AN ACCOUNT OF THE Bloody Massacre IN IRELAND: Acted by the Instigation of the JESUITS, PRIESTS, and FRIARS, who were Promoters of those horrible Murders, prodigious Cruelties, barbarous Villainies, and inhuman Practices executed by the Irish Papists upon the English Protestants.  
Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum.  
Licenced 23. Decemb. 1678.  
LONDON, Printed for R.G. 1678   

WHen their Plots were ripe for Execution 〈…〉 then first proceedings against the English various; some of the Irish only stripping and expelling them; others murder●●● Men, Women, and Children without mercy; all resolving universally to root out all the Protestants of Ireland: so deeply malicious were they against the English Protestant, that they would not so much as endure the sound of their Language.  
The Priests gave the Sacrament unto divers of the Irish, upon condition they should neither spare Man, Woman, nor Child of the Protestants. One Hulligan, a Priest, read an Excommunication against all those, that from thenceforth should relieve or harbour any English, Scotish, or Welsh man, or give them alms, whereby many were Famished to dearth. The Friars exhorted them with tears not to spare any of the English.  
The day before this Massacre began, Anno 1642; the Priests gave the People a dismiss at Mass, with liberty to go out, and take possession of all their Lands, as also to strip, and rob, and despoil them of all their goods and cattle.  
The Irish, when the Massacre began, persuaded many of their Protestant Neighbours to bring their Goods to them, and they would secure them and hereby they got abundance peaceably into their hands, whereof they cheated the Protestants, refusing ●o restore them again; yet so confident were the Protestants at first of them, that they gave them Inventories of all they had; and digged up their best things that were hidden in the ground, and deposited them in their custody. They also got much into their hands by fair Promises, deep Oaths and Engagements, that if they would deliver them their goods, they would suffer them, with their Wives and Children, quietly to depart the Country; and when they had got what they could, they afterwards murdered them.  
Having thus seized upon their goods and cattle, ransacked their houses, got their persons, stripped Man, Woman, and Child naked, and so turned them out of doors, strictly prohibiting the Irish under great penalities, not to give them any relief; by means hereof many miserably perished through cold, nakedness, and hunger.  
In the Town of Coleraine, many of these poor people that fled thither for succour, many thousands died in two days, so that the living could not bury the dead, but laid their Carcases in ranks in waste and wide holes, piling them up as if they had been Herrings.  
One Magdalen Redman deposeth, that she, and divers other Protestants, amongst whom were two and twenty Widows, were first robbed, and then stripped Naked, and when they had covered themselves with Straw, the bloody Papists threw in burning straw amongst them, on purpose to burn them; then they drove them out into the Woods in Frost and Snow, where many of them died with extreme Cold, and those that survived, lived miserably by reason of their many wants.  
Yet though these bloody Villains exercised such inhuman Cruelties towards the poor Protestants, they would commonly boast, That these were but the beginning of their 〈◊〉 for indeed they made it good; for having disarmed the English. ●●●●ed them of their Goods, stripped them of their clothes, and having their Persons in their power, they furiously broke out into all manner of abomirable Cruelties, horrid Massacres, and execrable Murders.  
For there were multitudes Murdered in cold Blood, some as they were at Plough, others in their Houses, others in the Highways; all without any provocation, were suddenly destroyed.  
In the Castle of Lisg●●● were about One hundred and fifty Men, Women and Children consumed with Fire. At the Castle of Tullah, which was delivered to Mac Guire, upon composition, and faithful promises of fair quarter, as soon as he and his entered, they began to strip the People, and most cruelly put them to the Sword, Murdering them all without mercy.  
At Lissenskeath, they Hanged and Killed above One hundred of the Scottish Protestants. In the Counties of Armagh and Tyrone, where the protestants were more numerous, their Murders were more multiplied, and with greater cruelty.  
Mac Guire coming to the Castle of Lassenskeath, desired to speak with Mr. Middleton, who admitted him in, he first burned the Records of the County, than demanded One thousand pounds which was in his custody of Sir Williane Balfores, which as soon as he had, he caused Mr. Middleton to hear Mass, and to swear that he would never alter from it, and then Hanged him up with his Wife and Children: Hanging and Murdering above One hundred Persons besides in that place.  
At Portendown Bridge, there were One thousand Men, Women, and Children, carried in several Companies, and all unmercifully drowned in the River. Yea, in that Country there were four thousand persons drowned in several places.  
In one place an hundred and forty English were taken and driven like Cattle for many miles together. Other companies they carried out to a place fit for execution, and then murdered them. One hundred and fifteen Men, Women, and Children, they sent with Sir Philem Oneal's Pass till they came to Portendown Bridge, and there drowned them.  
At another time One hundred and forty Protestants, being thrown in at the same place, as any of them swum to the shore, the bloody Villains with the Butt-ends of their Muskets knocked out their Brains.  
At Armagh, O Cane got together all the Protestants thereabouts, pretending to conduct them to Coleraine; but before they were a days journey, they were all murdered, and so were many others, though they had Protections from Sir Philem Oneal. The Aged People in Armagh were carried to Charlemont, and there murdered.  
Presently after the Town of Armagh was burnt, and Five hundred Persons murdered and drowned. In Killoman were Forty eight Families Murdered. In one hou●● twenty two Protestants were burned. In Kilmore all the Inhabitants were Stripped and Massacred, being Two hundred Families; the whole Country was a Common Butchery; many thousands perished by Sword, Famine, Fire, Water, and all other cruel Deaths, that rage and malice could invent.  
At Casel they put all the Protestants into a loathsome Dungeon, kept them twelve Weeks in great misery. Some they barbarously mangled, and left them languishing; some they hanged up twice or thrice, others they buried alive.  
In Queen's County, an English Man, his Wife five Children, and a Maid, were all hanged together. At Clown's seventeen Men were buried alive; some were wounded and hanged upon tenterhooks.  
In Castle-Cumber, Two Boys wounded and hung upon Butcher's Tenters. Some hanged up and taken down to confess money, and then murdered. Some had their Bellies ripped up, and so left with their Guts about their Heels.  
In Kilkenny, an English Woman was beaten into a Ditch, where she died; her Child about six years old, they ripped up her Belly, and let out her Guts. One they forced to Mass, than they wounded him, ripped his Belly, took out his Guts, and so left him alive.  
A Scottish Man they stripped and hewed to pieces, ripped up his Wife's Belly, so that her Child drop out; many other Women they hung up with-child, ripped their Bellies and let their Infants fall out; some of the Children they gave to Dogs.  
In the County of Armagh they rob, stripped, and murdered abundance of Protestants, whereof some they burned, some they slew with the Sword, some they hanged, some they starved to death; and meeting Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Frankland with six of their Children, and themselves both with-child, they murdered them all, ripped open the Gentlewoman's Bellies, took out their Children, and threw them into a ditch. A young Scotish Woman's Child they took by the heels and dashed out its brains against a Tree; the like they did to many other Children.  
Anne Hill, Going with a young Child on her Back, and four more by her side, they pulled the Child off her Back, trod on it till it died; stripped her and the other four Children naked, whereby they died of Cold.  
Some others they met with, hanged them up upon a Windmill, and before they were half dead, cut them in pieces with their Skeins.  
Many other Protestants, especially Women and Children, they pricked and stabbed with Skeins, Forks, and Swords, flashing, cutting, and mangling them in their Heads, Faces, Breasts, Arms, and other parts, yet killed them not, but left them wallowing in their own blood, to languish, starve and pine to death.  
The Castle of Lisgoole being set on fire by these mer●●●ess Papists, a Woman leapt out at a Window to face her ● vault▪ and Cellars, where they were all murdered. One Joan Addis they stabbed, and then put her Child of a quarter old to her Breast, and bid it Suck English Bastard, and so left it to perish.  
One Mary Barlow had her husband hanged, herself with six Children, stripped naked in Frost and Snow, after which sheltering themselves in a Cave, they had nothing to eat for three weeks but two old Calves-skins, which they beat with stones, and so eat them hair and all.  
In the cold weather many thousands of Protestants of all ranks, ages, and sexes, being turned out naked, perished of cold and hunger; thousands of others were drowned, cast, into Ditches, Bogs, and Turf-pits; multitudes miserably burnt in houses; some that lay sick of Fevers they hanged up; some Men, Women, and Children, they drove into Boggy Pits, and knocked them on the heads.  
Some aged Men and Women these barbarous Papists enforced their own Children to drown them; yea, some Children were compelled unnaturally to execute their own Parents, Wives forced to hang their own Husbands, and Mothers to cast their own Children into the Waters, after which themselves were murdered. In Sligo they forced a young Man to kill his Father, and then hanged him up. In another place they forced a Woman to kill her Husband, than caused her Son to kill her, and then hanged the Son: yea, such was their malice against the English that they taught their Children to kill English Children.  
The Irish Trulls that followed the Camp, cried out. Kill them all, spare neither Man, Woman, nor Child. They took the Child of Thomas Stratton, being about twelve years old, and boiled him in a Cauldron. One good wife Lin and her Daughter they carried into a Wood, first hanged the Mother, and then the Daughter in the hair of her Mother's head.  
In some places they plucked out the eyes and cut off the hands of the Protestants, and turned them into the Fields, where they perished. The Women in some places stoned the English Women and Children to death. One man they shot through his thighs, digged a hole in the ground, set him in upon his feet, filled up the hole, left out only his head, where he languished to death. Another man they held his feet in the Fire till he was burnt to death.  
In Munster they hanged up many Ministers in a most barbarous manner. One Minister they stripped naked, and drove him through the Town; pricking him with Darts and Rapiers, till he fell down dead.  
These barbarous Villains vowed, That if any Parents digged Graves to bury their Children in, they should be buried therein themselves. They stripped one William Loverden naked, then killed him before his Wife and Children. Divers Ministers bones that had been buried some years before, they digged up, because they were, as they say, Patrons of Heresy.  
Poor Children that went out into the fields to eat weeds and grass, they killed without all pity.  
A poor Woman whose Husband was taken by them, went to them with two Children at her feet, and one at her breast; hoping to beg her Husband: but they slew her and her sucking Child, broke the neck of another, and the third hardly escaped: and all this wickedness they exercised upon the English, without any provocation given them. Alas who can comprehend the fears, terrors, anguish, bitterness, and perplexity that seized upon the poor Protestants, finding themselves so suddenly surprised without remedy; and wrapped up in all kind of outward miseries which could possibly by man be inflicted upon humane Creatures? What sighs and groans, trembling and astonishment, what shrieks cries, and bitter lamentations of wives, children, servants and friends, howling and weeping; finding themselves without all hope of deliverance from their present miseries. How inexorable were their barbarous Tormentors, that compassed them in on every side, without all bowels of compassion or the least commiseration or pity; yea they boasted upon their success.  
These merciless Irish Papists having set a Castle on fire, wherein were many Protestants, they rejoicingly said, O how sweetly do they fry!  
At Kilkenny, when they had committed many cruel murders, they brought seven Protestants heads, one the head of a reverend Minister; all which they set upon the Market-cross on a Market-day; triumphing, slashing, and mangling them: they put a Gag in the Minister's mouth, slit up his cheeks to his ears, and laid a leaf of a Bible upon it, and bid him, Preach, for his Mouth was wide enough.  
At Kilmore they put many Protestants, Men, Women, and Children, into a thatched House, and there burnt them. They threw Mrs. Maxwell into the River, when in labour, the child being half born when the Mother was drowned.  
In one place they burned two Protestant Bibles, and then said, It was Hell fire they burnt. Other Bibles they took, cut in pieces, and then burned them; saying, They would do the like to all Puritan Bibles. They took the Bible of a Minister, called Mr. Edward Slack, and opening it, they laid it in a puddle of Water, and then stamped upon it, saying, A plague on it, this Bible hath bred all the quarrel.  
At Glastow, a Priest with some others, drew about forty English and Scottish Protestants to be reconciled to the Church of Rome, and then told them, They were in a good faith, and for fear they should fall from it and turn Heretics, he with his companions presently cut all their throats.  
In the County of Tipperary, near the Silver Works, some of these barbarous Papists met with eleven English men, ten women, and some children; whom they first stripped and then with Stones, Pole-axes, Skeins, Swords, etc. they most barbarously massacred them all.  
In the County of Mayo about sixty Protestants, whereof fifteen were Ministers, were upon Covenant to be safely conveyed to Galway by one Edmond Burk, and his Soldiers; but by the way, this Burk and his company began to massacre these poor Protestants: some they shot to death; some they stabbed with their Skeins; some they thrust through with their Pikes, some they drowned; the Women they stripped naked, who lying upon their husbands to save them, were run through with Pikes; so that very few of them escaped with life.  
In the Town of Sligo, forty Protestants were stripped and locked up in a Cellar, and about midnight a Butcher provided for the purpose, was sent in amongst them; who with his axe butchered them all.  
In Tirawly thirty or forty English, who had yielded to go to Mass, were put to their choice, Whether they would die by the Sword or be drowned? They chose the latter, and so being driven to the Seaside, these barbarous Villains, with their naked swords forced them into the Sea; the Mothers with their Children in their Arms, wading to the Chin, were overcome by the waves; where they all perished.  
The Son of Mr. Montgomery a Minister, aged about fifteen years, met with his Schoolmaster, who drew his Skein at him; whereupon the Boy said, Good Master whip me as much as you will, but do not kill me. Yet this merciless Tiger barbarously murdered him without all pity.  
In the Town of Sligo all the Protestants were first robbed of their Estates, then cast into Goal, and about midnight were all stripped naked, and were there most cruelly and barbarously murdered with Swords, Axes, Skeins, etc. some of them being Women great with-child, their Infants thrust out their Arms and Legs at their Wounds; after which execrable murders, these Hellhounds laid the dead naked bodies of the Men upon the naked bodies of the Women, in a most immodest posture; where they left them till the next day to be looked upon by the Irish, who beheld it with great delight. Also Isabel Beard, great with-child, hearing the lamentable cries of those that were murdering, ran out into the streets; where she was murdered, and the next day was found with the Child's feet coming out of the Wounds in her sides: many others were murdered in the houses and streets.  
About Dungannon were three hundred and sixteen Protestants in the like barbarous manner murdered: About Charlemont above four hundred: About Tyrone two hundred and six.  
One Mac Crew murdered thirty one in one morning.  
Two young Villains murdered 140 poor Women and Children, that could make no resistance. An Irish Woman with her own hands murdered forty five.  
At Portendown Bridge were drowned above three hundred. At Lawgh were drowned above two hundred. In an other place were drowned three hundred in one day. In the parish of Killmen, there were murdered one thousand and two hundred Protestants.  
Many young children they cut in quarters; eighteen Scottish Infants they hanged upon a Clothier's tenterhooks; one fat man they murdered and made Candles of his grease; another Scottish man they ripped up his belly, took one end of his small guts, tied it to a Tree, and forced him round about it, till they had drawn them all out of his body, saying, That they would try whether a dog or a Scottish man's Guts were the longer.  
By the command of Sir Philem O Neale, Master James Maxwell was drawn out of his bed, being sick of a Fever, and murdered, his Wife being in chid-birth, the child being halfborn, they stripped naked, drove her about a flight shot, and drowned her in the black water, the like or worse they did to another English Woman in the same Town. One Mr. Watson they roasted alive. A Scottish Woman great with-child, they ripped up her Belly, cut the Child out of her Womb, and so left it crawling on her Body.  
Mr. Sta●key, Schoolmaster at Armagh, being above one hundred years old, they stripped him naked, then took his two Daughters, being Virgins, whom they also stripped naked and then forced them to lead their Aged Father to a Turf-pit, where they drowned them all three.  
To one Henry Cowel, a gallant Gentleman, they proffered his life, if he would marry one of their Trulls, or go to Mass, but he chose death rather than to consent to either.  
Many of the Protestants they buried alive, sollacing themselves, whilst they were digging down old Ditches upon them.  
They, broke the Backbone of a Youth, and left him in the Fields, some days after he was found, having eaten the Grass round about him; neither then would they kill him out●ight, but removed him to better Pasture, wherein was fulfilled that saying, The tender mercies of the wicked are cruelty.  
In the County of Antrim, they murdered Nine hundred fifty four Protestants in one morning, and afterwards about Twelve hundred more in that County. Near Lisnegarry, they forced Twenty four Protestants into a House and burned them all.  
Sir Philem O Neale boasted, That he had slain above Six hundred at Garvah, and that he had left neither Man, Woman, nor Child alive in the Barony of Munterlong. In other places he murdered above two thousand Persons in their Houses; so that many Houses were filled with dead bodies.  
Above twelve thousand were slain in the Highways, as they fled towards Down. Many died of Famine, many died for want of clothes, being stripped naked in a cold season; some thousands were drowned; so that in the Province of Ulster, there were about one hundred and fifty thousand murdered by sundry kinds of torments and deaths.  
Anne Kinnard testified, That fifteen Protestants being imprisoned, and their Feet in the Stocks, a Popish Boy, being not above fourteen years old, flew them all in one Night with his Skein.  
An English Woman, who was newly delivered of two Children, some of these Villains violently compelled her, in her great pain and sickness, to rise out of her Bed, and took one of the Infants that was living, and dashed his Brains against the Stones, and then threw him into the River of Barrow: The like they did by many other Infants; many others they hanged up without all pity.  
The Lord Mont Garret, caused divers English Soldiers that he had taken about Kilkenny, to be hanged, hardly suffering them to pray before their death.  
One Fitz Patrick, an Irish Papist, enticed a rich Merchant, that was a Protestant, to bring all his Goods to his House, promising safely to keep them, and to redeliver them to him, but when he had gotten them into his possession, he took the Merchant and his Wife and hanged them both. The like he did by divers others.  
Some English men's Heads they cut off, and carried them to Kilkenny, and on the Market-day, set them on the Cross, where many, especially the Women, stabbed, cut, and slashed them.  
A poor Protestant Woman, with her two Children, going to Kilkenny, these bloody Miscreants baired them with Dogs, stabbed them with Skeins, and pulled out the Guts of one of the Children, whereby they died; and not far off they took divers Men, Women, and Children, and hanged them up; one of the Women being great with-child, they ripped up her Belly as she hanged, so that the Child fell out in the Cawl alive. Some after they were hanged, they drew up and down till their Bowels were torn out.  
How many thousands of Protestants were there thus inhumanely butchered, by sundry kinds of death, we cannot ascertain.  
In the Province of Ulster, we find vast numbers murdered, as before; what the number of the slain was in the three Provinces, I find not upon Record, but certainly it was very great, for you have these passages in a general Remonstrance of the distressed Protestants in the Province of Minister. We may (say they) compare our woe to the saddest parallel of any story: Our Churches are profaned by Sacrifices to Idols; Our Habitations are become ruinous heaps: No Quality, Age, or Sex, privileged from Massacres and lingering Deaths, by being robbed, stripped naked, and so exposed to cold and famine. The famished Infants of murdered Parents swarm-in our streets, and for want of food perish before our faces, etc. And all this cruelty that is exercised upon us, we know not for what cause, offence, or seeming provocation it is inflicted upon us (sin excepted) saving that we were Protestants, etc. We can make it manifest, that the depopulations in this Province of Munster, do well near equal those of the whole Kingdom, etc.  
And thus in part you have heard of the merciless cruelties which the bloody Irish Papists exercised toward the Protestants. Let us now consider, at least some of God's Judgements upon the Irish, whereby he hath not lest the innocent Blood of his Servants to be altogether unrevenged.  
These bloody Hellhounds, themselves confessed, That the Ghost of divers of the Protestants which they had drowned at Portendown Bridge, were daily seen to wall upon the Raves; sometimes singing of Psalms; sometimes brandishing naked Swords; sometimes shrieking in a most hideous and tearful manner. So that many of the Popish Irish, which dwelled near 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bouts, being affrighted therewith, were forced to remove their Habitations farther off into the Country.  
Katherine Cook testified upon Oath, That when the Irish had barbarously drowned One hundred and eighty Protestants, Mon, Women and Children, at Portendown Bridge, about nine days after, she saw the apparition of a Man bolt-upright in the River, standing breast-high, with his hands lifted up to Heaven; and continued in that posture from December to the end of Lent, at which time some of the English Army passing that way, saw it also; after which it vanished away.  
Elizabeth Price, testified upon Oath, That she and other Women, whose Husbands Children were drowned in that place, hearing of those Apparitions, went thither one evening, at which time they saw one like a Woman rise out of the River breast-high, her Hair hanging down, which with her Skin, was as white as Snow, often crying out, Revenge, Revenge, Revenge, which so affrighted them that they went away.  
Divers Protestants were thrown into the River of Belterbert, and when any of them offered to swim to the Land, they were knocked on the Head with Poles, after which their Bodies were not seen of six weeks, but after the end hereof, the murderers coming again that way, the Bodies came floating up to the very Bridge where they were.  
Sir Con Mac Gennis, with his Company, slew Mr. Turge, Minister of the Newry, with divers other Protestants, after which the said Mac Gennis was so affrighted with the Apparition of the said Mr. Turge, his being continually in his presence, that he commanded his Soldiers not to slay any more of them but such as should be slain in Battle.  
A young Woman being stripped almost naked, there came a Rogue to her, bidding her, Give him her money, or he would run her through with his Sword. Her Answer was, You cannot kill me except God give you leave; whereupon he ran three times at her naked Body with his drawn Sword, and yet never pierced her Skin; whereat he being confounded went his way and left her. This was attested by divers Women that were present and saw it.  
As for the Protestant Ministers whom they surprised, their manner was first to strip them, and after bind them to a Tree of Post, where they pleased, and then to ravish their Wives and Daughters before their faces (in sight of all their merciless rabble) with the baseft Villains they could pick out; after they hanged up their Husbands and Parents before their faces, and then cut them down before they were half dead, than quartered them, after dismembered them, and stopped their mouths therewith.  
They basely abused one Mr. Trafford a Minister in the North of Ireland, who being assaulted by these bloody Wolves of Romes-brood, that know not God, nor any bowels of Mercy. This distressed Minister desired but so much time as to call upon God before he went out of the world; but these merciless wretches would admit no time, but instantly fell upon him, hacked and hewed him to pieces.  
Sir Patrick Dunstan's Wife ravished before him, slew his Servants, spurned his Children till they died, bound him with Match to a board that his eyes burst out, cut off his Ears and Nose, teared off both his Cheeks, after cut off his Arms and Legs, cut out his Tongue, and after run a red hot Iron into him.  
These Particulars, with many more, were Attested before the Commissioners appointed for that purpose.  
See more of such Cruelties in Clark's Martirology.  
FINIS.