Ireland's Misery Since the Late CESSATION: Sent in a Letter from a Gentleman in DUBLIN, to his Brother in Law, now residing in London, sometime living in the County of Cavan in that kingdom.  
Wherein is set forth the great Cruelty and Horrible Massacres, committed upon the English Protestants in several Castles and places which they have taken since.  
With divers other remarkable Passages of great consequence concerning the affairs of both Kingdoms  
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LONDON, Printed for Henry Shephard, at the sign of the Cradle in Corn-hill. January 26. 1644.   

A Letter from Mr. Richard Harrison in DUBLIN, to his brother Mr. R. TUKE, now resident in London, &c.  
Sir,  
I Have written to you several times of our great and prosperous victories against our enemies formerly: but now I must write unto you of the fearful Tragedies acted against our poor country men, by the barbarous Irish, since the unlucky cessation, our forces being drawn away from hence daily, and our victuals exhausted through the great and daily concourse of the Irish to this miserable City, we being left as a prey to the enemy, expecting daily and hourly to be massacred and murdered in our beds, being strongly conceited so, through the manifold outrages and slaughters committed upon our poor brethren, in their several Castles and Garrisons, as in that of Catherlow, Malohon, Racoffie, and divers other places, which the Irish have taken, contrary to their pretended Truce since the bloody Cessation, having cruelly murdered all our men, women, & children that resided in them: they at this present manage all the affairs in the City, the Castle excepted, where our Lords, Justices, and council▪ keep themselves close, fearing to be surprised. Our condition is very lamentable, we are as sheep appointed for the slaughter, our wives & children swooning in the streets for want of bread, and our woeful eyes made spectators of their cruel insolences, in setting up their Idolatrous Masses in all our Churches, whereof they have taken possession, and banished our best Divines; the Lord for our sins having already begun a great famine of the word amongst us; neither are we suffered to depart the kingdom, but are exposed to the merciless cruelty of hunger, cold and famine, as also the ending stroke of grizly death which we hourly expect. Oh our miseries are unspeakable, but like to increase if not prevented by sudden (but I hope in the Lord) a provided death. But our only woe is, that you are like to suffer with us, and that very soon, if some speedy course be not taken for the stopping of the great multitude of Irish Papists which daily flock from hence into this kingdom, under pretence to assist his majesty against the Puritans. I do believe that this shall be the last that ever I shall write unto you (my dear Brother) but in regard of my duty and loyalty which I owe to my country▪ I will to my best endeavour set down in brief according to my own knowledge how this plot or misery contrived and still acted in both kingdoms, hath been a working these sixteen years, to establish popery both here and in England, to the intent that my deer native country men may be the more cautious in not falling into their mercies as we have done.  
About the year 1630, the Earl of Cork and my Lord chancellor Loftus, being Lords Justices of this kingdom, the said Earl being zealous of God's worship, did put in execution the statute against Recusants, which took such effect here, that the common sort of Irish came daily to our English Churches for two months and more: in the mean time the Earl of Westmeaths, Sir Richard Barnewall of Crickstow, are employed as agents to the Queen, in the behalf of all the Irish. I cannot tell how the business is carried, but the King's Letters of favour are obtained to the Lords Justices, commanding them not to molest his good subjects the Irish, in their former liberty of conscience, which was accordingly obeyed. Afterwards the Earl of Strafford succeeded in this government, (who being a cunning man to get wealth) threatened the subversion of popery (though by him never attempted, the Irish being mightily terrified) employed Westmeath and Barnewall the second time to the Queen: these Agents fall cunningly to work, and compounded with his Majesty to afford him a mighty sum of money throughout the whole kingdom, if so be they might enjoy their former liberty. Presently they obtain his majesty's Letters again to the Earl of Strafford, commanding as they desired, than all things go well with them: but that the money is not gathered, Warrants are issued out, and none so deeply taxed as the poor Protestants in purchasing the freedom of the Papists who afterwards cut their throats and dashed their children in pieces: well the money is collected, the Papists take courage, they build abbeys and Couvents in every corner of the land, the Locusts flock in daily to this miserable City, they build their mass houses in every street▪ and increase in three year to the number of fifteen hundred Priest, Jesuits friars, and Monks, as is here still extant by the computation of Paul Harris, one of their own Seminary Priests: the High Commission is set up for the suppressing of our honest Ministers, and it is made Court of justice for Seminary Priests to plead and sue for Parishes for themselves, as may appear by this story following; the said Paul Harris being Seminary Priest in the Back Lane, was to be put out of his Parish by the titular Romish Arch Bishop of Doublin, and one Patrick Cale appointed in his place: Haris appeals to our High Commission Court, and citys Cale to answer his suit, which he accordingly did: after long pleading Harris was adjudged to keep the Parish, he having formerly obtained a Letter of favour from Sir George Ratliffe to our godly Bishops to that intent, to proceed further in the plot: Strafford disarms all our English, and raises an army of the Papists to the number of eight thousand, and sends them to the North against the poor Scotch, allowing every Regiment as many mass Priests as they please to use. But what is all this to the many insolences and approbrious words used against us, by terming us traitors to the crown and dignity, affirming (they having the King's Commission for their warrant in murdering and destroying an hundred and fifty thousand souls. And great likelihood there is of a strong party they were assured of in England: their Agents Nicholas Plunket and the rest of his confederates being all that Summer before the rebellion with his majesty at Court, and waiting upon his person to Scotland, from whence they posted into Ireland, and proclaimed openly the King's authority to handle in that woeful manner you often heard of. I have sent unto you for your better satisfaction, the speech made at Granarde in the County of Longford, by Edmond O Bealy, the titular Romish Primate, the 27 of August, 1641, before the rest of his fraternity. It was found in Latin about Anthony O Lork, a Franciscan friar, slain at the battle of Clodeum Mill, in the County of Cavan: but afterwards translated into English by Archdeacon Watson, for the better satisfaction of all honest men.  

Edmond O Healy, his Speech to the rest of the Romish Bishops at Granarde, the 27 August. 1641.  
WE do not presume most reverend Fathers in God, through any pre-eminence of our place or calling, to make ourselves the mouth of the sacred Assembly; neither do we confide in the small value of either our learning or eloquence, wherein we know ourself to be inferior to the meanest capacity here assembled: But the zeal of the Catholic cause hath eaten us up: the waves of ungodlinsse having overwhelmed our Holy Mother, the Church. S. Peter's ship was never so near sinking, when he cried Perimus, as it is now. It's not unknown to you Reverend Bishops, how the factious Puritan Parliament of England, endeavour to root out our Holy Church in the three kingdoms: how our King and gracious Queen are slighted by these aforesaid wicked heretics; and how all hope of her godly assistance is frustrated: all these passages you are certified by our Agents from Court, but there is hopes that all is not lost, have not we a blessed Hester to pacify Ahafuorus? have not we a strong party to join with us both in England and Scotland? and which is more to be considered, are not we fully certified of mighty combustions to ensue in England, our King and Queen are blameless in this persecution intended, whose clemency we have tasted these many years past, therefore Right reverent Fathers lend your helping hands for to build an Ark to save us from this deluge, let us be courageous as (we are directed) to destroy all the heretics of this land, they are but a handful to us, that we may be able to serve our own turn in England in assisting the King against o●● enemies, go to I beseech you in the name of the blessed virgin Mary of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and of all the Saints and Angels in heaven, all whose blessing we implore in these meritorius proceedings. Amen.   
Sir, you see how our woes begun and what encouragement the Irish had to use us as they did, or do you think that these inhuman butchers will fight for the Protestant Religion, the professors thereof being so odious to them, that they digged all the bones and carcases out of their graves in every Church throughout the land because forsooth, they would not say mass there as long as they had any heretic bone within the church, and here they swear too that they fight for the Protestants Religion, but you shall here their equivocation, they say that it is the protestation that makes the Protestant and if they protest to fight against the Gospel, their Protestation makes the Protestant, and as they say themselves, they may be lawfully termed so.  
You see their cunning tricks in striving to overthrow our Religion, I beseech the Lord to preserve England from their tyranny though I myself never hope to see it or to escape their cruelty, hoping to meet you in heaven I rest.  
Your loving Brother R. Harrison. Dublin 2 January, 1643. Copia vera, John Dodd.