The Persecution of the Church of God in Ireland — Ireland, 1642

THE PERSECUTION

OF THE

CHURCH OF GOD IN IRELAND,

In the year of our Lord 1642.

THOUGH the barbarous cruelty, used by the Irish against the English, goes usually under the name of rebellion, yet I rather look upon it as a persecution, because their cruelties were exercised upon Protestants only: neither were the English Papists murdered; but ined with the Irish in murdering their brethren. Besides, the Jesuits, priests and friars, were the chief instigators to these murders, stirring up continually all sorts, both of the gentry and commonalty, to show their utmost zeal therein; and when their design was so surely laid, that they thought it impossible to be prevented, they recommended, in their public devotions, the good success of a great design, tending much to the advancement of the Catholic cause. And that they might stir up the people with greater animosity to put it in execution, they every where declaimed loudly against the Protestants, saying, "That they were heretics, not to be suffered any longer to live amongst them: that it was no more sin to kill one of them than to kill a dog; and that it was a mortal and unpardonable sin to relieve or protect any of them." When their plots were ripe for execution, we find their first proceedings against the English were various. Some of the Irish only stripping and expelling them; others murdering men, women, and children, without mercy; yet all resolving universally to root all the Protestants out of Ireland; yea, so deeply malicious were they against the English Protestants, that they would not endure the very sound of that language, but would have all those punished that spoke English; and the names of all English places they would have changed into the old Irish. The priests gave the sacrament unto divers of the Irish, upon condition, that they should not spare man, woman, nor child of the Protestants, saying, a That it did them a deal of good, to wash their hands in their blood. One Halligan, a priest, read an excommunication against all those, that from thenceforth should relieve or harbor any English, Scotch, or Welsh; or give them alms at their doors, whereby many were famished to death. The friars with tears exhorted them not to spare any of the English. They boasted, that when they had destroyed them in Ireland, they would go over into England, and not leave the memorial of an Englishman under heaven.

The day before this massacre was to begin, the priests gave the people a dismiss at mass, with free liberty to go out and take possession of all their lands, which they pretended to be unjustly detained from them by the English; as also to strip, rob, and despoil them of all their goods and cattle; the Protestants being, as they told them, worse than dogs, for they were devils, and served the devil, and therefore the killing of such was a meritorious act, and a rare preservative against the pains of purgatory; for that the bodies of such of them as died in this quarrel, should not be cold, before their souls should ascend up into heaven.

The chief gentlemen of the Irish, when this persecution first began, persuaded many of their Protestant neighbors, that if they would bring their goods and cattle to them, they would secure them from the rage of the common people. Hereby they got abundance peaceably into their hands, whereof they cheated the Protestants, refusing to restore them. Yet, the Protestants were so confident at first of their good dealing in regard of former familiarity, that they gave them inventories of all they bad: nay, they digged up such of their best things as they had hid in the ground, and deposited them in their custody. They also got much into their hands by fair promises, and deep oaths and engagements, that if they would deliver them their goods, they would suffer them with their wives and children, quietly to depart the country; yet, having got what they could, they afterwards murdered them. Having thus seized upon all their goods and cattle, ransacked their houses, and gotten their persons under their power; the next work was to strip men, women, and children stark-naked, and so turn them out of doors; not suffering them so much as to shelter themselves under bushes, or in the woods. All the Irish were strictly prohibited under great penalties, to give them any relief as they passed in the highways. Their great design herein was, that they on whom they would not lay their hands, might miserably perish through cold, nakedness, and want; and therefore if any of them got any old rags to cover their nakedness with, they stripped them again and again, sometimes twice or thrice over. The Irish women were very active herein, and taught their very children to do the like. They would. not leave the women so much as a smock or an hair-lace; so that many of them being starved, fell down dead in the highways. Others that got to any English town, by reason of famine and cold suffered so by the way, that they died as soon as they came thither.

In the town of Colerain, many thousands of these miserable people that fled thither for succor, died in two days. The living not being able to bury their dead, they laid their carcases in great ranks in waste and wide holes, piling them up as close and thick as if they had been packing up herrings together. One Magdalen Rednman deposed that she, and divers other Protestants, among whom were twenty-two widows, were robbed and then stripped starknaked, and when they had covered themselves with straw in an house, the papists threw burning straw in amongst them to burn them. Then they drove them naked into the wild woods in frost and snow, so that the snow covered their skins, and lay a long time upon them uninelted. Some of their children died in their arms with extremity of cold. Some of these poor creatures went towards Burre for shelter, but the Irish turned them back again, saying they should go to Dublin. When they went towards Dublin, they beat them back, saying they should go to Burre; and so they tossed them to and fro, till some of them died. Many of those, who through many difficulties got to Burre, died there; and those that survived, lived miserably, by reason of their many wants.

Having disarmed the English, robbed them of their goods and cattle, stripped them of their clothes, and having their persons in their power, they furiously broke out into all manner of abominable cruelties, massacres, and murders, so that it would make any Christian's ear to tingle, and his heart to ache, to hear the mention of them. There were multitudes murdered in cold blood; some while they were at plough; others as they sat peaceably in their houses; others traveling upon the highways; all without any manner of provocation given by them, were suddenly destroyed.

Near 15O men, women, and children were consumed with fire in the castle of Lisgoole. One hundred were slain together at the castle of Moneah. At the castle of Tulla, which was delivered to Mac Guire upon composition, and faithful promises of fair quarter, as soon as he and his men entered the court, they began to strip the people, and most cruelly put them to the sword, murdering them all without mercy. At Lissenskeali they hanged and killed above 1OO of the Scottish Protestants, showing them no more favor than they did the English. The country thereabouts being well planted and peopled, was in a most horrible manner quite destroyed. In the counties of Armagh and Tyrone, where the Protestants were more numerous, their murders were multiplied, and with greater cruelty, if possible, than in other places. Mac Guire coming to the castle of Lissenskeah, desired in a friendly manner to speak with Mr. Middleton. He was admitted in, and as soon as he entered, he first burned the records of the county which were kept there. Then he demanded one thousand pounds of Sir William Balfore's money which was in his custody; as soon as he had got it, he caused Mr. Middleton to hear mass, and to swear that he would never alter from it, and then immediately caused him, his wife, and children, to be hanged. IIe hanged and otherwise murdered above 1OO persons besides in that place.

There were 1OOO men, women, and children carried in several companies to Portendown bridge, and all unmercifully drowned in the river; the bridge being broken in the midst, and the people driven and forced on, till they tumbled into the water. In that county there were 4OOO persons drowned in several places, the barbarous papists driving the poor in, when they had miserably stripped them, unto the places of their sufferings like swine; and if any were slack in their pace, they pricked them forward with their swords and pikes. To terrify the rest, they killed and wounded some. When they were cast into the river, if any assayed to swim to the shore, the rebels stood and shot at them. In one place 14O English were taken and driven like cattle for many miles together. They carried other companies out under pretence of safe conduct, thereby causing them to march cheerfully till they had got them to some place fit for execution, and then murdered them there. They sent 115 men, women, and children, with Sir Phelim O'Neale's pass, till they brought them to Portendown bridge, and then forced them all into the water. Such as by swimming or other means sought to escape, they either knocked on the head, or shot to death in the water. One Mrs. Campbell being forced by them to the river, and finding no means to escape their fury, suddenly clasped one of the chief of them in her arms, and so both tumbling into the river, they were drowned together. At another time 14O Protestants being thrown in at the same place, as any of them swain to the shore, the villains with the butt-ends of their muskets, knocked out their brains.

O'Cane gat together all the Protestants about Armagh, pretending to conduct them to Coleraine: but before they were gone a day's journey, they were all murdered; and so were many others, though they had protections from Sir Phelim O'Neale. The aged people in Armagh were carried to Charlmont, and there murdered. Presently after, the town of Armagh was burnt, and 5OO persons of all sorts were there murdered and drowned. Forty-eight families were murdered in Killoman. Twentytwo Protestants were burned in one house. All the inhabitants in Kilmore were stripped and massacred, being 2OO families. Some they set in the stocks and then massacred them. The whole country was a common butchery, where many thousands perished in a short time, by sword, famine, fire, water, and all other manner of deaths, that rage and malice could invent.

These villains showed so much favor to many as to despatch them presently. Others they imprisoned in filthy dungeons full of dirt and mire, and there clapping bolts on their legs, suffered them to perish at leisure. One told JOHN COWDER that they would kill him, but first bid him say his prayers, and when he kneeled, down to pray, they presently cut off his head. When some, upon their knees, begged but leave to pray before they were slain, they would bid them bequeath their souls to the devil. Others would ask them, cc Why do you desire to pray P your souls are already with the devil." And so would immediately slaughter them. At Cassel they put all the Protestants into a loathsome dungeon, where they kept them twelve weeks in great misery. Some they barbarously mangled, and left languishing upon the highways, crying out but for so much mercy as to be dispatched out of their pain. Some they hanged up twice or thrice. Others they buried alive. Some when they were half hanged, they cast into pits, covering them with a little earth, where they sent out most lamentable groans for a good while after.

In the Queen's county, an Englishman, his wife, five children, and a maid, were all hanged together, then put into a hole. The youngest child, not being dead, put up the hand, and cried mammy, mammy, and yet without mercy they buried it alive. THOMAS MASON, in Laugal, was extremely beaten and wounded, yet his wife and some others carried him away; whereupon the villains cruelly hacked, slashed, and wounded them, and then dragged Mason into an hole, and there threw stones on him, with the weight whereof they kept him under. There he lay languishing and groaning, till his own wife, to put him out of pain, stopped his breath with her handkerchief. At Clownes, seventeen men were buried alive, so that their pitiful cries were heard afar off. Some were deadly wounded, and so hanged upon tenter-hooks. Some with ropes about their necks were drawn through the water. Some with ropes about their middles were drawn through brakes and bogs.

In Castle-Cumber, one of these cut-throats took two boys, and wounding them, hung them up upon a butcher's tenters. Some were hanged up, and taken down several times, to make them confess where their money was, which when they had done, they presently murdered them. Some were hung up by their arms, and then they tried how many blows an English Protestant could endure before he died. Some had their bellies ripped up, and so left with their guts running about their heels. An ancient woman coming -towards Dublin, was stripped seven times in one day; and one time they bade her go and look for her GOD, and bid him give her her clothes again. In Kilkenny they cruelly beat an English woman, till they forced her into a ditch, where she died. Then they took her child, a girl of about six years old, ripped up her belly, and let out her guts. One man they forced to mass with them, and afterwards ripped up his belly, took out his guts, and left him alive. A Scotchman they stripped and knocked on the head, who afterwards coming to himself, Went into the town naked. Then they took him again, and hewed him in pieces. They also ripped up his wife's belly, so that a child dropped out of her Womb. They hung up many other women great with child, they ripped

them; bellies, and let their infants fall out. Sometimes they gave their children to be devoured by swine and dogs. They took and hung up one John Stone, with his

son, two sons-in-law, and their wives. One of the young women, being great with child, they ripped rip her belly, took out her child, and used such beastly, barbarous actions to her, as are not fit to be mentioned. At Newry they ripped up a woman's belly, that was great with two children, throwing them to be devoured by swine. Also, another woman, being delivered of a child in the fields, they, who had formerly killed her father and husband, killed her also, with two of her children, and gave the new-born infant to be devoured by dogs.

In the county of Armagh, they robbed, stripped, and murdered abundance of Protestants, whereof some they burnt, some they slew with the sword, some they hanged, and others they starved to death. They soon after met with two gentlewomen, Mrs. HOWARD and Mrs. FRANKLAND, with six of their children, and themselves great with child, whom they murdered with their pikes, and ripped open the women's bellies, took out their children, and threw them into a ditch. A young Scotch woman's child they took by the heels, and dashed its brains out against a tree. They did the like to many other children. ANNE HILL, going with a young child at her back, and four more by her side, was met by those villains, who pulled the child from off her back, and trod it to death. Then they stripped her, and the other four children starknaked, whereby they died of cold. Some others they meet with, and hanged them up on a windmill; and before

they were half dead, cut them in pieces. Many other Protestants, especially women and children, they pricked and stabbed with their forks and swords, slashing, cutting, and mangling them in their heads, faces, breasts, arms, and other parts, yet killed them not, but left them wallowing in their blood, to languish, starve, and pine to death; and when they desired them to kill them out of their pain, they refused. Sometimes, after they had lain a day or two in the utmost misery, they would dash out their brains with stones or clubs, which they accounted as a great favor.

The castle of Lisgoole, being set on fire by these merciless papists, a woman leaped out at a window to save herself from burning, but they presently murdered her. The next morning her child was found sucking at her breast, which they also murdered. Many Protestants, with their-wives and children, fled into vaults and cellars to hide themselves, and were all murdered there. They stabbed one JANE ADDIS, and then put her child, of a quarter old, to her breast, saying, cc Suck, you English bastard;" and so left it there. One MARY BARLOW had her husband hanged before her face, and she, with six children, were all stripped stark-naked in frost and snow. Afterwards, sheltering themselves in a cave, they had nothing to eat for three weeks,, but two old calf-skins, which they beat with stones, and so eat them hair and all, her children crying to her rather to go out and be killed, than to stay there and famish. In the cold weather many thousand Protestants, of all ranks, ages, and sexes, being turned out stark-naked, perished with cold and hunger. Some thousands were drowned, cast into ditches, bogs, and turf-pits. Multitudes were inclosed in houses, which being set on fire, they were miserably burnt. Some that lay sick of fevers, they drew out of their beds and hanged. Men, women, and children they drove into boggy pits; and if any of them endeavored to get out, they knocked them on the head.

These barbarians forced their own children to carry some aged men and women to the river, where they were drowned. Some children were otherwise compelled to be the executioners of their own parents. Wives were forced to help to hang their husbands, and mothers to cast their own children into the water; after all which, they were murdered themselves. In Sligo, they forced a young man to kill his own father, and then hanged him up. In another place they forced a woman to kill her husband, then caused her son to kill her, and then immediately hanged her son: and this they did that they might destroy both soul and body. Yea, such was their detestable malice against the English Protestants, that they taught their children to kill English children. One of these villains' wives was very angry with their soldiers, because they did not bring the grease of a fat gentle woman, whom they had slain, with them, for her to make candles of. The Irish women, that followed the camp, urged on the men to cruelty, always crying out, “Kill them all; spare neither man, woman, nor child." They took the child of one Thomas Stratton, being about twelve years old, and boiled him to death in a caldron. One Mrs. LIN, and her daughter, were carried into a wood, where they first hanged the mother, and then the daughter by the hair of her mother's head. Some women and children of the Irish, meeting an English woman great with child, stripped her to her smock, and so rent and abused her, that the poor woman falling into labor, both she and her child died under their hands.

In some places they plucked out the eyes, and cut off the hands of the Protestants, and so turned them out into the fields to wander up and down till they perished. The very women, in some places, stoned the English women to death, together with their children. One man they shot through both his thighs, then digging a hole in the ground, they set him in it upright upon his feet, and then filled up the hole, leaving out only his head, where they left him, till he pined and languished to death. They held another man's feet in the fire till he was burnt to death. In Munster they hanged up many ministers. One minister they stripped stark naked, and drove through the town, pricking him forwards with darts and rapiers, and so pursued him till he fell down dead. They stripped One WILLIAM LOVERDEN naked, then killed him before his wife and children, cut off his head, and held it up for them to gaze at; and after his wife had buried him in his garden, they digged him up, and threw him into a ditch. Divers ministers' bones, that had been buried some years before, they digged up, because they were, as they said, patrons of heresy. One ELLEN MILLINGTON they put into a hole, fastening her with stones, and left her there to languish to death, bragging how many of them went to see her kick and toss in the hole. They boasted upon their success, that the day was their own, and that ere long they would utterly destroy every one that had but a drop of English blood in him. Their women cried out, "Slay them all; the English are fit meat for dogs, and their children are bastards." Yea, so implacable was their malice, that they vowed, that they would not leave an English beast alive, nor any of the breed of them. How grievous was it to any Christian heart to hear a base villain boast, that his hands were so weary with killing and knocking down Protestants into a bog, that he could not lift up his arms to his head Another boasted, that he had been abroad, and had killed 16 of the rogues. Others boasted, that they had killed so many, that the fat which stuck upon their swords would make an Irish candle. Two boys boasted, that at several times they had murdered and drowned 36 women and children.

These merciless Papists having set a castle on fire, wherein were many Protestants, they rejoiced exceedingly, saying one to another, O how sweetly do they fry! At Kilkenny, when they had committed many cruel murders, they brought seven Protestants' heads. One was the head of a reverend minister. All these they set upon the market-cross, on a market-clay, triumphing, slashing, and mangling them. Then putting a gag into the minister's mouth, they slit up his cheeks to his ears, and laying a leaf of a Bible before it, they said, "Now preach, for your mouth is wide enough." It cannot be imagined with what scorn and derision they acted these things, and with what joy and exultation their eyes beheld the sad spectacle of the Protestants' miseries; what greedy delight they took in their bloody executions. An English woman, whom they had stripped stark-naked, got a little straw, which she tied about her middle, to cover her nakedness; but these villains set fire to it, boasting what brave sport they had, to see how the fire made the English jade dance.

At Kilmore they put many Protestants, men, women, and children together, in a thatched house, and then set it on fire, boasting of the lamentations and outcries that they made whilst they were burning, and how the children gaped when the fire began to burn them; taking pride, and glorying in imitating those cries. They took one Mrs. MAXWELL, being in labor, and threw her into a river, boasting that the child's arm appeared, and that it was half-born when the mother was drowned.

These bloody persecutors took great pleasure and delight in their cruelty; and to increase their misery, when they butchered them, they used to say, "Thy soul to the devil." One of them coming into an house, with his hands and clothes all bloody, made his boasts, that it was English blood, and that his skean, (a long knife so called in Ireland,) had pinked the clean white skin of many of them, even to the hilt thereof. When any of them had killed a Protestant, many of them would come one after another, each of them stabbing, wounding, and cutting his body in a most despiteful manner, and then leaving it naked to be devoured of, dogs, beasts, and fowls; and when they had slain any number of them, they would boast that they had made the devil beholden to them, in sending so many souls to hell. But it is no wonder that they carried themselves so towards these innocent Christians, when they spared not to belch out their execrable blasphemies against God and his holy Word.

In one place they burnt two Protestant Bibles, and then said it was hell-fire they burnt. Other Bibles they took, cut in pieces, and then burnt them saying, "They would do the like to all Puritan Bibles." In the church at Powerscourt, they burnt the pulpit, pews, chests, and Bibles belonging to it. Others took the Protestant Bibles, and wetting them in dirty water, several times dashed them in the faces of the Protestants, saying, " I know you love a good lesson; here is an excellent one for you. Conic to-morrow, and you shall have as good a sermon as this." They took the Bible of a minister, called Mr. Edward Slack, and opening it, they laid it in a puddle of water, and then stamped upon it, saying, " A plague on it; this Bible has bred all the quarrel, and that they hoped, in a few weeks time, all the Bibles in Ireland should be used as that was, or worse." They did most despitefully upbraid the profession of the truth to those blessed souls, whom neither by threats nor terrors, pains nor torments, they could draw to forsake their religion. And though some by extreme torments were drawn to profess the change of their religion, yet did they find no more favor with these hell-hounds, for they would afterwards murder them, and with great scorn say, " It was fit to send them out of the world whilst they were in a good mood." At Glaslow, a priest with some others, drew about 4O or 5O English and Scotch Protestants to be reconciled to the church of Rome; and then he told them, "They were in good faith, and for fear they should turn heretics, he with his companions immediately cut

their throats."

JOHN NICHOLSON, and ANNE his wife, being received into the protection of one Fitz-Patrick, he labored to persuade them to go to mass, and to join in the present massacre; but they professed, " That rather than they would forsake their religion, they would die upon the point of the sword." Then he would have the woman burn her Bible; but she told him, "Rather than she would burn her Bible, she would die the death;" whereupon, the Sabbath morning after, they were both of them cruelly murdered. But he that acted this villainy, was so tormented in his conscience, and dogged with apparitions of them, as he conceived, that with inward horror he pined away.

In the county of Tipperary, near the silver works, some of the Papists met with eleven Englishmen, Protestants, ten women, and some children, whom they first stripped of their clothes, and then with stones, poleaxes, swords, &c. they massacred them all. This was done on a Sabbath evening, the day having been very fair and clear. But just at that time, God sent a fearful storm of thunder, lightning, wind, hail, and rain, so that the murderers themselves confessed it was a sign of God's anger against them for this cruelty; yet they persisted in this bloody act, hacking, hewing, slashing, and stabbing them, so that most of them were cut to pieces; then tying withes about their necks, they threw them into a hole which they made for that purpose; yet it pleased GOD, that one Scotch and an English man, though they had many grievous wounds, and were left for dead, after awhile revived, and with much difficulty escaped with their lives. But as God showed his great mercy in preserving them, so he showed his just judgment upon Hugh Kennedy, the chief of those murderers, who presently fell into a most desperate distraction, neither resting day nor night. About eight days after he drowned himself.

In the county of Mayo, about 6O Protestants, whereof 15 were ministers, were, upon covenant, to be safely conveyed to Galway, by one Edmund Burk and his soldiers; but by the way, this Burk drew his sword, teaching thereby the rest of his company to do the like; and so they began to massacre these poor Protestants. Some they shot to death; some they stabbed with their skeans; some they thrust through with their pikes, so that very few of them escaped. In the town of Sligo, 4O Protestants were stripped and locked up in a cellar; and about midnight a butcher, provided for the purpose, was sent in amongst them, who, with his axe, knocked theca all on the head. In Tirawly, 3O or 4O English, who had formerly yielded to go to mass, were put to their choice, whether they would die by the sword, or be drowned They chose the latter, and so being driven to the seaside, these villains, with their naked swords, forced them into the sea; the mothers with their children in their arms wading to the chin, were afterwards overcome by the waves, where they all perished. The son of Mr. Montgomery, a minister, aged about 15 years, met with one of these blood-suckers, who had formerly been his school-master, who drew his skean at him, whereupon the boy said, " Good master, whip me as much as you will, but do not kill me;" yet he murdered him without all pity.

In the town of Sligo, all the Protestants were stripped and robbed of all their estates: afterwards they were summoned to go into the gaol, and such as refused were carried in; and then about midnight, they were all stripped stark-naked, and there some of them being women great with child, their infants thrust out their arms and legs at their wounds; after which execrable murders, they laid the dead naked bodies of the men upon the naked bodies of the women in a most immodest posture, where they left them till the next day to be looked upon by the Irish, who beheld it with great delight. Isabel Beard, great with child, hearing the lamentable cries of those that were murdered, ran forth into the streets, where she was murdered, and next day was found with the child's feet coming out of the wounds in her sides. Many others were murdered in the streets: but by God's judgment, the river of Sligo, which was before very full of fish, whereby many were nourished, for a long time after afforded none at all. A prior also, that had a hand in the murder of Isabel Beard, and of casting her into the river, presently after fell mad.

About Dungannon were 316 Protestants in the like barbarous manner murdered: about Charlemount above 4OO: about Tyre 2O6. One Mac Crew murdered 31 in one morning. Two young villains murdered 14O poor women and children that could make no resistance. An Irish woman with her own hands murdered 45. At Portendown-Bridge were drowned above 3OO. At Lawgh were drowned above 2OO. In another place 3OO were drowned in one day... In the parish of. Killaman there were murdered 12OO Protestants. Many young children they cut into quarters and gobbets. Eighteen Scotch infants they hanged upon a clothier's tenter-hooks. One fat roan they murdered and made candles of his grease. Of another Scotchman they ripped up his belly, took one end of his small guts, tied it to a tree, and forced him round about it till he had drawn them all out of his body, saying, "That they would try whether a dog's or a Scotchman's guts were the longest."

By the command of Sir Phelim O'Neale, Mr. JAMES MAXWELL was drawn out of his bed, being sick of a fever, and murdered: and his wife being in child-birth, the child half born, they stripped her stark naked, drove her about a flight's shot, and drowned her in the blackwater. The like, or worse, they did to another English woman in the same town. They took one Mr. WATSON, and cutting two collops out of his buttocks, they roasted him alive. Of a Scotch woman great with child, they ripped up her belly, cut the child out of her womb, and so left it crawling on her body.

Mr. STARKEY, schoolmaster at Armagh, being above 1OO years old, they stripped stark naked; then took two of his daughters, being virgins, whom they stripped stark naked also, and forced them to lead their aged father a quarter of a mile to a turf-pit, where they drowned them all three, feeding the lusts of their eyes and cruelty of their hearts with the same object. They used also to send their children abroad in troops, armed with long wattles and whips, wherewith they used to beat dead men's bodies about their privy members, till they beat them off, and then would return very joyful to their parents, who received them as it were in triumph for their good actions. Some of them brake the back-bone of a youth, and left him in the field. Some days after he was found, having for hunger eaten all the grass round about him like a beast. Yet neither would they kill him out-right, but removed him to a place of better pasture; wherein was fulfilled that saying, " The tender mercies of the wicked are cruelty."

In the county of Antrim they murdered 954 Protestants in one morning, and afterwards 12OO more in the same county. Near Lisnegarvy they forced above 24 Protestants into a house, and setting fire to it, burnt them all, counterfeiting their outcries in derision to others. Sir Phelim O'Neal boasted that he had slain above 6OO at Garvagh; and that he had left neither man, woman, nor child alive in the barony of Munterlong. In other places he murdered above 2OOO persons in their houses; so that many houses were filled with dead bodies. About 12,OOO were slain in the highway as they fled towards Down. Many died of famine. Many were starved to death for want of clothes, being stripped of all in a cold season. Some thousands were drowned. The English Papists were nothing inferior to the natural Irish in their cruelty against the Protestants that lived amongst them; yea, they rather exceeded them, for they were never satisfied with their blood till they had seen the last drop thereof.

Anne Kinnard testified, that 15 Protestants being imprisoned, and their feet fixed in the stocks, a popish boy, not above 14 years old, slew them all in one night with a skean. Another not above 12 years old, killed two women in another place. An English Papist woman killed seven men and women, her neighbors, in one morning. And it was usual for the Papists' children to murder the Protestants' children, and sometimes with their wooden swords, sharp and heavy, they would venture on people of riper years. Some of these villains compelled an English woman, who was newly delivered of two children, in her great pain and sickness to rise from her bed; then they took one of the infants that was living, and dashed out his brains against the stones, and afterwards threw him into the river of Barrow. The like they did by many other infants. Many more they hanged without all pity.

The Lord Mont Garret caused divers English soldiers that he had taken about Kilkenny to be hanged, hardly suffering them to pray before their death; they died very patiently, and resolute in the defense of the Protestant faith; and one of them, being an Irishman, had his life offered if he would turn Papist, but he rather chose to die, and so was executed with the rest. Some of these persecutors meeting a poor young girl that was going to see her friends, they first half hanged her, and then buried her whilst yet alive. One Fitz Patrick enticed a rich merchant, that was a Protestant, to bring all his goods into his house, promising safely to keep them, and to re-deliver them to him. But when he had thus gotten them into his possession, he took the merchant and his wife and hanged them both. He did the like to divers others. A poor Protestant woman going to Kilkenny, with her two children, upon some business, these bloody miscreants baited them with dogs, stabbed them with skeans, and pulled out the guts of one of the children, whereby they died. Not far from Kilkenny they took divers men, women, and children, and hanged them. One of the women being great with child, they ripped up her belly as she hung, so that the child fell out in the caul alive. They drew some up and down after they were hanged, till their bowels were torn out.

In the province of Ulster alone, 15O,OOO persons were murdered by different kinds of torments and deaths. And the number of the slain, in the other three provinces, certainly was very great; as may be gathered from these passages, found in a general remonstrance of the distressed Protestants in the province of Munster. " Nile may (say they,) compare our woe to the saddest parallel of. any story. Our churches are demolished, or which is orse, profaned by sacrifices to idols. Our habitations are become ruinous heaps. No quality, age, or sex, were privileged from massacres, and lingering deaths, by being robbed, stripped naked, and so exposed to cold and famine. The famished infants of murdered parents swarm our streets, and for want of food, perish before our faces. All this cruelty is exercised upon us, we know not for what cause, offences, or seeming provocation, (sin excepted,) saving that we were Protestants. We can make it manifest, that the depopulations in this province of Munster, do well near equal those of the whole kingdom." The blood of those that were knocked 6n the head, and then thrown into the river at Portendown-Bridge, remained for a long time upon the stories, and could not be washed away.

Catherine Coke testified upon oath, that -when the Irish had barbarously drowned 18O Protestants, men, women, and children, at Portendown-Bridge, about nine days after she saw the apparition of a man bolt upright in the river, standing breast-high, with his hands lifted up to heaven, and continuing in that posture from December to the end of Lent, at which time some of the English army passing that way, saw it also; after which it vanished away. Elizabeth Price also testified upon oath, that she and other women, whose husbands and children were drowned in that place, hearing of these apparitions, went thither one evening, and saw one like a woman rise out of the river breast-high, her hair hanging down, which, with her skin, was as white as snow,, often crying out, " Revenge! revenge! revenge!" which so affrighted them that they went their way.

There came a rogue to a young woman, who was almost stripped naked, bidding her give him her money, or he would run her through with his sword. Her answer was, " You cannot kill me, except God give you leave." Whereupon he ran three times at her naked body with his drawn sword, and yet never pierced her skin, whereat he being confounded, went his way and left her. Divers women, that were present and saw it, attested this fact. Divers Protestants were thrown into the river of Belter; bert; and when any of them offered to swim to the land, they were knocked on the head with poles; after which their bodies were not seen for six weeks: but after the end thereof, the murderers coming again that way, the bodies came floating up to the very bridge where they were.