Oliver Plunkett was born in Loughcrew in County Meath, Ireland on November 1, 1629. In 1647, he went to study for the priesthood in the Irish College in Rome and onn January 1, 1654, he was ordained a priest in the Propaganda College in Rome.
During this time, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland had defeated the Catholic cause in Ireland; in the aftermath the public practice of Catholicism was banned and Catholic clergy were executed. As a result, it was impossible for Plunkett to return to Ireland for many years.
Throughout the period of the Commonwealth and the first years of Charles II's reign, Plunkett successfully pleaded the cause of the Irish Catholic Church, while serving as theological professor at the College of Propaganda Fide. At the Congregation of Propaganda Fide on 9 July 1669, he was appointed Archbishop of Armagh, the Irish primatial see, and was consecrated on 30 November at Ghent by the Bishop of Ghent, Eugeen-Albert. He eventually set foot on Irish soil again on 7 March 1670, as the English Restoration of 1660 had begun on a basis of toleration. The pallium was granted him in the Consistory of 28 July 1670.
Plunkett established a Jesuit College in Drogheda in 1670. A year later 150 students attended the college, 40 of whom were Protestant, making this college the first integrated school in Ireland. His ministry was a successful one and he is said to have confirmed 48,000 Catholics over a 4-year period. The government in Dublin, especially under the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Ormonde (the Protestant son of Catholic parents) extended a generous measure of toleration to the Catholic hierarchy until the mid-1670s.
In 1678 the so-called Popish Plot, concocted in England by clergyman Titus Oates, led to further anti-Catholic action. Archbishop Peter Talbot of Dublin was arrested, and Plunkett went into hiding. The Privy Council of England, in Westminster, was told that Plunkett had plotted a French invasion.
He was arrested in Dublin on 6 December 1679 and imprisoned in Dublin Castle, where he gave absolution to the dying Talbot. Plunkett was tried at Dundalk for conspiring against the state by allegedly plotting to bring 20,000 French soldiers into the country and for levying a tax on his clergy to support 70,000 men for rebellion. Though this was unproven, some in government circles were worried about the possibility that a repetition of the Irish rebellion of 1641 was being planned and in any case this was a convenient excuse for proceeding against Plunkett.
Plunkett was executed in Tyburn, England on 1st July 1681. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered for treason and “promoting the Roman faith."
His body was initially buried in two tin boxes in the courtyard of St Giles in the Fields church. The remains were exhumed in 1683 and moved to the Benedictine monastery at Lamspringe, near Hildesheim in Germany. The head was brought to Rome, and from there to Armagh, and eventually to Drogheda where since 29 June 1921 it has rested in Saint Peter's Church. Most of the body was brought to Downside Abbey, England, where the major part is located today, with some parts remaining at Lamspringe. On the occasion of his canonization in 1975 his casket was opened and some parts of his body given to the St Peter’s Church in Drogheda Ireland.
Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Junipero Serra
2. Saint Arnulf
3. Saint Domitian
4. Saint Eparchius
5. Saint Juthware
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