history. Sparing only the leaders of the embattled garrison, following the surrender on October 10, 1580 every other Italian and Spanish soldier taken and every single Irish man and woman were massacred on orders from Grey. The English spent two days cutting the heads off of every person taken in the siege, littering nearbye fields with bodies, discarding some in the sea and using others for target practice. It was a horrific display of inhuman cruelty that Ireland would never forget. Such famous names in England as Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser were accused of participating in the massacre, though in the case of Raleigh at least there is evidence that he may have involved elsewhere at the time. To this day the site of the massacre is known as the Field of the Cutting and that where the heads were buried is known as the Field of Heads. The Irish were stunned, as were all good Christian people, and when the emnity between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland today seems so absurd, remember that this massacre is only one of a long list of atrocities that Catholic Ireland will never forget.
����������� More than a military defeat though, this act sickened and crushed the morale of many Irish Catholics and organized resistance to English rule soon broke down. The Irish were forced to resort to guerilla warfare. The regular Protestant forces were unable to destroy them so Grey adopted what would become a common tactic; persecuting innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the fighting. By his own admission he burned their crops, slaughtered their livestock and destroyed their homes leaving countless numbers to die slow and cruel deaths of exposure and starvation. This, in turn, caused widespread famine and desease to follow. Eventually, the cruel horrors inflicted on Ireland became too much even for Queen Elizabeth I and she dismissed Grey as Lord Deputy of the island in 1582. Tens of thousands died, most of them helpless people. One of those who starved to death was the English priest Father Nicholas Sanders. Feagh MacHugh O'Byrne probably held out the longest, not surrendering until late 1582 in Leinster.
����������� The Earl of Desmond was killed in Cork in 1582, a fugitive from the English fighting for his life. The chieftain Maurice of the O?Moriarty clan received a payment of 1000 pounds in silver from delivering the head of Desmond. The grisly trophy was sent to Queen Elizabeth as a present while the body was displayed on the walls of Cork as a warning to all Catholics who might dare to challenge Protestant rule. The power of the Desmonds had been broken for good, but the spirit of the Irish Catholics was not. All Catholic lands were seized by the government, adherence to the Protestant church was made mandatory and Protestants were transplanted from Britain, the infamous plantations, in an effort to eradicate the native Irish Catholics and build a new Protestant dominated country. However, all of this only served to strengthen the resolve of the Irish and soon the O'Donnell and O'Neill clans would lead another Catholic rebellion against Queen Elizabeth in Ireland, inflicting on the Protestant queen the most stunning defeat of her entire reign at Yellow Ford in 1598.
����������� The Irish Catholics were again overwhelmed but nonetheless continued to resist, even outlasting the Queen herself. The guerilla raids stopped following an agreement with her successor, the Stuart King James VI of Scotland and I of England. James I was far from popular with most Catholics, but his son and heir won many over. King Charles I was a very traditional sort of Anglican and was married to Catholic princess from France. Following the 1641 Rebellion Irish leaders united to form the independent government of Confederate Ireland which vowed to stand for Irish liberty, loyalty to King Charles I and the defense of the Catholic faith. It was hoped that with opposition growing to the King in Britain he would agree to their demands for political and religious freedom, however, cordial relations with the royalists in Britain were not always possible as the Confederate Irish would have liked. They also attracted the hatred of the enemies of the King in Britain, which was easy since they were dominated by the radical Protestants who held a deep hatred for Catholics anyway. They viewed any hint of an alliance between the King and the Irish Catholics as tantamount to making a deal with the devil.
����������� The Church, on the other hand, saw this as a great opportunity to have once again a Catholic and independent Ireland peacefully, without the usual warfare with the British monarch. His Holiness Pope Innocent X was very supportive of Catholic Ireland and sent Archbishop Giovanni Battista Rinuccini to Ireland as papal nuncio. The archbishop also brough with him a large monetary gift from the Pope, thousands of muskets, edged weapons and pistols, ammunition and 20,000 pounds of gunpowder to help maintain the independent Ireland. He stressed that he came to aid those loyal to the King but also pointed out that foremost was the need for Irish liberation and an end to the persecution Irish Catholics had so long suffered. However, by this time the Catholic Reformation was in full swing and Rinucci had big dreams. He envisioned an independent, Catholic Ireland; the removal of the oppressive Protestant presence and the use of Ireland as a base from which to launch the retaking of England for the Catholic Church.
����������� Unfortunately, this brief period of freedom for Catholic Ireland was not to last long. Unity broke down over arguments concerning Britain, one of which was supporting the king in the English Civil War; which was finally rendered pointless by the defeat of the royalists and the victory of the anti-Catholic Puritans. Once Charles I was executed and Oliver Cromwell took over as dictator of the British Isles, Confederate Ireland was destroyed in a military campaign described by many as genocidal. Rinuccini blamed the Old English elites for the lack of unity among the Catholic Irish and noted that the poor Gaelic Irish were the most devout Catholics. Thanks to Oliver Cromwell, such Catholic elites were never to be a problem for Britain again. Their estates were sezied, they were killed or driven off, being a Catholic was outlawed and priests were killed if captured. Nonetheless, Confederate Ireland remained a shining example for Irish Catholics as the last time Ireland had independence before the 20th Century. Those who remembered it also remembered Pope Innocent X and how the Catholic Church had been there to provide real material help in their hour of need.
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