Birthplace of Saint Oliver

St. Oliver was born a member of the influential Plunkett clan on all saints day, the 1st of November 1625, at Loughcrew, Oldcastle, Co. Meath. His mother Thomasina was a member of the well-connected Earls of Roscommon family from Roscommon/Meath, and Oliver’s father, John, was the Baron of Loughcrew. His father’s estate comprised over 250 hectares of fine land in and around Loughcrew along with a tower house, adjoining church and a corn mill. It was through Oliver’s mother Thomasina and the Dillon family, that the Plunkett's of Loughcrew had a closer bond with the more senior branches of the aristocratic Plunkett clan in Co. Meath, notably the Earl of Fingal at Killeen castle or the Plunkett’s of Dunsany. He was also connected by birth with the Plunkett’s of County Louth, notably the Baron of Louth, the first nobleman of the archdiocese of Armagh.

Oliver had an elder brother Edward, and three sisters, Katherine, Anne and Mary. During the time of the Cromwellian conquests, while Oliver was still in Rome, the family who had decided to remain Catholic were consequently dispossessed of the estate at Loughcrew. Edward and his family later moved to Co. Louth. Around this time Oliver had written from Rome about Robert Plunkett, a son of the Lord of Loughcrew, describing him as a priest in the Trim area who had amazing stories to tell as he constantly avoided capture in that locality. He may have been another brother of Oliver’s, but was more likely an uncle.

Today, the estate which is owned by the Naper family for over three hundred years, hosts a visitor centre, adventure play grounds and fine gardens which are open to the public.

Nearby, is Sliabh na Caillí, the site of Loughcrew megalithic burial grounds which dates back 5000 years and contains important megalithic art. Of considerable historical importance, the monument is one of the main four passage tombs in Ireland today. St. Oliver as a young boy would have known this site well.

The parish church, at nearby Oldcastle, contains a major bone relic of St. Oliver (right), which was given by the monks of Downside Abbey at the time of St. Oliver’s canonisation in 1975.

The annual celebration in honour of St. Oliver is held each year in Loughcrew, on the first Sunday of July at 3pm.

Downside Abbey, Somerset, England

Saint Oliver and the Benedictine Order

The Benedictine order holds a special place of honour in the story of St. Oliver Plunkett. While in Newgate prison in London, St. Oliver befriended an English Benedictine monk, Fr. Maurus Corker, who proved very helpful to him, becoming in effect his 'anam chara' or faith friend. Fr. Corker provided St. Oliver with Mass requisites and he also heard St. Oliver's confession before his death. Undoubtedly, the martyr's most revealing letters about himself were the ones he penned at this time from his prison cell. Amongst these were letters and notes to Fr. Corker, each of which display a deep spirituality. These are all well preserved and among the cherished possessions of the Benedictine Community at Downside Abbey. It is often said that Fr. Corker possibly enrolled St. Oliver as a Confrater of the Benedictine order. Indeed another Benedictine priest imprisoned with St. Oliver at this time, Fr. Cuthbert Wall, alias Mr Marshall, lent St. Oliver a 'shift' to wear on his way to Tyburn. This garb may well have been a form of habit or scapular to represent the Benedictine order. In any event, St. Oliver saw himself as coming under the obedience of Fr. Corker, who was President of the English Benedictines at the time. St. Oliver left all decisions in his hands, i.e. how the barber would attend to him, whether or not to have a fortifying drink on the day of execution, the drafting of his final speech and finally he left his clothes, possessions and his body to be at Fr. Corker's 'will and pleasure'.

After his martyrdom at Tyburn, St. Oliver's remains, minus the head and forearms were buried in a London churchyard. Fr. Corker had the remains exhumed some two years later in 1683, whereupon they were smuggled to Lamspringe in Lower Saxony, Germany and interred with great ceremony in the crypt of the local Benedictine monastery. The new Abbey Church was almost completed by this time and Fr. Corker became abbot of this monastery some seven years later. It is believed that it was via Lamspringe that Fr. Corker would have brought the Relic of the Head of St. Oliver to Rome; giving it to Oliver's old Dominican friend and correspondent, the Cardinal of Norfolk, formerly Fr. Philip Howard who had hidden Archbishop Oliver in St. James's Palace in London some fifteen years earlier.

For several centuries, Oliver Plunkett, Archbishop and Martyr, was almost completely forgotten about in these islands as a result of the harsh penal laws and the difficult famine times. Lamspringe and the Benedictines order never forgot however, and along with Siena Convent, Drogheda and the Irish College in Rome, St. Oliver's memory has been faithfully venerated in these locations right down to the present day.

Exactly two hundred years after receiving St. Oliver's remains at Lamspringe it was finally thought opportune and safe to bring them to the Benedictine Abbey at Downside, Somerset, England in 1881. This community continue to faithfully venerate the martyr saint in a major shrine dedicated in his honour. Around the time of the St. Oliver's canonisation in 1975, Downside Abbey generously gave gifts of major relics to the Shrine in Drogheda, Oldcastle Parish Church, Dromore Cathedral and some other locations also benefited with gifts of relics at this time.

A great debt of gratitude is certainly owed to the Benedictine community and to the people of Lamspringe in Germany for the faithful way they venerated and kept alive the memory of St. Oliver down through the centuries. Centuries, which were very difficult ones for the Irish people as they continued to struggle and scrape for bare survival, in both body and in soul.

The annual Mass and ceremony in honour of St. Oliver is held in Downside Abbey on the Feast of St. Oliver, 1st July each year.

Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral and the Archives of the Archdiocese possess Relics, Letters and other memorabilia of St. Oliver Plunkett. The Cathedral has a Bone Relic in its treasury which is contained in a glass phial. St. Oliver has been adopted as Patron for Peace and Reconciliation in Ireland and Catholics in England must also have acknowledged this role as the containing reliquary in the Cathedral is inscribed: ‘From Irish English clients of Blessed Oliver in the year of Truce 1921.’ The large mosaic of St. Oliver is mounted on the wall outside St. Patrick’s Chapel. Beautifully crafted, it is by Boris Anrap and dates from 1924, barely four years after Oliver Plunkett’s beatification.

The Letters

Six letters are kept in the nearby diocesan archives and are relics in their own right, written in St. Oliver’s own hand. All six are addressed to Captain Pulton an alias for Fr. Pulton, a member of the old chapter, a committee of priests who helped to organise the Church in England, at a time when there were no Catholic bishops. Three letters are written from just outside London, one from Chester as Archbishop Oliver travelled home to Ireland and two from Dublin. Oliver uses the alias William Browne in three of these letters. Upon his return to Ireland as Archbishop of Armagh, he travelled in disguised for some months as Captain William Browne, writing: “with my sword, my wig and my pistols.” In all probability it was Fr. Pulton, an old army man himself, who sowed the idea and provided the captain’s disguise and all its trappings for Archbishop Oliver.

St. Oliver and London

Shortly after his episcopal ordination in Ghent, while on his way home to Ireland from Rome, Archbishop Oliver arrived in London on 13th December 1669. He stayed for several weeks incognito in the Royal Palace of St. James, under the protection of Fr. Philip Howard, Grand Almoner to Queen Catherine who was a Catholic. The following day he met Queen Catherine. Fr. Howard (later Cardinal Howard) brought Oliver in his carriage to see the sights of London. Undoubtedly they witnessed the after-effects of the great fire of London, which had occurred barely three years earlier in 1666 and of the rebuilding work which was ongoing at the time. During the hysteria of the Popish Plot some nine years later, Catholics would again be accused of starting the fire. Indeed a monument was erected to commemorate the event and a plaque blaming the Catholics for the fire was placed on it in 1681, where it would remain for almost two hundred years.

Waiting for the harsh winter weather to pass which prevented Oliver’s journey home to Ireland, he went to stay near London with a family by the name of Slaughter and he reported that the walks were good and solitary. In the series of letters held in Westminster archives, he expresses his thanks to many Catholic families and priests; the Arthur’s, Slaughters, Mister’s Blunt, Warren, Lambert, Deane, Sergeant & Godden. The winter was exceedingly cold and he reported that the wine in his chalice had frozen around this time. He finally left England on 6th March 1670n.s. and would not return until 1680, when he was imprisoned on October 29th of that year under strict solitary confinement in Newgate Prison, London. There he remained in strict solitary confinement until his trial the following May. Although the prison regime was harsh, he fasted three or four days a week and always appeared in good humour to the jailors despite his various illnesses. After his conviction and sentencing he was allowed the free access of visitors for the last sixteen days of his life. The endless stream of visitors including children was so great, that it left Oliver desiring just one full day to recollect himself before death. Even some Protestants came to visit him and it is recorded that along with everyone else, they were impressed by his apparent holiness. It was no wonder that he had so many visitors, Catholic bishops were actually extinct in England and quite miraculously, here was an archbishop readily accessible, right in the heart of London, which was a Catholic free zone during the frenzied times of the ‘popish plot’. Many, who already saw him as a martyr for the faith, came on account of this to visit him and to receive a bishop and a martyr’s blessing. It was truly an amazing scene and a blessing from heaven and it is commonly believed that he confirmed at this time. Some eleven years earlier on his way home to Ireland as the newly consecrated Archbishop of Armagh, Oliver undoubtedly confirmed during the three months that he spent in England. It is highly likely then, that Archbishop Oliver’s first and last exercises as a bishop were performed in the London area. After his martyrdom at Tyburn, where he had been hung drawn and quartered, his body was buried in St. Giles in the Fields, London, but was exhumed some two years later. For further information on the Relics of St. Oliver, please refer to the section on Arundel.

St. Oliver's Time in Rome (1647 - 1669)

Chased by pirates and abducted by robbers, a penniless St. Oliver, finally arrived in Rome in May 1647 after a three-month action-packed journey from Ireland. A young man of twenty-one years of age it is believed he travelled with four other students for the priesthood, one of whom was John Brenan, who would remain a lifelong confidant and friend. They undertook the journey under the protection of Fr. Peter Scarampi, who had completed his duties as the Pope's envoy to the Confederation of Kilkenny. On the journey they completed a pilgrimage to Assisi as a promised thanksgiving for their escape from the pirates at sea. As they entered Assisi, the home of St. Francis, the symbolism of their poverty must then have seemed rather appropriate to them. Indeed, St. Oliver was destined to suffer from a serious shortage of money throughout his later apostolate as the Archbishop of Armagh. Fr. Scarampi an Oratorian priest and a holy and charitable man was destined to leave an indelible mark for good on Oliver.

The month of May is surely one of the best months to appreciate the city of Rome with its lush foliage and colourful blossoms, all in full bloom. Oliver and his fellow students must have been highly impressed with all that they saw. The Renaissance had been adopted with some enthusiasm in Rome for almost three hundred years and the eternal city's fine churches, gardens and fountains would have contrasted greatly with what the young students had been used to back home.

Student

The Irish College could not accept Oliver straight away so it was the good Fr. Scarampi who came to the rescue and arranged funds and accommodation for the pauper student. Upon entering the college he undertook the customary oath to return to Ireland after ordination. During his time at the college he walked each day across the buried and yet undiscovered Roman Forum for lectures to the Jesuit Collegio Romano. The rector of the Irish College wrote that Oliver ranked among the foremost in talent, diligence and progress. It is also recorded that Oliver was everywhere and at all times a model of gentleness, integrity and piety. Within a year of his arrival, Oliver would have met a cousin, Sir Nicholas Plunkett, who accompanied Bishop Nicholas French of Ferns on a visit to Rome, representing the Confederation of Kilkenny. Knighted by the Pope Innocent X on that visit, Sir Nicholas was the leading Catholic lawyer in Ireland at the time and he played a prominent part in the Confederation of Kilkenny. Barely a year afterwards, the disastrous Cromwellian conquest of Ireland began and over the next few years the news seeping out of Ireland was exceedingly grave. The land of Ireland literally changed hands, including the estate of Oliver's family, which had been confiscated at Loughcrew. The Irish Church was forced underground, with numerous martyrs, many of whom are still unknown to us. It is on record that Oliver spent many long periods of prayer about this time and he later wrote about the devout practice in Rome of visiting the Seven Churches including the catacomb. Obviously he regularly undertook this pilgrimage himself, undoubtedly praying for the intentions of his greatly troubled homeland.

Priest

In the Basilica of St. John Lateran, St. Oliver received tonsure and minor orders on 4th March 1651 and sub-diaconate on 20th December 1653. In the chapel of Propaganda College he was ordained a deacon on the 26th December of that year and six days later, on the 1st January 1654, he was ordained a priest in the same chapel by Bishop MacGeoghegan OFM of Clonmacnois, a refugee bishop from Ireland. Priests were still-hunted in Ireland at the time, so Fr. Oliver was naturally released from his promise to return home after ordination. For the next three years he undertook higher studies at the renowned Sapienza University and obtained a doctorate in law and he also earned a doctorate in theology. During this time he lived as a chaplain with the Oratorians at S. Gerolamo della Caritā, a house of great charity founded by St. Philip Neri who had lived there less than a century before. No doubt Fr. Oliver's accommodation and position was arranged by his friend and mentor, the Oratorian, Fr. Scarampi. Around this time a plague struck Italy and Fr. Scarampi who had courageously volunteered to assist the victims, died as a result on the Island of St. Bartholomew in 1656. This was a terrible loss to Oliver who regarded his mentor and benefactor as a father figure and indeed without his great example and help, Oliver would certainly not have achieved all that he did. He wrote that he was afflicted with an unspeakable sadness, some of his relatives had been put to death or sent into exile, he was deprived of his father and friends; the whole Irish people were living in extreme misery and Fr. Scarampi had died.

Professor

In November 1657, having obviously earned a good reputation from his studies, Fr. Oliver was appointed a lecturer in theology at Propaganda College. Fr. John Brenan his student friend of old was also appointed to the staff of Propaganda at this time. Later Fr. Oliver was promoted as professor of controversies or apologetics and over his twelve years at the college, he helped to improve standards a great deal. Propaganda College was an impressive establishment located in the same building as the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and as such the whole complex was a hub of activity. For the rest of his life, Oliver held Propaganda College in the highest esteem, later writing from Ireland: "Propaganda in a word all Rome, is a great book. How many nations and their customs are observed, Poles, Germans, Spaniards, French, Turks, Ethiopians, Africans, Americans all rub shoulders and one learns with what prudence such widely divergent affairs referring to such opposing interests and countries are handled. One treats with cardinals and prelates of great wisdom, of consummate experience in the spiritual and temporal affairs of so many monarchs and princes. It is impossible that a person of even mediocre intelligence would not profit very much both in the fields of learning and experience, and indeed for the purpose of training a missionary, there is not another college in the world more suitable than the Propaganda."

Oliver was appointed as a consulter in the Congregation of the Index with a responsibility to review books, a part-time and a very trusted position. He was also appointed as a part time agent in Rome for several of the Irish bishops, fulfilling this role right up until his departure from the city. His correspondence kept him well informed of the plight of the Irish and he was kept busy in this role with several controversies in the Irish Church. These including such issues as the Remonstrance and its promoter, Fr. Peter Walsh and the trickery of Fr. James Taaffe. Over the twenty-two years which Oliver had spent in Rome, he had become Roman, indeed in his voluminous mail later from Ireland, although fluent in at least four languages, he felt most comfortable when corresponding in Italian.

The Archbishopric of Armagh became vacant upon the death in Saumur, France, of Dr. Edmund O'Reilly who had spent his last few years in exile. It was then almost a decade after the restoration of King Charles II and Rome at last thought it safe to appoint a few new bishops who could actually be sent to work on the Irish mission. On 9th of July 1669, at a meeting which took place in Rome to discuss the merits of the various candidates for the position of Archbishop of Armagh, Pope Clement IX intervened: "But why delay in discussing the merits of others, whilst we have here in Rome, a native of that island, whose merits are known to us all, and whose labours in this city have already added so many wreaths to the peerless glory of the 'Island of Saints'. Let Dr. Oliver Plunkett become the Archbishop of Armagh." It was decided that Oliver should be ordained Archbishop of Armagh in a quiet ceremony in Ghent, Belgium, on his way home to Ireland lest a more public ceremony in Rome might antagonise the government back home and lead to the further persecution of Catholics.

As a student in the Irish College many years earlier, Oliver's annual two weeks summer holidays were spent in the college vineyard on the slopes of Castel Gandolfo about twenty-five kilometres south east of Rome. He must have had very happy memories of those working holidays, because when working as a professor in Propaganda College, he acquired a small garden vineyard close to the one owned by the Irish college, overlooking the beautiful lake Albano. This he now left to the Irish College along with some books and pictures, in appreciation for the education he had received there. The pictures must not have been used by the college at that time however, as twelve years later and barely a week before his martyrdom, St. Oliver wrote a long and poignant letter to his former secretary and relative, Fr. Michael Plunkett in Rome, leaving the pictures to the Irish College and expressing his sorrow that they had not been framed. Many of the books, which he presented to the college library were scattered by the French during their invasion of Rome in 1798, however at least one of those books is still easily identified by his signature.

The garden vineyard, which he gave to the Irish College, was probably attached to their existing vineyard as a small extension. The time he spent in his vineyard must have been a joyful and a prayerful time for him and he would certainly have reflected on the scores upon scores of references to vines and vineyards in the Holy Bible, doubtless Dr. Oliver was familiar with them all. Having the freedom of the house and library which was on the property of the Irish College vineyard nearby, meant that this whole experience, must have been a most edifying one for him, so that when he wrote about the delights of Rome some years later, the vineyard must surely have been on his mind as one of those delights. One can well imagine the care and love with which he must have tended on those vines at Albano, and no doubt a little of the fruit of those vines was made into wine, for the sacred mysteries of some of his Masses.

When the young Oliver arrived in Rome, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica had been completed only fifty years earlier and work was still ongoing on the basilica of St. Peter's itself. During his time in Rome he witnessed many such improvements, including the building and completion of the colonnades of St. Peter's square. Similarly, Bernini's famous fountain of the four rivers, the Piazza Navona, another 'must see' for the tourists of today. He was there during the celebrated entry to Rome of Queen Christina of Sweden, who had renounced her throne, become a catholic and lived out the rest of her life in Rome. He was also in Rome when the 'Chair of St. Peter' was solemnly installed in the famous shrine by Bernini, at the back of St. Peter's Basilica and exactly eight years later, on the feast of the Chair of St. Peter in 1674, he would recall that event while on the run from the authorities and almost overcome by snow, during a snow blizzard in Ulster. He wrote: "God be praised that he gives us the grace to suffer for the Chair of St. Peter and on the feast dedicated to the Chair founded upon the Rock, which will, I hope in the long run break the tempestuous waves".

In his spare time, Oliver continued to distinguish himself in works of charity and he kept up his visits to the Santo Spirito hospital, adjacent to the Vatican. It is recorded that when he went to say his farewells at the hospital, Fr. Mieskow the superior wished Oliver well, along with the prophetic words: "My Lord you are going to shed your blood for the Catholic faith". Oliver left Rome during the first week of September 1669, travelling via, Bologna, Innsbruck, Munich and Mainz from where he travelled by boat down the Rhine into Cologne and further on into Holland; then on to Brussels on his way to receive his episcopal ordination in Ghent.

Episcopal Ordination in 1669 - Ghent, Belgium

It was decided that Oliver Plunkett should be ordained Archbishop of Armagh in a quiet ceremony in Flanders, Belgium, on his way home to Ireland, lest a more public ceremony in Rome might antagonise the government back home. Arriving in Brussels on 3rd November 1669 after a two-month journey from Rome, he found that the Internuncio was away, so he went to visit Louvain and met the large Franciscan community at St. Anthony's College, including fifteen friars who had recently arrived from Ireland. Oliver would no doubt have enquired about the remnants of the Armagh altar-plate, which was deposited with the friars over sixty years earlier. The altar-plate, along with some church items and possibly some vestments, were brought out of Ireland for safe keeping by Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone in the Flight of the Earls, who had stayed with his party in Louvain over the winter of 1607/8.

Oliver was ordained Archbishop of Armagh at St. Bavo's Cathedral, Ghent, by Bishop Eugene D'Allamont of Ghent, on the first Sunday of Advent, 1st December 1669. The ceremony was assisted by the Provost of the Cathedral, Rt. Rev. James Roose and the Dean of the Chapter of Ghent, Rt. Rev. John le Monier. In attendance was an exiled bishop from the diocese of Ferns in Ireland, Bishop Nicholas French whom Archbishop Oliver knew well and who had accompanied Sir Nicholas Plunkett on a visit to Rome as emissaries of the Confederation of Kilkenny. Archbishop Oliver would have been delighted to again meet Bishop French and they must have had a lot of reminiscing of past times. Bishop French had an interesting life, having escaped from the terrible onslaught of Cromwell's forces in his native County Wexford. At his house in Wexford, a sacristan, a gardener and a sixteen-year old boy were killed. Bishop French then hid in the Irish countryside despite a determined search for him by those same forces, until his escape into exile some five months later. While hiding in the woods, his hideout was discovered and surrounded at one stage, but he broke through the ranks of the soldiers at speed, later thanking God and the swiftness of his steed. Indeed the Cromwellians hanged three of Bishop French's fellow Irish bishops at this time and a fourth bishop died from ill treatment after capture.

During the penal times in Ireland, the bishops of Flanders maintained a fine tradition of giving sanctuary, education and help to many of the exiled Irish churchmen, and it was common practice to present the newly ordained Irish bishops with episcopal rings. This was the third time since May of that year that Bishop d'Allamont of Ghent was involved in the consecration of an Irish Archbishop, namely, James Lynch of Tuam in Ghent and Peter Talbot of Dublin, in Antwerp. Bishop French assisted at both of those ceremonies, when three bishops were available in each case, according to protocol.

In the middle ages, the city of Ghent had become the second largest city in northern Europe and was a prosperous centre of commerce. However by the time of Oliver's visit, its importance had diminished somewhat as a result of the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. Once Catholic, then a Calvinist republic and then with the help of the Spanish army it had became a Catholic region once again.

A week after his episcopal ordination in Ghent, Archbishop Oliver set off again on the next part of his journey home to Ireland, via Ostend, London and Holyhead. Before leaving he wrote: "I am thinking of passing myself off as an Italian tourist who is going out of curiosity to see the sights of London" and he added that he had given his papers and letters to an English gentleman to be brought to London.

On the first Sunday of Advent 2008, Bishop Gerard Clifford, Auxiliary Bishop of Armagh led a memorable pilgrimage from Ireland to St. Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, to commemorate St. Oliver's episcopal ordination at St. Bavo's on the first Sunday of Advent 1669. After Mass, concelebrated by Bishop Lucas Van Looy of Ghent, a plaque was unveiled by Bishop Clifford in the crypt of the cathedral. The plaque is inscribed in three languages: Flemish, Irish and English.