Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Chapters towards a History of Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth (Author: Philip O'Sullivan Beare)
Chapter 11
Patrick O'Healy, Bishop of Mayo, and his comrade, Connatius O'Rourke, Franciscans and Famous Martyrs.
NO milder course was taken with Patrick O'Healy, Bishop of Mayo, and his companion, Connatius O'Rourke, of whom I have already written as follows:—In that most doleful time during which Elizabeth, Queen of Britain, after destroying the church in England, was assailing the Catholic religion in Ireland also with the utmost violence, there flourished Patrick O'Healy, an Irishman of by no means humble origin, who having embraced the order of the Seraphic Francis, in Spain, stayed some years diligently studying in that most famous academy of Complutus. Then after he had elsewhere and finally at Rome, in the convent of Ara Coeli, proved to all the innocence of his life and his sincerity by many evidences of holiness and penance, he was consecrated bishop by Pope Gregory XIII. in the year of our Redeemer 1579, and laden with gifts was sent into Ireland, that country requiring him to assist it struggling against the deadly contagion of English heresy. When he reached Paris on his journey he earned in public debates in the university then widely famous a reputation for great ability and very uncommon learning. With
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him went his companion Chaplain Connatius O'Rourke, son of the chieftain O'Rourke, a man of a noble ancestry, reckoned amongst the first in Ireland, a light of the Seraphic Franciscan Order, and of irreproachable character. Both having embarked in a ship weighed anchor for Ireland. When they arrived there they landed on the open shore, whence going towards Askeaton, which was a town of Earl Desmond's, they were captured by the Queen's emissaries and soldiers—Earl Gerald FitzGerald and his brother John and other kinsmen being absent. They were sent in chains to Limerick city, where they were shut up for fifteen days in a dark and fetid prison. When Drury, an Englishman and Viceroy of Ireland, thought them sufficiently tried by this punishment and likely to give in, they answered him that on the contrary that place appeared to them sweeter and more enjoyable than the most delightful garden replete with many scented flowers and cheered by the glowing sun and a pleasant puff of air cooling the heat of autumnal midday. The furious viceroy determined to punish them more severely, and ordered them to be brought before him. Then turning an angry eye and truculent countenance upon the bishop, ‘Why is it,’ said he, ‘you mad and wicked man, that you spurn the commands of the Queen and contemn her authority, and make a mockery of her laws? Be converted, if you be wise; be converted to the Queen and to her creed. In this way whatever crimes you have committed heretofore shall be forgiven on the simple condition that abandoning the Pope's faction and guidance you attest by an oath that the Queen is head and prince of the church in her own dominions. So not only may you have the bishopric of Mayo, but richer rewards from the Queen, such is her royal munificence.’ The bishop answering nothing to all this, gently smiled. Where upon the viceroy asked, ‘What are you laughing at?’ ‘Give me,’ said the bishop, ‘this leave I pray. How could I restrain a smile when you bid me be converted who have never turned from the true religion of God. Wherefore if I should follow the Queen's schism from it, that would not be a conversion but a perversion, since it is always called a conversion to the true religion from the false, but a perversion from the true to the false.’ ‘We will pass from these jokes,’ said Drury, ‘but I know very well that the design of the Pope and king of Spain to make war on the Queen, especially in this kingdom of Ireland, is well known to you, and that you are in their councils, which you cannot conceal.’ The bishop made no rejoinder to this, and when
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he was plied with questions, whilst his hands and feet were broken with a mallet, and splinters driven between the nails and flesh of his hands, he betrayed nothing. His companion Connatius intrepidly followed in the footsteps of his holy superior. The viceroy transferred both from Limerick to the town of Kilmallock, and there sentenced them to death. When they were brought to the scaffold, which was erected on a hill not far from the gates of the town, the bishop addressed the crowd with wonderful cheerfulness and rare eloquence and sacred learning, confirming the people in the Catholic faith, warning them against the errors of the English; and then he named a day of reckoning for the viceroy to render an account of his unjust sentence against him, an anointed bishop, and his priestly companion, and for his extensive cruelties against friars, bidding him in the name of the Lord to stand before the divine tribunal before the fifteenth day. Thereupon our martyrs were hanged with a halter fashioned from the holy girdles with which friars of the Seraphic Order bind their habit. The bishop was hung between his comrade Connatius and one who was accused of robbery, and whilst he hung was pierced in the forehead by a bullet from an English soldier. Thus the two martyrs rendered their souls to their Creator. There are witnesses to attest that those who were present and saw conspicuous and obvious signs were filled with an incredible consolation on account of this miracle; it is well-known that their bodies hanging from the gibbet were never touched by any beasts, or in the least molested, when the other corpse was torn by wild dogs and birds. The viceroy quickly fell into a horrible disease, and suffering great pain rotted daily from an incurable corruption, accompanied by a most repulsive stench, and on the fourteenth day from the martyrs' deaths he died at Waterford perpetually tormented by wicked devils. The bodies of the martyrs were in a short time buried by the Catholics.