The story.
Oliver Plunkett (1625–1681), Archbishop of Armagh, worked to rebuild Catholic religious life and education during a period of persecution. His connection to Dundalk includes a trial here in July 1680 which collapsed when a key witness did not appear.
He was subsequently sent to London, convicted on false evidence and executed at Tyburn in 1681. The murals by Basik and Slim Safont belong to different festival years, but each recalls the same life and its place in County Louth’s memory. His surviving letters also offer a route beyond the familiar martyr’s portrait into the concerns of the man himself.
Saint Oliver Plunkett (1625 - 1681)
At this time in Irish history Catholic’s were being persecuted for practicing their faith. Oliver Plunkett became the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, he was a man of peace, determined to establish schools, ordain priests and confirm thousands of the faithful regardless of the risk to his personal safety. In spite of the great danger to priests in Ireland, as a result of the Cromwellian conquests, he work tirelessly to uphold his duties in the face of this English persecution.
St. Oliver was well known and respected in County Louth having established churches in Ballybarrack, just outside Dundalk, and a short distance away in Ardpatrick, located on a hill overlooking Louth village. Although both chapels were tiny they have been described as St. Oliver's pro-cathedrals, he frequently celebrated Mass and ordained priests at each location, as well as having lived at both.
His devotion to promoting the Catholic faith eventually led to his arrest in December 1679 and he was imprisoned in Dublin Castle and charged with high treason.
Not many people may know that the first trial against him was held in Dundalk in July 1680. He spent four days in the Old Dundalk Gaol cells under what is now Byrne’s Pharmacy at the corner of Church Street and Yorke Street.
When the proceedings commenced key witnesses for the Crown refused to testify and so the trial in Dundalk collapsed. Anti-Catholic sentiment in England was so strong that Archbishop Oliver was brought over to London to face trial at Westminster Hall.
On the 1st of July 1681 he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, and became the last Roman Catholic martyr to die in England. St. Oliver Plunkett was beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1975, the first new Irish saint for almost seven hundred years.
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