Riotous Assemblies

by William Sheehan

  The government’s clampdown on friaries, convents and mass houses was not confined to Dublin. Similar scenes were enacted in Cork, Limerick and Galway. On 15 January the president of Munster, William St Leger, informed the lords justices that he had raided four chapels in Cork used by the Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians.45 This was greeted with considerable alarm among all sectors of the Irish mission. Having learned of the seizure of mass houses in Dublin and Cork, Bishop Roche lamented how ‘ye like ordre is sent to Limrike, and we know not how farre it will extend’.46 The Franciscan William Farrily likewise remarked in a letter to his colleague Hugh de Burgo in Madrid that ‘at Corcke ther was the like and as I suppose through the kingdom, so that I do not remember to by [sic] in so trobled a case sithenc my remembrance’.47 The chorus of lamentation was echoed by Valentine Browne, Franciscan guardian of Galway: ‘so great is the persecution we are subjected to ... that there was none so grievous since the commencement of the oppression of the Catholic religion in this kingdom’.48 The actions of Dublin Castle had a significant impact in the early months of 1630. Even in Whitehall there was talk that the priests, Jesuits, friars and nuns were ‘so hunted and imprisoned there, as they are rare to be found’.49 In reality this was nothing more than court gossip: the government did not have the resources to complete such a task, which was rarely, if ever, achieved. In autumn 1630, for example, St Leger arrested the Franciscan Eugene Field in Cork. But this was intended to serve as a reminder to the friars and priests not to return to preaching public services, rather than signalling a new spell of persecution.50

  It was a mark of the relative success of the lords justices that Thomas White, vicar-general of the archbishop of Dublin, and Thomas Strange (alias Strong) were sent to London in May as agents for the secular and regular Catholic clergy. Upon arrival, they were instructed to attend the court of Queen Henrietta Maria and present a memorial designed to induce her husband to grant freedom of conscience to his subjects in Ireland. Yet, as Strange noted, the petition had no effect; worse still, there was no indication that the king’s stance would shift in favour of Catholics. Furthermore, when they appealed to the ambassadors of France and Spain, who were negotiating a peace settlement, they were promptly rebuffed. Indeed, the peace treaties were viewed as the final blow. ‘Experience has taught us,’ Strange glumly stated, ‘that after every treaty of peace with Spain we have but seen the Catholics of Ireland more persecuted.’51

  But Charles’ rejection of their appeal was not just influenced by the more pressing issue of securing peace. The agents also had to contend with unfounded rumours reaching the court.52 ‘Our adversaries are using certaine diligences for to fill His Majestie’s eares,’ Rothe complained, ‘that Catholicke churchmen be of over great charges to the land, and therefore they procure to know all their names, dwellings, benefactors, almes or stipend, which is for to make a great noise of it to our disadvantage.’53 The bishop pointed to a recent assize where one judge was heard saying that the priests collected more than £200,000 a year – a sum so exaggerated, Roche added, that not even £2,000 would have been a realistic estimate in the poverty-stricken towns and countryside. ‘The truth is,’ he declared, ‘that the Catholicks have subject to complaine of the Protestant clergy by means of their extortions in that their officialities or Bishops’ courts be more chargeable to the land then [sic] would the maintenance of an armie be.’54

  Political circumstances certainly played a crucial role in Charles’ decision to ignore all pleas from the Catholic clergy and their agents. At the same time, however, the success of Dublin Castle’s intrusive measures was instrumental in effecting a dramatic shift in policy. Whereas the administration’s attempts to curb Catholicism had failed miserably in the past, the disorder provided Loftus and Cork with a prime opportunity to begin a vigorous and intrusive religious campaign with the full backing of the crown, which hitherto had not been forthcoming. Such was the significance of the episode that the administration used it as a scaremongering tactic whenever friars and priests were perceived to be overstepping the mark. This was especially the case as financial pressures began to dominate the government agenda. By the second half of 1630, measures against the religious occurred only intermittently, in contrast to the regular raids in the spring.55 To hold Catholic activities in check, Loftus and Cork needed only to renew sectarian tensions by reminding their fellow Protestants of the recent disorder. In November, Strange complained that none of the laity would rent a house to the Franciscans for fear of being reported to the administration. The Capuchins faced similar problems. Their superior, Father Barnabas, revealed in April 1631 that they still could not preach in the cities and had to go to the countryside to avoid being caught.56

  Despite his aggressive religious policy, Cork failed to secure the deputyship. Instead, that honour fell in January 1632 to Sir Thomas Wentworth, who had made a name for himself as the king’s representative for the northern territories in England. Although the urgent need for subsidies to pay the Irish army and fund the administration was Wentworth’s priority, it did not prevent him from exploiting opportunities for other actions. Prying into the affairs of the Catholic church was one such activity.57 He played a key role from the outset in stoking hostilities between secular and regular clergy, but his cross-examination of the Carmelite friar, Stephen Browne, is of particular interest.58

  Browne had been in the government’s sights since the Cook Street riot. As the Carmelite friary was close to the Franciscan chapel, he was a key witness to the skirmish and was strongly suspected by the lords justices of provoking the pilgrims into attacking the officials.59 There was not enough evidence to charge him, but then Loftus and Cork heard of accusations that he was involved in the exorcism of a twelve-year-old girl.60 He was arrested and imprisoned without trial for a year. The conspicuous failure to convict clearly suggests that this was the authorities’ retaliation for his role in the disturbance. But Browne’s release meant that it was a pyrrhic victory for the government. Wentworth sought to immediately remedy this, however. Shocked by the ‘infinite swarmes of friers’ in Dublin when he arrived in 1633, the lord deputy responded by hauling Browne before the Court of Castle Chamber.61 The friar therefore served as the symbolic victim.

  The details of the case against Browne are thin, but what is known encapsulates the ruthless efficiency of Wentworth’s deputyship. Whereas the previous administration could not find sufficient evidence to convict Browne, the lord deputy only needed a couple of days. In the course of the proceedings, the chief baron of the exchequer, Richard Bolton, accused the friar of luring Protestants away from their religion and allegiance to the king. Where Bolton focused on the exorcism, the allegations were linked to the events at Cook Street. The council predictably ruled in favour of the chief baron and on 11 February 1635 Browne was censured, fined £3,000 and ordered to be pilloried ‘as an impostor and sorcerer’ in a square in Dublin.62 To compound matters, the friar was subsequently imprisoned for failing to pay the excessive fine. The severity of the punishment is an indication of how much political capital Wentworth and his colleagues expected to derive from the trial. Writing to the king’s secretary, John Coke, the lord deputy proclaimed that the sentence caused ‘a kind of pannick terrour affrighting them [the religious orders] as if certainly there were a p[re]sent change of religion intended in soe much as the Jesuits have allready shutt up their oratory ... for feare of a suddain persecution [and] a Benedictin frier hath done the like on ye other side’ of Dublin.63 His comments, especially in light of the judgement against Browne, show that Wentworth had the events of Cook Street firmly in mind when he summoned the friar to court. Browne’s conviction was a very public demonstration of the lord deputy’s authority: he refused to countenance the openness with which the religious orders had previously conducted themselves. Browne’s fate was a stern warning to the numerous friars in the kingdom who continued to defy the government.

  Wentworth’s relentless pursuit of the young Carmelite reinf
orced the significance that Cook Street had for many Protestants in 1629. Where the lords justices were instrumental in stirring up the underlying sectarian tensions, Wentworth’s revival of the controversy six years later ensured that such apprehensions were embedded in the minds of the New English community for decades to come. He used the Browne case for his own advantage without consideration of the future ramifications. The raid on the Franciscan chapel in Cook Street in 1662 is a case in point. With the Restoration, the Franciscans returned to Dublin and settled in Cook Street once more. Their political position had substantially improved with their advocacy of the Remonstrance of loyalty to Charles II. This gave them leeway when they were re-establishing themselves in the city. Despite this, on St Stephen’s Day the procurator of the chapel, Father Peter Walsh, was interrupted by a company of soldiers ‘with naked swords’ as he officiated at mass. A scuffle between the soldiers and congregation ensued. One report noted ‘the altars rifled, the priests carried prisoners to Newgate, and many hurt both men and women grievously, and some slashed and wounded sorely, even to the great endangering of their lives.’64 The parallels with the 1629 riot are striking. Sectarianism was clearly endemic in the capital. Moreover, the soldiers’ intolerance of the Franciscans celebrating the mass stood in marked contrast, if not actual defiance, of royal toleration. The fact that the chapel was raided on St Stephen’s Day was hardly coincidental. The message was unambiguous: nothing had changed – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Even though Protestants were politically more secure than at any time in the past, they showed the same knee-jerk defensiveness that was so apparent in 1629. More exactly, events showed just how much the riot had affected relations between Catholic and Protestant.

  The significance of the Cook Street riot in 1629 is not diminished by the fact that it was an isolated incident. On the contrary, it is precisely because the outburst was unique at the time that it demands attention. That Ireland simultaneously enjoyed a rare period of sustained peace and stability serves only to highlight its importance. Not since 1496 had Cook Street been the focus of unwelcome attention when the unfortunate Jenico Marks, mayor of Dublin, was killed while endeavouring to quell ‘a riot of citizens’.65 The disturbance in 1629, on the other hand, reveals the extent of subliminal sectarianism in the capital, which was kept under wraps. The prolonged spell of toleration commanded by the crown certainly exacerbated underlying tensions. As priests and friars openly celebrated the mass without fear of government persecution during the 1620s, Protestant opinion hardened incrementally. This was apparent when Loftus and Cork were promoted to take charge of the administration. Their religious outlook undoubtedly aggravated tensions in Dublin. This, in tandem with a shared political interest in penalising Catholics, precipitated a conflict that inevitably deepened the sectarian divisions of an already polarised community.

  Wentworth’s decision to revive memories of the riot was a conscious attempt to tap into this Protestant psyche. By publicly examining Browne, the lord deputy intended to exploit New English anxieties as a means of contesting the visible presence of regular clergy. In so doing, he ensured that the uprising on St Stephen’s Day lived long in the memories of a continually apprehensive Protestant population. The upshot of this was that hostilities between the two religious groups were never far from the surface, as the raid on the Franciscan chapel in 1662 clearly demonstrated.

  4

  THE 1830S TITHE RIOTS

  NOREEN HIGGINS-McHUGH

  The 1830s tithe war is dominated in popular memory by the numerous tithe riots, particularly at Carrickshock, County Kilkenny and Rathcormac, County Cork, although such violence formed only a small part of all tithe agitation. The tithe war began in Graiguenamanagh (commonly called Graig), County Kilkenny in November 1830. Over the next two months in that county an undercurrent of violence characterised the riotous assemblies of hurlers, who came together to demand that the Anglican parochial clergy reduce their tithe rates. While the authorities moved quickly to suppress these assemblies in January 1831, tithe resistance began to mutate into demands for tithe abolition. Within months both parts of the movement adopted passive resistance, constitutional agitation, intimidation and violence.

  The first fatal confrontation between the peasantry and the military and police parties occurred at a tithe sale at Newtownbarry, County Wexford in June 1831. Other riots followed across Munster, Leinster and Ulster, which were labelled ‘tithe slaughters’ by the popular liberal press. About eighty country people were killed and nearly 200 wounded in these affrays. The infamous ‘battle of Carrickshock’, County Kilkenny in December 1831, proved to be the exception to the general pattern of tithe affrays, since more police were killed than peasantry there. After the notorious Rathcormac tithe riot on 18 December 1834, when twelve people were killed and forty-five more injured, the automatic assigning of military and police escorts for tithe duties was suspended. This change in policy by the Dublin Castle authorities meant there were fewer tithe riots in the remaining years of the tithe war, which ended with the passing of the 1838 Rent-charge Act.

  The word ‘tithe’ derives from the word ‘tenth’. The concept of tithes is first mentioned in the Old Testament when one-tenth of the crops were set aside annually to support the Levite tribe who served in the Jewish Temple.1 Although tithing was unknown in the early Christian church, a forerunner of the tithe system existed by the fourth century. This was a common fund of voluntary offerings and land revenues set up to support the poor and those clergy unable to support themselves.2 The Synod of Tours in 567 and the Council of Macon in 585 authorised tithe payments to Roman Catholic clergy.3 In 1274, Pope Gregory X decreed that tithe payment was to be compulsory throughout western Europe.4 The sixteenth-century Reformation transferred both church property and tithes to the newly established Anglican Church in Britain and Ireland. However, as the vast majority of Irish people remained stubbornly Roman Catholic, they had to support the parochial clergy of the state church – through the payment of tithes and other taxes – as well as their own clergy. By the eighteenth century, the setting aside of tithe crops in the fields had evolved into a money payment, and tithes were only levied on the main tillage crops such as barley, flax, oats and wheat.5 An anomaly in the Irish tithe system was the tithing of the potato crop throughout Munster and south Leinster. Potato tithe was unknown in the northern half of the country except for parts of Counties Donegal and Derry.6 As the Irish Parliament exempted grassland from tithe payment by passing two resolutions on 18 March 1735, it meant that the poorer sections of Irish society – the tenant farmers, cottiers and labourers – paid the greater part of the tithe burden.7

  By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, tithe violence had become an integral part of agrarian disturbances, including the Rightboys’ protest, 1785–7, the Connacht Trashers’ protest, 1806–78 and the Rockite disturbances of 1821–4.9 These last were economic in origin, as agricultural prices had fallen by more than half after the Napoleonic wars. Prices for wheat and oats fell from £23 7s. and £12 14s. per hundredweight in 1812 to £7 14s. and £4 19s. by 1823.10 Milch cows and dry cattle commanded half their previous prices of 14 to 16 guineas and £9 to £12.11 As this agricultural depression combined with poor harvests, land occupiers found it ‘impossible to pay rent or the tithes’.12

  Riots against the tithe occurred near Askeaton, County Limerick on 15 August 1821, leading to the deaths of one member of the Limerick Peace Preservation force and two of the peasantry. As rumours multiplied that one man had been buried alive, Stipendiary Magistrate Major Going was assassinated in revenge exactly two months later on 15 October 1821.13 A number of violent clashes occurred between Rockites and the armed forces in late January 1822, at Millstreet, Dunmanway and Kanturk, County Cork, resulting in the deaths of nearly fifty Rockites.14 In July 1823, thirteen members of the peasantry and five of the police escort protecting tithe proctors died at another tithe riot at Castlehaven, near Skibbereen, County Cork. The clash occurr
ed as the peasantry attempted to rescue distrained cattle for arrears due to Rev. Morrit of Skibbereen.15 It later emerged that the tithe warrants for distraining had been signed by local magistrates in Morrit’s glebehouse, contrary to the law.16 The Rockite protests were eventually suppressed under the 1822 Insurrection Act, which proclaimed eight counties. More than 1,500 Munster men were brought to trial, leading to 200 convictions and transportations.17

  To quell further agitation, three Tithe Composition Acts were passed in the 1820s. The first, in 1823, compounded the parish tithe amount, which was based on the average tithes paid from November 1814 to November 1821.18 Having agreed the total tithe, the sum due from each landholder according to the quantity and quality of their land was allotted.19 The 1824 Tithe Act allowed for revisions of the tithe amount every seventh year in a twenty-one year period.20 The 1827 Composition Act allowed for appeals against applotments at the quarter sessions or they could be referred to the privy council.21 However, the failure to make composition compulsory led to a two-tier system of compounded and non-compounded parishes as large graziers voted en bloc to prevent composition in their parish so they could enjoy continued tithe exemption.22 In contrast, tithe composition ‘was universally popular with the lower orders’ as it distributed the tithe burden onto grazing lands.23 By March 1830, some 60 per cent of parishes in Ireland had compounded their tithes.24 Nationally, average tithe composition was 1s. 6d. to 2/– per Irish acre, whereas tithe in non-compounded parishes was 10/– per acre for wheat and potatoes and 8/– for barley and oats.25 There was also increasing antagonism between Anglican clergy and the Catholic majority because the clergy had actively campaigned against granting Catholic emancipation in 1829. This heightened tensions around the tithe issue.