Peter O'Higgins

Peter O'Higgins O.P. (c.1602 The Pale, Kingdom of Ireland – 24 March 1642, St Stephen's Green, County Dublin, Ireland) was an Irish Dominican priest who was hanged outside the walls of Dublin, officially for high treason against King Charles I but in reality as part of the religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland that began under King Henry VIII and ended only with Catholic Emancipation in 1829. Fr. O'Higgins was Beatified by Pope John Paul II on 22 September 1992 as one of the 24 officially recognized Irish Catholic Martyrs.

Early life
O'Higgins is believed to have been born at Tipper, near Naas, County Kildare. According to John Punch, O'Higgins said before his death, "In this city and in the country around it, where the King's writ is said to run, I have always lived."

He was educated secretly in Ireland and later in Spain. He may have been ordained at Lisbon on 21 December 1624 and he appears in a list of Irish Dominicans resident in the Spanish Empire as of 1627.

With the accession of King Charles I in 1625, a limited religious toleration was granted. For example, Thomas Wentworth, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, wrote in a letter of November 1646, "It is too much to distemper [the Irish], by bringing plantations upon them and disturbing them in the exercise of their religion, so long as it is without scandal."

By 1635, Peter O'Higgins had returned to Dublin and was engaged in re-opening the Dominican friary in Naas, with the covert support of the same Lord Deputy, who was building Jigginstown Castle nearby.

Believing that Tudor and Stuart religious persecution was finally at an end, the Old English Catholics of Dublin and The Pale ejected all Church of Ireland clergy from the Pre-Reformation St Patrick's Cathedral, which was then reconsecrated, followed by a Solemn High Mass. According to the Venetian Ambassador, Catholics in the rest of the British Isles were terrified by this move, as they feared, correctly, that it would make the religious persecution of Catholics worse rather than better.

On 12 May 1641, however, Thomas Wentworth, who had been recalled to England and had been condemned by the Puritan-controlled House of Commons, was executed upon Tower Hill for, among many other things, having covertly granted religious toleration to the Catholic priests, friars, and laity living on his estate at Naas.

The rising of 1641
The execution of the former Lord Deputy was one of the inciting incidents for the 1641 rebellion, a rising of the Irish clans of Ulster and masterminded by four members of the local Gaelic nobility of Ireland; Connor Maguire, Rory O'Moore, Philip O'Reilly, and Felim O'Neill of Kinard. All four leaders intended to reverse the Plantation of Ulster, the mass evictions of their fellow Gaels, and the religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland, while claiming in the Proclamation of Dungannon to be acting under orders from King Charles I.

Instead of actually solving anything, however, the rising of 1641 marked the beginning of years of escalating warfare with no quarter given between Catholics and Protestants, Puritans and Anglicans, and finally by Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army against both Protestant and Catholic Royalists. According to historian D.P. Conyngham, "Ireland was torn by contending factions, and was oppressed by two belligerents during the reign of Charles... Charles, with the proverbial fickleness of the Stuarts, when pressed by the Puritans, persecuted the Irish, while he encouraged them when he hoped their loyalty and devotion would be the means of establishing his royal prerogative. It is ever thus with Ireland... For eight years Ireland was the theatre of the most desolating war and implacable persecution."

According to historian Augustine Valkenberg, "The traditionally loyal Catholic gentry of the Pale offered their services to the Government in putting down the rebellion. This offer was contemptuously refused, and it was made clear to them that all Catholics were regarded as rebels. At this time, the government was headed by two lords justices in the absence of the Lord Deputy. They were Sir William Parsons and Sir John Borlase. Both were Protestants of strong Puritan leanings and hostile to Catholics. The army commander was the young James Butler, Marquis of Ormond. He has been reared a Protestant, and remained one all his life, but he was not trusted by the Lord Justices because he was of Old English stock. They preferred to rely on New English, especially Sir Charles Coote, whom they appointed Governor of Dublin. They also issued a commission authorizing him to execute summarily any Catholic priests and common Irish who fell into his hands."

During the rising, Rev. Dr. William Pilsworth, Church of Ireland Vicar of Donadea, was arrested by rebel soldiers and was about to be hanged, when Fr. Peter O'Higgins stepped forward. Dr. Pilsworth later wrote that when he was on the gallows, "a priest whom I never saw before, made a long speech on my behalf saying that this...was a bloody inhuman act that would...draw God's vengeance on them. Whereupon I was brought down and released."

Meanwhile, the Portadown massacre and other acts of sectarian violence against Protestants were being both exaggerated and weaponized for what is now called atrocity propaganda. According to historian Augustine Valkenberg, "At this time, Dublin was full of Protestants who had fled from the Catholic insurgents in October 1641. They were being encouraged by the Lord's Justices to record their sufferings in written depositions designed to show that all Catholics, led by their priests, were guilty of insurrection and murder."

Furthermore, the Irish Royal Army was retaliating with systematic raids and sectarian massacres of their own against both real and imagined Catholics. By the time they recaptured Naas in February 1642, the officers and enlisted men of the Irish Royal Army and many participating clergy of the Church of Ireland made no distinction in their own ethnic cleansing between age, gender, or even between Irish language-speaking Catholics and the traditionally Royalist Old English population of Fingal, County Wicklow, County Kildare, and the Pale.

According to Valkenberg, "Among the commanders, Charles Coote was particularly ferocious in massacring Catholics and priests, whereas Ormonde was prepared to accept that there could be loyal Catholics, even loyal priests."

An understandably terrified Fr. Peter O'Higgins accordingly sought the protection of the Marquess of Ormond, who ordered him delivered to Dublin under the protection of Royalist cavalry. The fury of Protestant Royalist soldiers towards all Catholics and especially priests, however, was so intense that Ormonde's cavalry, under the command of Colonel Sir Thomas Armstrong, had to fight a pitched battle against Ormonde's infantrymen, who were incited by Sir Charles Coote to demand in vain that Fr. Peter O'Higgins be surrendered to him. Despite the cavalry's victory and further efforts by Ormonde to protect him, O'Higgins fell into the hands of Sir Charles Coote anyway.

Upon his arrival in Dublin on 3 February, O'Higgins was imprisoned in Dublin Castle under terrible conditions. Seeking to save his life, Ormond gathered many petitions, of which at least twenty still survive, from Protestants relating how Fr. O'Higgins had saved their lives from sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing and imploring that his life be spared in return. By 13 February, Sir Charles Coote had arranged for the testimony of a witness who alleged that Fr. O'Higgins had called for massacres of Protestants, and on 27 April Higgins was outlawed for high treason. The weakness of the evidence was such, though, that O'Higgins was not charged with a crime and was instead sentenced to death by hanging under martial law.

Death
On the eve of the his execution, Peter O'Higgins was offered by Sir Charles Coote his life, a full pardon for high treason, and high preferment in the State-controlled Church of Ireland if he would renounce the Catholic Faith. Playing his cards very close to his chest, O'Higgins insisted that he would do so only if these verbal promises were first committed to a written and signed document.

On 24 March 1642, a great crowd gathered around the gallows in St Stephen's Green, then outside the walls of Dublin, expecting to see a Catholic priest renounce the Catholic religion. But when Sir Charles Coote's full pardon was given to him, Fr. Peter O'Higgins instead announced to the crowd, "The sole reason why I am condemned to death to-day is that I profess the Catholic religion. Here is an authentic proof of my innocence: the autograph letter of the Viceroy offering me very rich rewards and my life if I abandon the Catholic religion. I call God and man to witness that I firmly and unhesitatingly reject these offers and willingly and gladly I enter into this conflict, professing that Faith. I die a Catholic and a Dominican priest. I forgive from my heart all who have conspired to bring about my death." Among the crowd at the foot of the scaffold was Dr. William Pilsworth who shouted out: "This man is innocent! This man is innocent! He saved my life!" Rev. William Pilsworth was not wanting in courage, but his words fell on deaf ears. With the words "Deo Gratias" on his lips Peter O'Higgins was hanged and died upon the gallows.

Following his martyrdom, local Recusants attempted to bury O'Higgins in the Dominican cemetery attached to St Saviour's Priory, located on the north side of the River Liffey where the Four Courts now stands. The burial was interrupted, however, by Royalist soldiers, who desecrated O'Higgins's body, which was then buried outside the city walls of Dublin.

Legacy
It has been alleged that the main reason for Prior O'Higgins' execution without a formal trial was that a synod at Kells, County Meath chaired by Archbishop Hugh O'Reilly had recently announced, "That, whereas the Catholics of Ireland have taken up arms in defense of their religion, for the preservation of the King, already threatened with destruction by the Puritans, as likewise for the security of their own lives, possessions, and liberty; we, on the part of the Catholics, declare these proceedings to be most just and lawful. Nevertheless, if, in the pursuit of these objects, any person or persons should be actuated by motives if avarice, malice, or revenge, we declare such persons to be guilty of a grievous offense, and deservedly subject to the censures of the Church, unless upon advice they change their intentions and pursue a different course." Fr. O'Higgins believed otherwise and claimed before his death that Sir Charles Coote's signed pardon proved that his imprisonment, trial before a drumhead court-martial, and death sentence were motivated solely in odium fidei ("out of hatred of the Faith").

According to Augustine Valkenberg, "Early in the morning of 23 March 1642, one of Ormonde's kinsmen brought him the information that he had seen the body of Peter Higgins hanging on a scaffold. Ormonde taxed the Lord's Justices with his death. They blamed Coote, saying that he had hanged Higgins without their knowledge, but when Ormonde demanded that he be brought to task for his crime, they refused."

Despite his efforts to save O'Higgins' life, the latter's execution along with those of many other priests was a major factor in the reluctance and often outright unwillingness of Catholic Royalists to trust or join forces with Ormonde, even a few years later when they faced a common enemy.

On 24 October 1644, the Puritan-controlled Parliament in London decided to retaliate for the 1641 uprising and resolved, "that no quarter shall be given to any Irishman, or to any papist born in Ireland." Upon landing with the New Model Army at Dublin, Oliver Cromwell issued orders that no mercy was to be shown to the Irish, whom he said were to be treated like the Canaanites during the time of the Old Testament prophet Joshua.

According to historian D.P. Conyngham, "It is impossible to estimate the number of Catholics slain the ten years from 1642 to 1652. Three Bishops and more than 300 priests were put to death for their faith. Thousands of men, women, and children were sold as slaves for the West Indies; Sir W. Petty mentions that 6,000 boys and women were thus sold. A letter written in 1656, quoted by Lingard, puts the number at 60,000; as late as 1666 there were 12,000 Irish slaves scattered among the West Indian islands. Forty thousand Irish fled to the Continent, and 20,000 took shelter in the Hebrides or other Scottish islands. In 1641, the population of Ireland was 1,466,000, of whom 1,240,000 were Catholics. In 1659 the population was reduced to 500,091, so that very nearly 1,000,000 must have perished or been driven into exile in the space of eighteen years. In comparison with the population of both periods, this was even worse than the famine extermination of our own days."

Even so, Peter O'Higgins' life and death was carefully investigated and publicized by the Dominican Order and other Irish refugees throughout Catholic Europe, particularly through the written accounts by Anthony Bruodin and John Punch. When interest in the Irish Catholic Martyrs was revived following Catholic Emancipation in 1829, the name of Peter O'Higgins was firmly established on the list.The evidence was examined in an Ordinary Process held in Dublin in 1904 and submitted to the Holy See. In February 1915, Pope Benedict XV authorized the introduction of Peter O'Higgins cause for Catholic Sainthood, which was examined further in the Apostolic Process held at Dublin between 1917 and 1930, upon which the results were again submitted to the Holy See.

On 27 September 1992, Peter O'Higgins and 16 other Irish Catholic Martyrs were Beatified in Rome by Pope John Paul II. June 20 was assigned as their feast day.