Saint Oliver Plunket

Saint Oliver Plunket (born 1629, Loughcrew, County Meath, Ire.—died July 1, 1681, London; canonized 1975; feast day July 11) was the Roman Catholic primate of all Ireland and the last man to suffer martyrdom for the Catholic faith in England.

Plunket was educated and ordained in Rome, serving there as professor of theology at the College of Propaganda Fide and as the representative of the Irish bishops at the Holy See. Appointed archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland in 1669, he arrived in the following year at a time when, after prolonged repression, the Catholic Church was greatly disorganized, with only one aged bishop at liberty. Setting himself to restore order and discipline in accordance with the precepts of the Council of Trent, Plunket kept on good terms with the English and the Protestants until in 1673 when, under renewed persecution, he was obliged to go into hiding. For the next five years he laboured under conditions of increasing difficulty, brought to a climax by the terror inspired by the Titus Oates plot of 1678. In the following year he was betrayed, arrested, and imprisoned in Dublin Castle. His trial at Dundalk was made absurd by the ignominious witnesses for the prosecution; he was taken to London, where, after protracted legal proceedings, he was sentenced to be hanged, disembowelled, and quartered; the sentence was carried out at Tyburn before a large crowd. Plunket was beatified by Benedict XV in 1920 and canonized by Pope Paul VI on Oct. 12, 1975. His head is preserved at Drogheda and his body at Downside Abbey, near Bath.