Good book about the Catholic persecution in Ireland?

[Deirdre]

I got an email this morning from a rosary website that briefly touched on the Catholic persecution in Ireland under Cromwell. I'm interested in learning more about this subject as I currently know nothing about it. Any suggestions? Bonus points for ebooks!

[Lynne]

I got an email this morning from a rosary website that briefly touched on the Catholic persecution in Ireland under Cromwell. I'm interested in learning more about this subject as I currently know nothing about it. Any suggestions? Bonus points for ebooks!

I second this!

[diaduit]

I will try to get the title of a book a friend of mine has and it is about how the Irish were persecuted in the penal times and had masses at the mass rocks under threat of death.

I was at the Mass rock of Newry Aug 15th for Our Ladys special feast day and it was beautiful.  As a child I went to the Pigeon hole caves in Cong Co Mayo where my father is originally from and I can still see the blood of the martyred priest on the massive mass rock in the caves (on Tripadvisor and is now a tourist spot).  It is called the Pigeon holes because pigeons flew out of the cave and revealed the cave to the Red coats who right there and then slaughtered the priest - I don't know his name).

It could take a few days.

[Elizabeth]

Perhaps that explains the use of pigeon in our vernacular, in its negative connotations.

[Deirdre]

I found this one:

Our martyrs: A record of those who suffered for the Catholic faith under the penal laws in Ireland

but it's terribly expensive over here, and the UK sellers won't ship to the States.

[Lynne]

I found this one:

Our martyrs: A record of those who suffered for the Catholic faith under the penal laws in Ireland

but it's terribly expensive over here, and the UK sellers won't ship to the States.

It's sold by ACN Ireland (Aid to the Church in Need for 10 pounds (print *and* digital)!

https://www.acnireland.org/

I got the digital edition. It's *very* good.

[Deirdre]

i had hoped to find it for free on archive.org since it's so old, but no luck.

[Lynne]

i had hoped to find it for free on archive.org since it's so old, but no luck.

There's one called THE CATHOLICS OF IRELAND UNDER THE PENAL LAWS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY by Cardinal Moran. I haven't looked at it yet though.

[diaduit]

I found this one:

Our martyrs: A record of those who suffered for the Catholic faith under the penal laws in Ireland

but it's terribly expensive over here, and the UK sellers won't ship to the States.

My friend didn't get back to me but her last child is finished home schooling and going into high school for the last two years necessary to get to uni...she is mad busy.  She will eventually though.  Postage here is gone bananas so I'm not surprised.

[Prayerful]

i had hoped to find it for free on archive.org since it's so old, but no luck.

Archive.org seem to have made all their useful out of prints into library hires. A bit annoying. A strange aspect was that in England, the executions of priests almost ended, with far more under Charles I who had a Catholic wife and her royal chapel or Charles II who died Catholic on his deathbed. Yet in Ireland a good few monasteries which had clung on like Sligo Priory, but were savagely wrecked with priests and monks killed. According to local lore, a number of nuns were hanged at the nearby bridge. Burrishoole Friary in Mayo, decently well known to me, originally opened in the 15th century without Papal authorisation, also suffered severe wrecking. Contrary to what Wikipedia says for it and other monasteries, it was not suppressed in the sixteenth century. There were at least 200 monasteries open in Ireland when Elizabeth I died, and some mediaeval parish churches like old St Kevin's church (rere Kevin's Street) remained in Catholic hands until James I. Waterford's cathedral was in Catholic hands until Gen Ireton took it for Cromwell. Before he took it, it's elaborate Burgundian vestments were hidden underneath the church and only found when the old cathedral, by then long Anglican, was being demolished for a new structure. The Anglican bishop handed them to his Catholic counterpart. Now in the Waterford Museum of Treasures in very low light and a contrast with Fr Geoffrey Keating's ragged vestments from Penal days. Good military accounts are a useful angle, as castles and monasteries were of military significance. The Osprey book, Cromwell's Crusade, 1649-52 does cover it a bit.