Mass Rocks & The Priest Hunters

arnhem44 · 01-04-2010 10:08pm #1

Whilst visiting an old dissused graveyard today I happened to come across an old mass rock,also on the way to the graveyard I passed another along the road some miles away.I had a look on the net earlier to see how numerous these mass rocks were around the country(seems there are quite a few)and came across a piece on Wiki about priest hunters,just wondered is there any good reference books that detail any such events related to this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_hunter
A priest hunter was a person who, acting on behalf of British forces, spied on or captured Catholic priests during Penal Times in seventeenth and eighteenth century Ireland.
A 1709 Penal Act demanded that Catholic priests take the Oath of Abjuration, and recognise the Protestant Queen Anne as Queen of England, and by implication, Ireland. Priests that did not conform were arrested and executed. This activity, along with the deportation of priests who did conform, was a documented attempt to let the Catholic clergy die out in Ireland within a generation. Priests had to register with the local magistrates to be allowed to preach, and most did so. Bishops were not able to register.
Priest hunters were effectively bounty hunters, and despite some opportunists, in most cases the men were criminals who were arrested and forced into the position by their police force. The reward rates for capture varied from £100-£50 for a Bishop, to £20-£10 for the capture of an unregistered priest; substantial amounts of money at the time. The work was dangerous, and some priests killed in defence. The men were outcast from their communities, and were viewed as the most despised class. Often when a gentleman informed on a priest, locals would effect revenge by burning his house and farmyard. The Penal law made fugitives of the remaining clerics, and they were forced to conduct ceremonies in secret, and in remote locations. Night time worship at mass rocks became common, although the attending priest would usually wear a veil, so that if an attendee was questioned they were able to truthfully say that they did not know who had said the Mass.
The distribution of Priest hunters around the island was uneven, and some local police forces chose to overlook both the presence of priests and their mass rock activity.
Perhaps the best known Priest hunter was Sean na Sagart from County Mayo, an alcoholic horse thief who took up the profession in return for a pardon from the hangman's noose, c. 1715. He was eventually murdered by a priest he was pursuing, and his body was later dug up and thrown in a lake

sensibleken · 15-04-2010 3:39pm

dont know any books on them. where was the mass rock? i was at one in loughcrew a few weeks back

Fuinseog · 21-04-2010 10:33pm

there is a mass rock in the middle of Galway city in Shantalla. I also know of one in Ballyvaughan

arnhem44 · 28-04-2010 9:18pm

sensibleken wrote: »

dont know any books on them. where was the mass rock? i was at one in loughcrew a few weeks back

Hi sensibleken,sorry for the late reply,my Internet went bang for a while.The first mass rock was just outside a place called Connagh on the road between Rosscarbery and Leap in West Cork and the other was in Castlehaven Old graveyard between Castletownsend and Tragumna also in West Cork.

brianthebard · 28-04-2010 10:39pm

Fuinseog wrote: »

there is a mass rock in the middle of Galway city in Shantalla.

Is that the big shrine looking thing in the middle of a housing estate?

pjproby · 01-05-2010 6:34pm

was the word used for the priest hunter "discoverer" or does that word have a different connotation?

Azhrei · 04-05-2010 6:24pm

There used to be a mass rock said annually at East Ferry Marina in Cobh, though I don't know if it still happens. I remember dwindling numbers the last few times I attended them.

owenc · 06-05-2010 7:14pm

I was reading a document last week about them, when doing my family tree, it says that the scottish presbyterians came in and said they would not be aloud to practice their religion or they would be killed and their churches would be burn't down, so they built them rocks and practised mass in them on the hills high up secretly, its very freaky as they are still there on the hill up behind me house!!!

CDfm · 07-05-2010 1:19am

there were also mass barns

who the fug · 11-05-2010 8:57am

How many of these rocks are old monuments which may have been re used as mass rocks, or local folklore says they where

CDfm · 11-05-2010 11:18am

I know its OT but if you look at this permanent structure dated 1776 a barn church in the link below and I know of others catholicism was practiced fairly openly in some places.

I would imagine until Confederacy of Kilkenny and say the Battle of the Boyne it was fairly open in lots of locations ( Confederacy of Killkenny link http://jacobite.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/the-confederacy-of-kilkenny-1642-52-an-experiment-in-irish-statehood/ )

Even the Plunketts were involved in the Supreme Council of the Confederacy so in this so Oliver Plunkett's execution itself could be political

The Barn church below was in 1776 so are we talking say 1670 to 1770 or are we.

5. Holy Trinity (Barn) Church.
This church stands about a mile and a half south of Bawnboy. It is a rare example of a barn church. The long narrow plan is most unusual with the alters on the rear wall and the congregation- men to the south and women to the north, facing each other.

The austerity of Kildoagh, combined with its date, 1776 and the fact that almost nothing had been altered since it was built makes it of great importance. "There are two pointed door cases and four pointed windows on the front, and four pointed windows on the rear wall. The walls are built of rubble stone and rendered with lime plaster. The pointed windows with much of their original glass have good timber tracery and chamfered dressings of finely cut limestone. The door cases also have chamfered limestone dressings. Over the altar is a wooden crucifix, which is quite rare and could well date from the early I9th century.
An Foras Forbatha describes Kildoagh as follows:

A building most moving in its austere dignity and in the testimony it bears to a bygone but vital phase of history. A long narrow building set parallel to the road, of six bays, with doors in the second and fifth bays. The alter is in the middle of the back wall, so that most of the congregation sit in either the right hand or left hand half of the building, facing each other. There are galleries to the east and west. The entrances are on the north side, and on this side the windows have rather elaborate tracery Iike that at Ballyconnell and Killegar Protestant churches, but on the south side there is church-warden glazing. Externally, in the north wall, there is a Latin tablet recording the building of the church in 1796 under `Rev. Dom. Patritius Maguire'. Almost nothing has been altered in this church, even down to the original large earthenware tiles of the floor. A great rarity, certainly one of the finest barn churches surviving in Ireland, and as such is of international importance.

http://www.templeport.ie/pages/kildoagh-barn-church.html

now there are some examples of priests being caught and executed but over what period

the priest hunters -who were they had how did they operate and over what period and where did they actively go out and hunt like bounty hunters "wanted Fr Fred Fratton dead or alive Reward £100" style (:D sorry fred could not resist) or was it more informants for money or was it more sinister like witch hunters

My fathers mothers family had a lot of priests in that period and there is a collection of their chalices held somewhere by their order.

AFAIK they had a church similar to the above and lived reasonably openly even though I prefer the Stephen King version.

So whats the story.

Mass Rocks & The Priest Hunters

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