Sean na Sagart

Posted by : Aron вторник, 19 февруари 2013 г.

Sean na Sagart

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seán na Sagart (John of the Priests in Irish) (c. 1690–1726) was a notorious priest hunter during Penal Times in Ireland.

Born John Mullowney in Derrew, near Ballyheane, County Mayo, he began his career as a horse thief but was arrested and sentenced to death in Castlebar in his youth. When the Grand Jury became aware of his low character, they cut a deal with him in which he agreed to turn priest hunter to escape the hangman's noose. The 1709 Penal Act demanded that Catholic priests take the Oath of Abjuration and recognise the Protestant Queen Anne as Supreme Head of the Church of England and Ireland. Any cleric that refused was sentenced to death by the Anglicancontrolled judicial system.

Mullowney was a talented rogue and excelled at the activity of hunting clergy. He received £100 for the capture of an Archbishop or Bishop, £20 for a priest, and £10 for obtaining a hedge school teacher; sizable amounts at the time. These men would then be executed if they refused to take the Act of Abjuration. Mullowney used the money to fund his heavy drinking and expensive tastes. One technique used by him was to pretend to be sick and close to death. He would then call for a priest to confess his numerous sins. When a priest would arrive, Mullowney would grab a knife hidden under the bedclothes, and attempt to capture or kill his confessor.

Mullowney was a deeply unpopular individual, and hated by all. He was murdered by a man known only as McCann in a wood near Partry and his body was thrown, post mortem, into a lake by local Catholics. The parish priest forced them to retrieve it, and his corpse was eventually buried in un-consecrated ground, near Ballintubber Abbey, County Mayo. There is a tree with his name near the abbey, which never blossomed, and as of 2007, all its branches droop down.