Interest in Oliver Plunkett has fluctuated over the four centuries since he was found guilty of treason in a blatant miscarriage of justice in 1681, after which he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.
Interest may have peaked in the 1970s. In 1975, there was nearly a diplomatic incident because then taoiseach Liam Cosgrave and president Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh were vying to represent Ireland at the canonisation in Rome. Cosgrave won and even proclaimed the first reading at the canonisation Mass.
Archbishop Karol Wojtyła of Kraków also attended, invited by Cardinal William Conway. Four years later, now Pope John Paul II, he prayed before the relics of St Oliver Plunkett at Drogheda before his famous plea for peace. Citing Oliver Plunkett as an exemplar of forgiveness, he begged “in the language of passionate pleading ... on my knees ... turn away from the paths of violence and ... return to the ways of peace”.
More than 50 years before, in 1920, when Terence McSwiney was Lord Mayor of Cork, Sinn Féin councillors successfully proposed that George’s Street be renamed Oliver Plunkett Street in honour of his beatification.
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This year marks the 400th anniversary of Oliver Plunkett’s birth and the 50th since his canonisation.
But in contrast, the national coverage has been scant and the response muted, aside from in places directly associated with the saint, such as Loughcrew in Co Meath, where he was born, Armagh, where he was primate, and Drogheda, the home of the national shrine in St Peter’s Church. An extensive programme, concluding in November, has been held in these areas involving Masses and ecumenical services, walks, tours, exhibitions, concerts and competitions, thanks to a hard-working committee.
It is not the first time that Oliver Plunkett has fallen from national attention.
For example, in the 200 years after his death, only a loyal few kept his memory alive. Tommy Burns, writing in the Commemorative Book compiled by the St Oliver 400 Committee, includes in that small number the Siena Dominican Sisters in Drogheda. They preserved the executed archbishop’s head for nearly 200 years, which sometimes involved great personal risk. While the relic may appear grisly to modern sensibilities, it is venerated not for ghoulish reasons but as evidence of his ultimate sacrifice for his faith.
Oliver Plunkett’s story would make a great film. He was connected to many of the Hiberno-Norman landed families. When he chose to be a priest, he also chose exile in Rome, as no seminary could operate in Ireland. He became a well-regarded professor of theology at the College for the Propagation of the Faith.
When appointed as Archbishop of Armagh in 1670, the memory of Cromwell’s slaughter of thousands in Drogheda and Wexford followed by deliberately induced famine that reduced the population by up to 25 per cent was still fresh.
Plunkett managed to navigate a political situation where Catholics officially had no civil rights. It sometimes necessitated disguise as an English officer or hiding in caves. He worked tirelessly to be on good terms with Protestant bishops and included Protestant students in a newly established Jesuit school in Drogheda.
The Irish Catholic Church was in chaos – religious orders fighting over property, alcohol-abusing priests leading scandalous lives, and the Rapparees – or partisans – launching raids. The Rapparees were viewed either as guerrilla defenders of fellow dispossessed Catholics or lawless criminals, and probably contained elements of both.
Oliver Plunkett negotiated a settlement with the Rapparees in Tyrone, leading to an unprecedented peace. Some of the clerics he reprimanded or removed from office would eventually give false testimony against him, implicating him in Titus Oates’ entirely fictitious Popish plot.
Modern, secular Ireland does not have much space for a story like Oliver Plunkett’s or, indeed, for contemporary examples of Christian persecution. But as Archbishop Eamon Martin said in a homily in Loughcrew last Sunday, “sadly, even in 2025, martyrdom remains a reality for many of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world”.
Archbishop Martin cited the recent murder of 200 Christians in western Nigeria. Fulani armed groups descended on a village full of displaced Christians and murdered them with machetes, before setting fire to their bodies.
According to a UK Parliament research briefing, 4,476 Christians were killed for faith-related reasons in 2024. Seventy per cent of those killed were in Nigeria. The world mostly ignores it.
The BBC recently provided a perfect example of this reluctance to ascribe religious motives in an explainer on the 200 deaths. It laid the blame on farmer versus herder conflicts and climate change before mentioning religion as an additional factor.
According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Fulani armed groups in northwest Nigeria engage in “kidnapping, rape, property and cattle theft, illegal possession of weapons, and murder”. While the motivation behind individual attacks can be difficult to verify, they “significantly restrict freedom of religion or belief, particularly for the predominantly Christian communities that live there”.
We care about the shocking conditions of Palestinian children in Gaza because we see them daily on our screens. The courage and faith of St Oliver might remind us that other persecuted communities, including Christians, deserve visibility and no less of our concern.
