Page:Abstract of the bloody massacre in Ireland.pdf/5



HEN their plots were ripe for execution, we find their first proceedings against the English various: some of the Irish only stripping and expelling them; others murdering men, women, and children without mercy; all resolving universally to root all the Protestants out of Ireland; so deeply malicious were they against the English Protestants, that they would not so much as endure the sound of their language.

The priests gave the sacrament unto divers of the Irish, upon condition they would neither spare man, woman nor child of the Protestants. One Halligan a priest, read an excommunication against all those, that from henceforth should relieve or harbour any English, Scotch, or Welchmen, or give them alms, whereby many were famished to death. The friars exhorted them with tears, not to spare any of the English; they boasted, that when they had destroyed them in Ireland, they would go over into England, and not leave the memorial of an Englishman under heaven.

They openly professed, that they held it as lawful to kill a Protestant as to kill a dog.