The Execution Of Oliver Plunkett 1681
After the Restoration of Charles ll in 1660 there was the relaxation of the anti-papist laws by the monarchy in line with the Declaration of Breda, an agreement between Charles ll and General Moncke which guaranteed religious toleration.
In light of this Rome appointed Oliver Plunkett who had spent most of the years of Cromwellian persecution in the Irish College in Rome, as Archbishop of Armagh in 1669.
He returned to Ireland and immediately started a programme of reviving and reorganising the structures of the Church which had been all but destroyed. He had schools built for educating both the young and the clergy, in Drogheda he established a college for the training of Jesuit priests and he tackled the problem of drunkenness amongst the clergy.
The enforcement of English Penal Laws
In 1673, the Test Act was initiated which demanded that all public figures, clergy and lay, were to take Holy Communion in the manner of the Anglican Church. Plunkett refused to do so and became a hunted man. His college in Drogheda was destroyed and a new persecution of the Church began. This persecution was mostly the result of the Popish Plot, a fabrication concocted in England by Titus Oates. Plunkett was falsely accused of being involved in planning a French invasion.
Oliver Plunkett charged with treason
Plunkett was finally arrested in 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin and then taken to stand trial in Dundalk. The charges of treason and plotting were unproven but instead of being released he was taken to Newgate Prison in London as the authorities knew they would not obtain a conviction in Ireland.
Plunkett was tried again in London where the Grand Jury found no charge against him. He was then retried in a disgraceful act of injustice by Sir Francis Pemberton and sentenced to death by hanging, drawing and quartering at Tyburn. This was carried out much to the displeasure of the London populace who admired Plunkett’s calm bravery, on 1st July 1681. He publicly forgave those who had persecuted him.
After the death of Oliver Plunkett
Pemberton was removed from his post after the death of Oliver Plunkett, but quickly regained favour. Lord Shaftsbury who had had Plunkett brought to London fell into Royal disfavour and fled England and died in Amsterdam in 1683. Titus Oates the concoctor of the Popish Plot was fined £100,000 for sedition and imprisoned. He faced further persecution when James ii took over the monarchy but later released and granted a pension under William of Orange.
Oliver Plunkett’s remains were first interred, in 2 tin boxes in St. Giles Anglican Church in London.
In 1684 the remains were removed to Lambspring in Germany. They were again transferred to St. Gregory’s College Downside in England.
His head, in a state of good preservation was returned to Ireland in 1722 to the Dominican Convent in Drogheda.
He was the first Irish martyr to be beatified in 1920 and then in 1975 he was canonised.
Saint Oliver Plunkett is still honoured by many people in Ireland and around the globe today.
History books
Ireland 1649-52: Cromwell's Protestant Crusade
The first battle in Cromwell's bloody offensive was at Drogheda, where an assault on the city walls resulted in the slaughter of almost 4000 defenders and inhabitants.
Making Ireland British, 1580-1650
The book presents a devastating indictment of the project of plantation through which the aim to create a British Ireland was attempted over the period, an indictment all the more damning for the matter-of-fact, non-judgmental tone in which it is delivered.