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which by the death of the latter, which took place soon after, became also solely vested in Lord Inchiquin. The cannon and ammunition thus obtained by the confederates did them good service. One of these was a thirty-two pounder, by the terror of which they reduced all the neighbouring castles except Loughgur and Askeaton. In these our own days of Whitworths, Armstrongs, Parrotts, and Blakelys, it is amusing to read Carte's description of this huge piece of ordnance, which was of so large a bore, he says, that it was drawn by twenty-four yoke of oxen. The county Limerick, however, which was the great granary of the province,' was in the hands of the confederates, and Inchiquin was unable for want of men to carry out his desires of destroying the harvest. Towards the end of July the two Generals prepared to march into Cork where the sea ports were held for the parliamentarians by Lord Broghill, Sir Charles Vavasour, Sir John Paulet, and Sir William Ogle.

The Catholic party, who were now in possession of Limerick, made every exertion to repair and strengthen the fortifications."

Among those who were seized and imprisoned on this occasion by the triumphant party was George Webb, Protestant Bishop of Limerick. Ware states that he was a native of Wiltshire, an Oxford Student, greatly distinguished for the smoothness and eloquence of his style as a preacher in the Court of Charles I. He died a prisoner in the Castle of Limerick, his body was interred in St. Munchin's Church yard; was taken up soon afterwards in order to see if there were rings or other valuables buried with him, and again deposited in his last resting place. It is said that he had been in possession of the mitre and crosier of Cornelius O'Dea, who had been Bishop of Limerick from A.D. 1400 to 1426, and of the Black Book of Limerick, from which I have quoted so largely in the early chapters of this work, and from which I shall have occasion to quote more largely hereafter; and that they then came into the custody of the Catholic Bishop, with whose successors the mitre and crozier have ever since remained, objects of the highest ecclesiastical and archæological interest.

Pierce Creagh was mayor in 1643, when the ramparts westward of John's Gate and Mungret Tower were built, in the battlement of one of which was the following line :-PIERSE CREAGH, Mayor, 1643.3

Ibid, I., 842.

21642. This year, Pierce Creagh being mayor, the rampart from St. John's Gate of Limerick, within the walls, towards the west, was made, and the new tower built there (Mungret Gate Tower); this appears by the stone fixed in that tower on the walls, where it says, that when Pierce Creagh was mayor that tower was built, but makes the year 1643.-White's MSS. Dr. Arthur's statement in reference to this circumstance is in Latin, which we translate literally as follows:-" When the citizens were strengthening the Southern Gate of Limerick, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, with an exterior triangular bulwark, at the public expense, I thought the work, when it had been finished, worthy of being celebrated with the following few verses, to be inscribed on marble:-[The verses are in Latin and may be literally translated as follows:]

Altars and native hearths, and laws defending,

Now doth the Royal city from this fort,

The King's foes far remove, the miscreant knaves
Stained with the dreadful murder of a king;
Removes afar those evil working troops,

Foes to our country, lusting for our gold,
Our homes and all.

At Plassy Mills, the property of Richard Russell, Esq., J.P., on a stone about four feet long, but broken thus, built into the mill, and seen from the small bridge over the mill stream,

During and before the mayoralty of Pierce Creagh FitzAndrew, many improvements were made by him.'

By an act of parliament passed in this year, the escheated portions of the city and suburbs, with the island of Inniscattery, the fisheries of the Shannon, together with twenty-four thousand acres adjoining the city, and the same immunities as Dublin and Bristol, were set out to English adventurers at £60,000, and £1050 a year quit rent.2

In this year, while the confederates, now masters of Limerick, Galway, Sligo, and Duncannon, and of all the chief towns of the kingdom, except Dublin and a few sea-ports, were strengthening their resources, and gaining important advantages, a commissioner arrived in Ireland from the Holy See, being sent by Urban VIII. at the instance of the celebrated Father Luke Wadding, a native of the city of Waterford, an able statesman, who at this time resided at St. Isidore's College in Rome. This was Father Peter Francis Scarampi, a priest of the Oratory, who was the bearer of a pontifical Bull, in which he praised the zeal with which the Irish fought for the independence of their religion. He was also the bearer of 30,000 crowns, collected by Father Luke Wadding from the Barberini, Spada, and other noble families. His Holiness also sent a large quantity of arms and ammunition, and a jubilee, with a plenary indulgence to all who should take up arms in the defence of religion. Scarampi, on his arrival, proceeded directly to Kilkenny, where he found the confederates warmly discussing the question of an armistice; the Irish of the Pale being anxious to make terms with Ormond, while the old Irish, encouraged by the clergy, were hostile to any

that runs into the Shannon there, is the following inscription, formerly over Mungret Gate:

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1 Pierce Creagh FitzAndrew was active and enterprising. He built a fine "Stone howse" in Mary-street, which house is yet standing, and in which mantel-pieces, with the initials of his name, and the initials of his wife's name, may yet be seen.* The house is No. 9. It was mortgaged in 1631 to Dr. Thomas Arthur for a sum of £300; and it is a curious fact that in the year 1860, this identical house was sold by auction, and purchased by a Mr. Cooney, of Broadford, in the County of Clare, for the same sum of £300. It was in his mayoralty that the causeway was finished through the Friar's bog (Monabraher), and the bridge over the causeway built, as appears by the inscription raised on a stone in the bridge in black letters :

"Hunc pontem ac Viam Stratam fieri fecit

Petrus Creagh filius Andreæ major ciutatis

Limericensis sumptibus ejusdem ciutatis, A.D. 1635."

In Davis' MSS., it is said in rhyme that a Scotchman came to ply a ferry-boat between Limerick and Parteen, but as he demanded money in advance, the city refused to deal with himhence the causeway was made.

2 Irish Statutes, 17th Charles I.

3 Hib. Dom. 650, and the authorities there quoted-the author here quoted assigns this mission to the year 1644, but the Arthur MSS. to 1643. The latter date is adopted by Father Meehan also, in his interesting history of the Confederation of Kilkenny.

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proposals which should not ensure their religious rights. The Papal envoy gave every encouragement to the old Irish party.

The conduct of the Mayor and Corporation, and of certain prominent citizens of Limerick in this crisis, was selfish and timid in the extreme; they desired, as it were, to remain quiescent spectators of what was passing, rather than take an active part in events of the deepest national interest. The truth is that many of them were secret sympathisers with Lord Inchiquin, and the Earl of Thomond with whom they carried on a constant correspondence. To counteract the mischief which was growing out of this state of things, the Council of the confederation, which was now in Clonmel, despatched Sir Daniel O'Brien of Dough, and Mr. George Comyn of Limerick, with directions to confirm the party faithful to the confederates in their resolutions, to sift to the bottom of what was agitated, and to prepare the way, if possible, for the coming of the confederate Council to Limerick. But the Mayor, and those who acted with him, notwithstanding the opinions to the contrary of the Right Rev. Dr. Arthur, who was Catholic Bishop, the Clergy, and the citizens generally, were violently opposed to the introduction of the Council and Envoy, and represented the country to be scarce of corn between Clonmel and Limerick; that great inconvenience would arise from the crowds which would be certain to arrive if the Council repaired to the city. Dr. Thomas Arthur conducted the correspondence on the part of the Mayor, &c. and his letters, two of which from his MSS. I give in a note, testify to the extreme sensitiveness which was felt lest the Papal Envoy and Council should arrive in Limerick.2

Billing's Fragmentum Historicum in Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica.

"Doctor Dominick White, for the second time Mayor of Limerick, and the rest of the Councillors and principal men of the city have earnestly requested me to write in their name this letter to the distinguished personage Lord Peter Francis Scarampi, at present acting in the capacity of Apostolic Nuncio for Ireland, to explain, in the form of apology, the true causes of ingress into that city being refused to him on the 28th of October, anno Dom. 1643.

'Most Illustrious Lord.-Our Lord Bishop Richard Arthur, venerable for the dignity of his love and merits, indignant on account of your Lordship's non-admission, has interdicted me the Mayor of Limerick, my predecessor and other leading men of our Council, nor can we find any room for pardon with him, unless your Lordship, of your eminent humanity and clemency, will vouchsafe to intercede for us. But you will say that we are persons of an impudent character, to presume to ask that favour of you who lately excluded you in a shameless manner. Yet we hope, indeed, that your Lordship will be more favourably disposed towards us, when you shall have weighed the influential causes which forced us against our will to commit that act of inhospitality, which causes we shall here without deceit explain.

Our city from the beginning of this war has been divided principally into two sects or factions, of which the one did in a great degree hanker after murder, theft, rapine, and robbery, whilst the other while it had devoted to the pious services of labouring for religion, king, and state, disdained to be defiled by the commission of such base crime and the stain of filthy lucre. The former, conscious of guilt, and apprehensive of a rebuke for their crimes, and a forthcoming demand of restitution one day or other, fear all things; trust not even those that were bound to them by ancient ties. find no asylum sufficiently secure, persecute the innocent with internecine hostility. Whilst the latter, from the conscientiousness of their integrity, is buoyed up with better hope, and is compelled to devote a considerable part of their industry, in repelling and overpowering the tricks, stratagems, frauds, and snares of the other party that menace them, and they were particularly engaged in that care recently, when the elections were appointed for the creation of mayor, sheriffs, and other new magistrates; for then the feelings of the citizens and of all ranks were divided between antagonistic leanings, and so, great feuds, quarrels, and passionate disputes arose, as well in the county as in the city, that none such have hitherto occurred within the memory of our forefathers. For the first faction laboured with all its might for the creation of magistrates, who would comply with and agree to their suggestions and counsels; who, if they should attain their object, threatened to lead 500 soldiers to winter and spring quarters to Limerick, when there was already a cessation to arms and sieges; then at length, when they should be secured by so great a force or garrison, they threatened that exile, the gibbet, and the loss of all their properties impended over such of the other party as were troublesome, and other such things as surpassed all endurance. By these clamours of malice and envy, discreet men of the innocent faction (if I may use the expression) were excited and

The Council saw through the hollow manœuvre; but as they could not garrison the city, they adopted prompt measures to prevent the citizens from roused, and they acknowledged that now the time was at hand when, if they possessed any resources in talent, industry, friends, dependants, or wealth, they were bound to employ all these energetically in the defending and upraising of the commonwealth soon doomed to fall, and in the preservation and defence of their lives, their wives, their children, and all their properties. And lest they should give occasion by their own neglect or violence to the city, being betrayed and reduced to the last degree of distress by a too numerous party who aimed at it, they spent days and nights in anticipating and averting the attempts of their antagonists, and in restoring their fellow-citizens to a better way of thinking and becoming integrity.

Meantime, while we were circumstanced in such peril, after we had passed several months suspected, and apprehensive in avoiding and laying stratagems alternately, behold we learned by sudden report that your Lordship would come hither in a few days, which kept us in a state of anxiety and solicitude: for we feared lest some clandestine embassy sent by our adversaries would draw you over to give credit to their attempts by your presence, being sufficiently assured; and having clearly foreseen that if your most illustrious Lordship should influence the minds of the citizens, while hesitating, vacillating, and in suspense, that we should lose our cause, which is so legitimate and of so great moment, and on which our own safety and that of the whole community depends, and that the populace, being won over, would raise some disturbance in the city; wherefore we judged that it was of the utmost consequence to the public interest, as soon as possible, to entreat you through our envoys, that you would be pleased to make a longer delay at Cashel while we should provide for ourselves and the interests of our community; which care kept us so anxious and busy employed, and distracted our attention, that we had not time to pay your Lordship the respects due from your humble servants, by suitable honors and adequate preparations; and that presently when we had transacted the business which was then to be done in the city, that your Lordship's arrival would be most grateful to us. But our envoy having by no means obtained his point, brought us word that your most illustrious Lordship had decided to ride up to our gates for the purpose of seeing our Bishop [Presul]; from which unexpected reply that former suspicion of ours received a great aggravation, respecting the clandestine and crafty pronouncement of your arrival by our antagonists, which we could not be led to expect would take place, until astonished by the sudden intelligence of your being mounted on horseback before our gates. We at length adopted the resolution, that our envoy should explain to you in what anxiety about present circumstances our Council and people were involved and engaged, and to request in our name, that for that night at least you would go to either of the splendid houses distant not more than one mile, of Mr. Jordan Roch, Town Councillor, or Nicholas Haly, Esq. also a fellow-citizen of ours, where you would be honourably received, and there on the next morning kindly await the further wishes of the Council. Waiting in the meantime to see if we should happen to learn from some of your attendants or household secretaries, something that would remove that scruple about the designs of the adverse faction, and had that happened according to our desires, we would receive you freely, and, as the saying is, with open arms; but your hasty and more distant withdrawal disappointed both of us in our wishes and expectation. Illustrious Sir, you have the true sentiments of our minds disguised by no fabrications, which we suppliantly pray you may receive with the same sincerity of mind; and that you pardon your servants, whom the fear of domestic feuds, plotting against our lives and fortunes, has drawn aside from the path of our usual and ancient civility and due deference; and humbly imploring the apostolic benediction that you would kindly grant it to us, and that you would graciously remove the indignation of our bishop against us, for which marks of civility and decency, our city Councillors and all classes would be eternally obliged to you, as well as myself. Your Lordship's most humble Servant,

Limerick, 14th October, 1643. This other letter also by the advice of the same Mayor and Council, I wrote to the same Peter Francis Scarampi on the 5th January, 1643, old style.

Most Illustrious Lord-As when I was lately at Waterford, and had offered to you the apology of our mayor, and of all classes of our city, and explained to you the reasons of our constant duty and obedience to the apostolic seat, so in turn when I came to Limerick, I extolled the praises of your kindness, benignity, and indulgence towards them, and brought word that your most illustrious Lordship had decided upon thoroughly effacing and removing the mark of the offence you had taken, honoured our city and aged bishop with your presence, and fixed for that purpose upon the next spring as being most suitable, being the time when you should have some respite from the anxiety of business, as well as when the serenity of the air, the tranquillity of the weather, and the pleasantness of the country might conduce more to your health, and mitigate the tediousness of so long a journey. The reason for which candour on your part, and foresight in selecting the time of the proposed journey, all approved, and did not expect your most welcome arrival before that time. But our mayor very lately heard that our bishop had intended (I know not what secret advice moving him to it), himself and the rest of the common council, and some one of the clergy, should invite and bring hither your most illustrious Lordship at so unseasonable a time of the year, when, without the pressure of some urgent necessity,

joining the Earl of Thomond to the injury of the Confederate Government. The influence which the Earl of Thomond exercised over the merchants of Limerick was well known, because he occupied Bunratty Castle, and the islands on the Shannon, which commanded the navigation of the river. He could destroy their commerce, injure their credit, and prevent their approach to or from the sea, if he chose. The Council despatched Sir Daniel O'Brien and Daniel O'Brien of Dough, to seize the Castle of Bunratty, and the person of the Earl. The one was the uncle, the other the near kinsman of the Earl-and both were persuaded that it was the best thing could happen him, for the Council had resolved, if he could thus be compelled to join the Confederation, that without interfering with his religion, a great part of his estates would be preserved for him, and no declaration required by which he should be subject to the penalty of neutrals. But the Earl was fully alive to what he conceived to be his own interests. He had already given up Bunratty to the Parliamentarians, and it was not recovered without a formal siege,' as we shall see as we proceed.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE APOSTOLIC NUNCIO RINUCCINI.-SIEGE OF BUNRATTY CASTLE.-ESTIMATE OF ORMOND.-TE DEUM IN ST. MARY'S CATHEDRAL.-ORMOND'S PEACE DENOUNCED.-BOURKE DEPOSED.-FANNING CONSTITUTED MAYOR.-ATROCITIES OF MURROUGH OF THE BURNINGS AT CASHEL, &c.

THE war, in its very beginning, produced great changes in the circumstances of some of the highest personages in the land. The Marquis of Antrim, whose Dowager is stated to have been reduced to such a state of poverty by the war, returned to Kilkenny this year, having effected his

no prudent person ought to persuade, or even propose that your Lordship should expose yourself to the uncertainty of the weather, the inclemency of the winter, and the inconveniences of so long, muddy, and deep a journey. Wherefore our mayor, and the other leading men of the council intreated me to write in their names to your most illustrious Lordship, and in the first place recall the memory of their due respect towards you, their most humble request that, since your Lordship is pleased to adhere firmly to your first point, and commendable purpose, and to be induced by no intreaties to anticipate that time, which is so suitable, and which you will appear to have more prudently taken forethought for your health, exposed to very many inconveniences, on account of the unusual variety of climate, soil, and food, and to do a most acceptable thing to our mayor and the rest of our council, preoccupied in collecting very large sums of money, as well for promoting the expeditions of those led into England, and the army (intended) for Ulster, as well as towards the third collection of £30,000 sterling, to be paid to the King, as well as (preoccupied) by other cares arising out of present circumstances. Wishing your most illustrious Lordship every success,

■ Billing, Fragmentum Historicum.

Your very humble servant,

T. A."

2 We give the fact in the words of Dr. Arthur:1643. Dame Elis Ny Neyl, Countess Dowager of Antrim, by reason of the warrs, was reduced to extremitie, and driven to pavne her 2 rings, a cross, and a ievvell of gould, inlayed with rubbies and dyamonds, to John Barnevill, for £20 sterling, with a bill of sale past of them, unless shee had redeemed the same by the 20th day of September, 1643, which not being able to doe of her own moneyes, was driven to mortgadge the premisses to Thomas Roch FitzPyers, of Byrr, merchant, for the said sume of £20, which shee delivered to the said Barnevill in redemption of the said jevvells, and promised him, the said Roch, £20 10s. for lending her the said £20 from the 2nd of August to Michaelmas enseuing, 1643. And the said Countess being at Lymrick the 9th of September, 1643, desired me to pay the said Thomas Roch the said sume of £21, and to

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