The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1918-03-30
BEATlFIcATION OF
OLIVER PLUNkET
LIFE STORY OF lRELAND's GREAT
PRlMATE OF THE nth
CENTURY.
Martyred Because Of His Religious
Faith-Executed at Tyburn
July II, 1851.

| WY ~ aVo'.
Rome, Sunday, March list. Pat
ricks day was celebrated at the Vati-
can by the reading by Pope Benedict
of decree for the qualification of
Oliver Plunket.
Msgr. O'Riordan, rector of the Irish
College, delivered an address, in which
he said Ireland was today paying to
Plunket debt owed to him for more
than two centuries. After reviewing
the life of Plunket, Msgr. O'Riordan
spoke of the religious struggle in the
United Kingdom.
Blessed Oliver Plunket, Archbishop
of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland,
was born at Lougherew, near Old
castle, County Meath, Ireland, 1929.
His is the brightest name in the Irish
Church throughout the whole period of
| persecution. He was connected by
birth with the families which had just
then been ennobled, the Earls of Ros-
common and Fingall, as we'll as with
Lords Louth rand Dunsany Till his
sixteenth year his education was at
tended to by Patrick Plunket Abbot
of st. Mary's, Dublin, brother of the
first Earl of Fingall, afterward Bishop,
successfully, of Ardagh and Meath.
He witnessed the first triumphs of the
Irish Confederates and as an aspirant
to the priesthood set Sout for Rome in
| 1915 under the care of Father Sea-
rampa of the Roman Oratory AS a
student of the Irish College of Rome,
which some twenty years before had
been founded by Cardinal Ludovisi his
record was particularly brilliant The
rector, in after years, attested that he
devoted himself with such ardor to
philosophy, theology and mathematics
that, in the Roman College of the So
ciety of Jesus he was justly ranked
amongst the foremost in talent, dill
gence and progress in his studies, and
he pursued with abundant fruit the
course of civil and canon law of the
Roman Sapienza, and everywhere, at
all times, was a model of gentleness,
integrity and piety.' Promoted to the
priesthood in 1854, DIR. Plunket was
deputed by the Irish bishops to act
as their representative in Rome
Throughout the period of the Crom-
Wellian usurpation and the first years
of Charles IFS reign he must effectu-
ally pleaded the cause of our suffer
ing Church, while at the same time
he discharged the duties of theological
professor at the College of Propa-
| o. In hn
sanda, July 8, 1869, he was appointed
to the primatial See of Armagh, and
was consecrated November 80, at
Client, in Belgium, by the Bishop of
Client, assisted by the Bishop of Ferns
and another bishop The pallium was
granted him in Consistory July %,
1870.
Dr. Plunket fingered for some time
in London, using his influence to miti-
gate the rigOr OF the administration of
the anti-Catholic laws in Ireland, and
it was only in the middle of March,
1910, that he entered on his apostolate
in Armagh. From the very outset he
was most Jealous in the exercise of
the sacred ministry. Within three
months he had administered the Sac
rament of Confirmation to about 10,O 900
OF the faithful, some of them being
sixty years old, and, writing to Rome,
in December 1873, he was able to an
nounce that during the past four
years he had confirmed no fewer than
1850
The storm of persecution burst with
renewed fury on the Irish Church in
1873; the schools we're scattered, the
chapels were closed. DR.. Plunket, how
ever, would not foresake his flock
His palace thenceforward was some
matched hut in a remote part of his
diocese. AS a rule, in company with
the Archbishop of Cashel, he lay con-
cealed in the woods or on the noun
talns, and with such scanty shelter
that through the roof they could at
night count the stars of the sky. He
tells their hardships in one of his let
tiers: The snow fell heavily, mixed
with hailstones, which were very hard
and large. A cutting north wind blew
in our face, and the snow and hail beat
so dreadfully in our eyes that up to
the present we have scarcely been
able to see with them. Often we were
in danger in the valleys of being lost
and suffocated in the snow, till at
length we arrived at the house of a
reduced gentleman who had nothing to
lose. But, for our misfortune, he had
a stranger in his house, by whom we
did not wish to be recognized, hence
we were placed in garnet without
chimney, and without fire. where we
have been for the past eight days
May it rebound to the glory of God, the
salvation of our souls, and of the flock
entrusted to our charge"
Writs for the arrest of DR.. Plunket
were repeatedly issued by the. govern
ment. At length he was seized and
cast into prison in Dublin Castle, De-
cember 6, 1879, and a whole host of
perjured informers were at hand to
swear, his life away. In Ireland the