The story of the infamous Seán Na Sagart and priest hunting in Mayo

"Why did so many registered priests die in such a short period? Did they die of natural causes, ill health caused by hardship or come to their death by some unnatural means?"

by Dr. Michael M. O'Connor

John Mullowney, or Seán Na Sagart, is arguably the most infamous priest hunter of the penal era in Ireland.

On April 6, 1715, Mullowney gave a deposition to James McCartney and William Caulfield, the Lord Justices of the Assize for the Connaught Circuit.

The deposition, signed with his mark (he could not write), states that Mullowney was of Ballyhean.

In it, he relates that he knew Francis Burke of Co. Galway, reputedly a Vicar General, and James Lynch, Archbishop of Tuam.

Mullowney claimed the men oversaw Catholic rites and ordained priests who afterwards served in Mayo.

The deposition includes the names of several other clergymen and community members, including Thomas Padden and Mary Mannin of Ballyhean, who were divorced in the house of the reverend Edmund Costello, parish priest of Ballyhean.

Importantly, the deposition confirms the historical fact of Mullowney’s existence and the nature of his work.

It also lays a solid foundation for plausible speculation about his undocumented, darker deeds. Mullowney features prominently in oral histories and folklore, where the line between history and legend frequently blurs.

This short paper focuses on three aspects of the history: First, the legislation central to understanding the role of priest hunters. Second, contextualising Mullowney’s place in the story of priest hunting in Mayo.

Third, what is known (based on evidence rather than oral history) about the Catholic clergy who were suppressed and persecuted in Mayo.

It is submitted that Mullowney was a minor figure, a petty criminal who became an instrument of others. He was hated by Catholics on the one hand and held in disdain by his Protestant masters on the other.

The central figures in the persecution of Catholic clergy in Mayo in the first half of the eighteenth century were Theobald Bourke of Castle Bourke, Ballintubber; Rob Miller of Milford, Hollymount and Ballynew, Castlebar; John Bingham of Newbrook; and the Reverend Thomas Ellison, one of the founders of Christ Church, Castlebar.

After the Williamite War of 1689-1691, Catholics in Ireland faced increased religious persecution.

This persecution took place against the backdrop of an exceptionally draconian legislative framework crafted and promulgated by the Irish Parliament in Dublin. Three enactments are especially noteworthy.

Firstly, the Banishment Act 1697 provided for the expulsion of all Catholic clergy exercising ecclesiastical authority and all regular Catholic clergy from the country.

By May 1, 1698, all ‘popish’ clergy were required to gather at designated ports, ready to leave Ireland.

Those who failed to do so faced a twelve-month prison sentence followed by banishment.

A second offence was considered high treason and punishable by death. In early 1698, authorities deported 190 priests from Galway port alone.

The 1697 Act also penalised justices of the peace who neglected their responsibilities. This was an industrious provision. It proved highly effective in motivating local officials such as Bourke, Miller, and Bingham to take action.

In 1703, the Irish Parliament enacted the Act for Registering the Popish Clergy. It was thought that laws aimed at banning Catholic clergy and preventing them from entering Ireland would be ineffective unless the government knew how many of these “dangerous persons” still resided in the country.

From June 24, 1704, Catholic priests had to register with local clerks of the peace, stay within their registration county, and provide security for their future good conduct.

Failure to register was punishable by imprisonment and transportation. Additionally, if a Catholic priest proved his adherence to the Protestant Church by renouncing “the errors of the Romish” church, he would receive a £20 yearly stipend funded by the local community where he last served.

Identifying whether a suspect was a Catholic priest could sometimes be challenging.

Thomas Power from the Barony of Tyrawley refused to confirm whether he was a priest. When detained in January 1715, he merely told Robert Blakeney, Mayor of Galway, that he ‘kept a plough going.’

Registration gave Catholic clergy a legal status: they could not leave their county of registration but could conduct Mass.

To register, clergy had to submit personal information, including details of their ordination and who performed it. They were not permitted to have curates. The penalty for failing to register was banishment. The law aimed to identify and enumerate Catholic clergy within the community.

The third important enactment was the Oath of Abjuration Act 1709. It built on the earlier registration law by requiring all registered priests to take an Oath of Abjuration or face penalties.

The oath required swearing allegiance to the Protestant Monarch and rejecting the Catholic Stuart claim to the throne. Of the 1,089 registered priests, only thirty-three are confirmed to have taken the oath. Many of those who did quickly took it back.

On October 13, 1712, colonial administrator Gilbert Ormsby wrote to secretary Dawson, expressing his frustration at the lack of progress and his disdain for the Catholic clergy:

The priests take the Oath of Abjuration, but confess it as a sin to other priests, and receive absolution. It is a melancholy reflection of living among men whom neither oath can bind, nor justice and lenity oblige to fidelity to our Established Church.

We receive daily information of multitudes coming lately into this kingdom, and their superiors turning out the registered priests as a dull, inactive sort of people and placing others to their evil purposes.

This suite of legislation was a subset of a broader suite of Irish parliamentary measures aimed at suppressing the Catholic faith, controlling the Catholic population and changing them by forcing them to conform to the ways of the Protestant ascendancy.

Robert E. Burns has noted that Irish popery laws ‘comprised one of the most persistent legislative efforts ever undertaken by a western European state to change a people.’

A review of correspondence between officials in Dublin Castle and individuals such as Miller, Bourke, Ellison and Bingham reveals: the pressure Dublin Castle put on local magistrates and justices of the peace to enforce penal legislation; the effectiveness of penalties in the legislation in securing the compliance of these magistrates and justices; the critical role local magistrates and justices of the peace played in priest hunting; and the tenacity of the Catholic clergy in what was an existential moment for them.

The following examples illustrate these points.

On the night of February 24-25, 1712, a group of men on horseback approached the east gate of Castle Bourke on the shores of Lough Carra. The party dismounted and moved in a line along the lane to the residence of Theobald Bourke, 6th Viscount Mayo. They remained there for a time before moving on to the west gate and the stables.

They returned by the east gate and departed. When daylight arrived, Bourke was given an account of fresh tracks of men and horses his servants had found in the soft earth. They concluded the visitors had been searching for something or someone. Bourke immediately dispatched a letter to Dublin Castle.

On June 19, 1709, Theobald Bourke conformed to the established church. The Convert Rolls show he was one of many Bourke individuals who did so. In 1702, Bourke married his first cousin, Mary Browne, daughter of John Browne of Westport. Together they had five children, one of whom was John Bourke, 8th Viscount Mayo, a major slaveowner in Jamaica.

On the night before the incursion, Bourke received a dispatch from Dublin Castle directing him to detain a local parish priest.

The following day, he dispatched a messenger with a letter informing the Castle that he had apprehended the priest and had sent him to Castlebar. While Bourke did not state this outright, the nighttime visitors’ actions suggested they aimed to rescue the priest.

Several days later, a messenger reached Castle Bourke with additional orders from Dublin Castle:

My Lord – His Excellency and Council have reason to believe so much mischief could not be carried on without the connivance and knowledge, if not the concurrence, of the priests, so their Excellencies gave directions to the Justices of the Peace in the Counties of Gallway, Mayo, Roscommon and Clare to commit all the priests of the popish religion in their respective counties to Gaole and if you think it may be of service in your County, they desire you will pursue the same method and return an account thereof to me. Signed: Jos. Dawson.

Dublin Castle was pressuring local magistrates, sheriffs, and justices of the peace to round up priests. John Vesey, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Tuam, also believed the Mayo magistrates were not pulling their weight when it came to actively hunting Catholic clergy.

High sheriff Arthur Gore received instructions to inform all popish priests in the county, or their sureties, that their recognisances would be forfeit unless they appeared before and surrendered to the high sheriff.

The following month, Dublin Castle directed Robert Miller to summon all popish priests in the county to submit to him. If they refused, their sureties would be called upon.

Sir John Bingham reportedly convened a meeting of magistrates at Castlebar, where all attendees committed to capturing and detaining as many priests as possible. It is unknown how many priests surrendered to Gore, Miller, or Bourke.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, the Reverend William P. Burke discovered evidence in letters between magistrate Robert Miller and the authorities indicating that some priests resisted. Burke’s research uncovered several bundles of documents related to the persecution of Catholic clergy in the late 17th century and the following century.

These papers were lost in the 1922 fire at Dublin’s public records office, making Burke’s volume, which includes many transcribed letters, particularly valuable.

The Millers were Cromwellian settlers who received land in exchange for their loyalty and support. They first settled at Ballycusheen, but by the early 1700s, they had relocated to Milford Kilmainemore, later known as Milford Demesne.

Robert Miller and his son Robert Jnr played key roles in William III’s victory at the Battle of Aughrim on July 12, 1691, and were later rewarded for their loyalty and service. Early 18th century correspondence between the Millers and Dublin Castle demonstrates the castle’s trust in them as law enforcers in Mayo, responsible for suppressing popish priests and houghers.

Robert Miller Jnr played a key role in the hunt for Fr. Patrick Duffy, the parish priest of Ballinrobe. Duffy, born in 1658, likely studied at the Irish College in Douai and was ordained in 1687 at Cambrai.

When he registered under the 1703 Act, John Browne of the Neale and George Browne of Liskillin agreed to be sureties for his future loyalty and good conduct.

Although Duffy swore the oath to William and Mary on April 18, 1698, and later registered under the 1703 Act, strong suspicions remained that his loyalties lay elsewhere.

In March 1712, Dublin Castle directed Robert Miller Jnr to apprehend Duffy and Galway priest Edmund Burgh. Miller promised to do his best to capture them and assured the Castle he was using all his resources; warrants had been issued for their arrest in Mayo and Galway, but they escaped.

One of them had gone to Captain Hussey Burke near the Roscommon border, while the other went to Westport. Miller deployed men to pursue the latter. Miller also received orders from Edward Synge, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Tuam, to seize Duffy and his documents.

Miller obtained Duffy’s papers but not the man. Synge took the incriminating bundle of documents to Dublin.

According to the Reverend William P. Burke, the papers included a Papal Bull, which gave Duffy authority to absolve those who had taken the oath of allegiance. The bundle also included a paper signed by numerous persons who retracted and renounced having taken the oath in the first place.

Miller eventually captured Duffy, who was then tried and sentenced to transportation to Spain. The sheriff of Dublin was directed to hand Duffy over to Abraham Phipps, the master of the Diligence at Dublin Port, which was scheduled to depart for Spain.

Duffy had posted a security deposit of £50, which would be forfeited if he did not depart for Spain within six months of 4 August 1711. Duffy absconded.

In September 1712, Miller notified authorities that Fr. Neale Boyle had been arrested, after some difficulty, by a sergeant in Captain Hall’s company under Miller’s warrant and held in Galway Prison. Bail or surrender to friendly custody was denied pending further instructions from the castle.

Miller explained that many townspeople gathered to witness Boyle’s arrest. What were described as ‘popish merchants’ offered £1,000 as security for his release on bail.

In a later letter from Castlebar, Miller said Boyle, an unregistered priest recently arrived from France, had taken over as parish priest of Tuam. It was claimed that Boyle had expelled Patrick Borne, a registered priest who had served at Tuam for two decades.

Evidence from the Mayo Grand Jury’s presentment at the spring assizes of 1715 shows that efforts to suppress the Catholic clergy were proving ineffective.

We find and believe that great numbers of Popish Fryers and other Ecclesiastics of the Romish persuasion have come into this kingdom these four years last past and that several have also been ordained within that time in this county.

The grand jury noted that no registered priest in the county had taken the oath except John Durken, registered priest of the parishes of ‘Killedan and Boghola.’

They acknowledged that the laws introduced to suppress popery had the opposite effect. Many priests and friars had entered the county and settled near abbeys and convents, defying the legislation. The presentment called on all persons to help enforce the law. The presentment includes a grim ‘List of Priests Dead.’

The correspondence and list of dead priests reflect similar correspondence and lists for other counties in Connaught. The Mayo list begs many questions.

Why did so many registered priests die in such a short period? Did they die of natural causes, ill health caused by hardship or come to their death by some unnatural means?

Was registration a precursor to being killed? Robert Burns has written that the legislation contained no mechanism for replacing priests, so ‘natural attrition and proper enforcement of the laws would inevitably reduce the Irish priesthood to extinction.’ In this context, proper enforcement meant banishment, not killing.

In the graveyard of Ballintubber Abbey, a marker shows the reputed burial place of priest hunter, John Mullowney, or Seán na Sagart.

According to the Peerage, Priest Hunter Theobald Bourke is also buried at Ballintubber Abbey. The story of Mullowney’s life and deeds has been told and retold for generations, long before Castlebar novelist Matthew Archdeacon published The Priest Hunter in 1844.

Archdeacon’s account of Mullowney’s background and career is based entirely on oral history and folklore. Published accounts that follow Archdeacon’s work add little to the narrative.

Mullowney was active from 1710 to 1726. R. J. Bennett states that the Mayo Grand Jury employed him as a priest hunter. Some sources associate him specifically with Sir John Bingham of Newbrook House, Hollymount, who was very vigorous in enforcing anti-popery laws.

The question arises: was Mullowney responsible for killing priests or simply hunting them? In the oral histories, he is connected to the deaths of Fr. Terence Higgins and Fr. Bernard Kilger and is alleged to have killed many others.

It is important to ask why Mullowney was killing priests at a time when the law did not require it. Moreover, correspondence from Mayo priest hunters Robert Miller and Theobald Bourke shows no evidence that they engaged in anything beyond capturing and detaining priests.

Colin Murphy observes that many of Mullowney’s gruesome tales of killings have little solid connection to the truth. The crown was relentless; when the state ordered executions, they were carried out publicly by government agents. Priests returning from exile were guilty of treason, a capital crime.

It has been argued that some priest hunters saw this as a free pass to kill. Mullowney reportedly became a priest hunter after being sentenced to death at Castlebar for stealing a horse.

His sentence was commuted when he agreed to serve as a priest hunter for Sir John Bingham, who, it is alleged, paid him a bounty for each priest he caught. Mullowney was eventually stabbed to death in 1726.

Transcripts of letters between Miller, Bingham, Burke, and Dublin Castle offer a different perspective on Mullowney. Mullowney was likely a pawn, a minor criminal.

The true priest hunters, agents working for Dublin Castle, included figures like Miller, Bingham, Ellison, and Bourke. The crackdown on Catholic priests in Mayo persisted into the 18th century.

In March 1744, the Reverend Thomas Ellison of Castlebar expressed his concerns in a letter:

Sir – All I can learn is that James Roween, a friar of what order or place of abode I am not informed, has been often here since Christmas last but has not been seen since last Monday.

More than three centuries after the mysterious horsemen visited Castle Bourke, its imposing ruins still dominate the landscape by Lough Carra. Milford, by contrast, has been home to numerous generations of Robert Miller’s descendants.

In 2013, Milford featured in a nostalgic and poignant documentary created by Fiona Murphy, a London-based director and descendant of the Millers.

Murphy opened the documentary by asking ‘How does a whole community know when it is time to just go away?’ Noting that her family were the ‘bad guys in the Irish story books’, Murphy likened the demise and departure of the Anglo-Irish families in post-independence Ireland to a ‘polite form of ethnic cleansing.’ A profound statement, no doubt, that once uttered reverberated back through time to the days of priest-hunter Robert Miller of Milford.

The son of a Cromwellian soldier, Miller worked hard to suppress the Catholic clergy and Catholic population generally in Mayo some three hundred years ago.

However, the Catholics of Mayo and their clergy never accepted that it was time to go away – there was nothing polite about the cleansing they were subjected to. In South Mayo of 2026, there is room enough for all in this magnificent, historical, and once highly contested landscape.

This paper is an abridged version of an essay titled ‘Rob Miller Priest Hunter’ in Michael M. O’Connor, Caribbean Slaveowners and Other Lesser-Known Histories from County Mayo (2021).

Sources:

Matthew Archdeacon, The Priest Hunter (Dublin, 1862).

R. J. Bennett, Seán na Sagart’ (Dublin, 1849).

William P. Burke, The Irish Priests in the Penal Times 1660-1760 (Waterford 1914).

Robert E. Burns, ‘The Irish Popery Laws: A Study of Eighteenth-Century Legislation and Behaviour’, The Review of Politics, vol. 24, No. 4 (Oct. 1962), pp. 485-508.

Fiona Murphy (Director), ‘The Other Irish Travellers: Storyville’, BBC4, 26 December 2012, 22:00 p.m., https://vimeo.com/55355656?fbclid=IwAR04vQ6Xzd3Zl58fFAQQYxe00kzH-s3tKJu_9IHuba4cmiL1reMEWRTXC4o.

Colin C. Murphy, The Priest Hunters (Dublin, 2013).

Eileen O’Byrne and Anne Chamney (eds.), The Convert Rolls (Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, 2005).