St. Catherine's, Owen Roe O'Neil.

X. - St. Catherine’s, Owen Roe O’Neill and Cardinal Rinuccini.

In the western side of Lucan is the famous St. Catherine’s. There is a well still here called St. Catherine’s Well. Was it one of the holy wells of Ireland? A bust of the Saint is all that is left to tell the tale. Many a poor villager have I known to make a pilgrimage there, and with its waters to bathe the weak eyes, the deaf ears, and the languid limbs. In the year 1219 the Canons of the Congregation of St. Victor took possession of this hallowed spot. Warrisius de Peche gave the site. It was he who built the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lucan, and it was to this community he left it in charge; and there they prayed and laboured with ceaseless zeal for the temporal and eternal weal of the people of Lucan. The Lord of Leixlip, Sir Adam de Hereford~ assigned them lands in Leixlip, on the condition they would pray for the repose of the souls of his forefathers. Here we have a historical proof of the doctrine of the Catholic Church regarding suffrages for the souls of the dead. In the deed of contract it was arranged that six chaplains should be maintained for this purpose. The grant to the canons was confirmed by the King in 1268. But debt - that avalanche which sweeps away the noblest efforts of man, extinguishes the noblest aspirations, and renders impracticable, for want of co-operation, a world of good - broke the hearts and spirits of the good canons. The glories of St. Catherine’s faded away, like many another that would have flourished from generation to generation but for the begrudging and stoical indifference, the apathy and helplessness, of those for whose welfare it was launched forth, in the beginning of the 13th century, upon the bright smooth ocean of brilliant hopes and prospects. After 104 years of prayer, labour, and sacrifice, the community transferred all their possessions to the Abbot of St. Thomas, Dublin.

In 207 years afterwards it was leased to the services of the parish Churches of Confey and Leixlip, but afterwards became the property of John Alen,* *Lord Chancellor of Ireland

Afterwards it fell into the hands of Sir Nicholas White, whose widow, Dame Ursula, sold it to Alderman Hatfield, who in his turn sold it to Sir John Percival.

Mr. La Touche bought it in 1792, and built a magnificent mansion on its ruins. The mansion, a repertoire of art and architectural beauty, was burned to the ground.

A former occupier of the demesne, Sir Samuel Cooke, discovered in it a lead vein.

St. Catherine’s is historically associated with the Great Confederation of Kilkenny.

It was here that the army of Preston lay encamped in 1646. It was here that the Nuncio, Cardinal Rinuccini, treated with that general. It was from St. Catherine’s he went to Newcastle to Owen Roe O’Neill, and back again to Preston in St. Catherine’s, during a critical period of the Confederation. It was here that the golden opportunity was lost of breaking for ever the iron chains of religious bigotry that still weigh down and oppress the Catholics of Ireland. Rinuccini is severely censured, but unfairly, for the part he played on this occasion. Here the Earls of Fingall and Westmeath waited on him. Here also the Earl of Clanrickarde used all his statecraft to bend the iron will of the Nuncio. The vacillating and wrangling Preston was to blame. The upright, able, chivalrous Owen Roe stands “sans peur et sans reproche,” and were not the leech-like fiend of Irish discord there, he would have swept away the vast hordes of bigotry, and would have asserted, for ever and aye, the independence of the Catholics of his native land.

It was a critical moment. There lay the two glorious hosts, divided, that should be united - Owen Roe’s in Newcastle, Preston’s in St. Catherine’s. It was winter, a severe winter. The wily Ormond cut off all food supplies from Dublin, and destroyed the neighbouring mills. Twenty, sometimes 30 men, were found in the morning, at the aurora, lying dead at their posts. Like Laurence O’Toole, Rinuccini, weary and footsore, tried to effect, passing from one camp to the other, a reconciliation; but Preston was obdurate. Clanrickarde seemed to have spellbound him. He was on the point of being seized and slain until, through Rinuccini’s prevailing influence, he withdrew all communication with Ormond. A moment’s union, and Dublin was easily taken. But no; accursed disunion! During 12 days the wrangling continued, and at a false alarm the camps broke up, fled to the south, and left Rinuccini a broken-hearted man in Lucan, bewailing for three days the bane of our nation-dissension, crying, like St. Laurence O’Toole: “Oh, you foolish people.” They met in Kilkenny. Peace reigned. A new Assembly met in Kilkenny, 10th January, 1647, and the saintly Bishop of Ossory celebrated, in the presence of the Nuncio, Solemn High Mass, amid a scene of unsurpassed and awful grandeur. After the ceremonies the Confederates repaired to the Castle. Here the Nuncio congratulated Owen Roe on his decisive victory of Benburb, by which the Confederation was saved from disastee. Dissension again raised its hydra-head. Dr. French, Bishop of Ferns, moved that Preston, on account of his treaty with Ormond, would be impeached. Swords were drawn. The tumult closed only after three weeks’ deputations, when it was resolved that the treaty with Ormond was invalid, and “that the nation would accept of no peace not containing a sufficient security for the religion, lives, and estates of the Confederate Catholics.” They swore never to leave down their arms till they obtained, first, the freedom of the Catholic religion, as in the reign of Henry VII. and former Catholic kings; the assertion of the jurisdicion of the Catholic clergy during these reigns; the repeal of anti-Catholic laws since Henry VIII.; the independence of the churches and Church livings in all places possessed by the Confederate Catholics, or afterwards to be possessed by them.

The seven years’ war was brought to a close on the 17th January, 1649, by a treaty of peace between Ormond and the Confederates. On the 23rd February Rinuccini sailed from Galway in his frigate for Rome.

The brave Owen Roe O’Neill still fought for Irish freedom till the 6th November.

On that day Ireland lost the last and the greatest of her warriors. He died in Cloughoughter, in Cavan. It is said that he was poisoned by a poisoned pair of russet boots sent him by Plunket of Louth, and which he wore at a ball given to Sir Charles Coote in Derry. His character is thus summed up by MacGeoghegan:- “His ideas were clear, his perceptions accurate, his judgment very sound. He was dexterous in profiting of the advantages which were furnished by the enemy. He left nothing to chance, and his plans were always well formed. He was sober, prudent, and reserved. When occasion required he could disguise his sentiments. He was well acquainted with the intrigues of courts, and, in a word, he possessed all the qualities necessary for a great general.”

But his glorious victory at Benburb brought out his sterling qualities into display.

Rinuccini says that on that memorable morning, the 15th June, 1646, “the whole army having confessed, and the *General, *with the other officers, having received the Holy Communion with the greatest piety, made a profession of faith, and the chaplain deputed by the Nuncio for the spiritual care of the army, after a brief exhortation, gave them his blessing,” And the great Owen Roe then addressed his soldiers in these words

“Behold the army of the enemies of God, the enemies of your lives. Fight valiantly against them to-day; for it is they who have deprived you of your chiefs, of your children, of your subsistence, spiritual and temporal; who have torn from you your land, and made you wandering fugitives.”

Noble was the result of these thrilling words. The Scotch were routed. 3,243 of their dead bodies were counted on the field. Monroe flew with his life to Lisburn, leaving his hat, cloak, and sword behind him. Thirty-two of their colours, artillery, arms, provisions, were seized by the Irish, whose casualities were only 70 men killed and 290 wounded - and Catholic Ireland, through hundreds of thousands voices exultingly sang forth her Te *Deum *to the God of Victories. No truer, braver, or loftier ever upheld the honour and integrity of Irish nationality.

Did they dare, did they dare to slay Owen Roe O’Neill?

Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel.

May God wither up their hearts! may their blood cease to flow!

May they walk in living death, who poisoned Owen Roe!

• Thomas Davis.

Father Meehan thus vindicates the character of the Nuncio

“Rinuccini S views were those of an uncompromised prelate. He had learned to appreciate the impulsiveness of the true Irish character, and determined to convince the Confederates that they had within their own body all the materials which were required to insure success. He set his mind on one grand object, the freedom of the Church in possession of all her rights and dignities, and the emancipation of the Catholic people from the degradation to which English Imperialism had condemned them. The churches which the piety of Catholic lords and chieftains had erected he determined to secure to the rightful inheritors. His mind and feelings recoiled from the idea of worshipping in crypts and catacombs. He abhorred the notion of a priest or bishop performing a sacred rite as though it were a felony, and spite the wily artifices of Ormond and his faction, he resolved to teach the people of Ireland that they were not to remain mere dependants on English bounty, when a stern resolve might win for them the privileges of freemen. His estimate of the Irish character was correct and exalted.” [“Confederation of Kilkenny.”]

And Haverty says:- “Rinuccini desired to raise the Catholic Church in Ireland to the dignity to which it was entitled, and the native race of Ireland to the social state for which he saw them fitted … And for the rest it can hardly be denied that on his side was all that the Confederation could boast of as chivalrous, high-minded, and national; while on that of the Ormondists we find intrigue, incapacity, and cowardice.” [“History of Ireland” (Charles I.)]

Surely there can now be no room for doubt as to the identity of the traitors during those eventful days spent by the Nuncio in St. Catherine’s. The traitors were neither the sturdy faithful Rinuccini, nor the valiant, fearless, Owen Roe O’Neill.

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