Ireland used rosaries to infuriate Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell is a bad villain in Catholic history. In 1649 he came to Ireland and began a brutal suppression of Catholics, which created strife which still lingers today. He took Catholic land and gave it to Protestants just so Catholics wouldn’t have power. He committed war crimes against Catholics. In short, he was bad news.
He also helped enforce penal laws, which basically made it illegal to be Catholic. The Irish gave exactly zero regards to this, and instead hid their faith and moved their seminaries to other countries while remaining very much Catholic and sometimes dying for that. The Rosary remained an important part of their faith, though they adopted small penal rosaries that were harder to detect.
Cromwell knew he failed at overwhelming the Irish into Protestantism, and he blamed the Rosary. He wrote to his superiors:
“All is not well with Ireland yet. You gave us the money, you gave us the guns. But let me tell you that every house in Ireland is a house of prayer, and when I bring these fanatical Irish before the muzzles of my guns, they hold up in their hands a string of beads, and they never surrender.”
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3 окт 2024
