theory was not even hazarded.  It would be impossible here to go into details and proofs of the nonconformity of each bishop.  The work has been already undertaken, with admirable success, by an Anglican clergyman.[412] I shall, however, give some of the impediments offered to the progress of the Reformation in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and of the cruel persecutions which were inflicted on those who dared to wish for liberty to worship God according to their conscience.

Notwithstanding the solemn promise of the Lord Deputy, the penal statutes against Catholics were carried out.  In 1563 the Earl of Essex issued a proclamation, by which all priests, secular and regular, were forbidden to officiate, or even to reside in Dublin.  Fines and penalties were strictly enforced for absence from the Protestant service; before long, torture and death were inflicted.  Priests and religious were, as might be expected, the first victims.  They were hunted into mountains and caves; and the parish churches and few monastic chapels which had escaped the rapacity of Henry VIII., were sacrificed to the sacrilegious emissaries of Elizabeth.  Curry gives some account of those who suffered for the faith in this reign.  He says:  “Among many other Roman Catholic bishops and priests, there were put to death for the exercise of their function in Ireland, Globy O’Boyle, Abbot of Boyle, and Owen O’Mulkeran, Abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity, hanged and quartered by Lord Grey, in 1580.  John Stephens suffered the same punishment from Lord Burroughs, for saying Mass, in 1597; Thady O’Boyle was slain in his own monastery at Donegal; six friars were slain at Moynihigan; John O’Calyhor and Bryan O’Freeor were killed at their monastery in Ulster, with Felimy O’Hara, a lay brother.  Eneus Penny was massacred at the altar of his own parish church, Killagh.  Fourteen other priests died in Dublin Castle, either from hard usage, or the violence of torture.”

Dr. Adam Loftus, the Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, was one of the most violent persecutors of the Catholics.  In his first report to the Queen, dated May 17th, 1565, he describes the nobility of the Pale as all devoted to the ancient creed; and he recommends that they should be fined “in a good round sum,” which should be paid to her Majesty’s use, and “sharply dealt withal."[413] An original method of conversion, certainly!  But it did not succeed.  On the 22nd of September, 1590, after twenty-five years had been spent in the fruitless attempt to convert the Irish, he writes to Lord Burleigh, detailing the causes of the general decay of the Protestant religion in Ireland, and suggesting “how the same may be remedied.”  He advises that the ecclesiastical commission should be put in force, “for the people are poor, and fear to be fined.”  He requests that he and such commissioners as are “well affected in religion, may be permitted to imprison and fine all such as are obstinate and disobedient;”