March 8 is International Women's Day, when a spotlight is shone on great women from history and their achievements. The woman I am honouring today, Margery Barnewall (fl. 1547-1583), would not, perhaps, tick too many contemporary boxes as a feminist heroine, yet like those involved in the struggle for women's suffrage she was prepared to face arrest, interrogation and imprisonment. Her surname is an Old English one and she may have been one of the Barnewalls of Turvey, a leading family of County Dublin. The Barnewalls held the Priory of Grace Dieu near Portrane and built Turvey House close by. It was an important centre for Catholic recusancy and sheltered the English Jesuit martyr Saint Edmund Campion for a few months in 1571. It is possible, suggests Bronagh Anne Mc Shane, that Margery may have been the daughter of the builder of Turvey House, Sir Christopher Barnewall (d.1575) and his wife Marion described by Saint Edmund as 'a very religious and very modest woman' who had treated him most kindly [1]. The experiences of Catholic women during the Reformation era in Ireland are the topic of much research by the current generation of scholars. They have shown that women played a variety of roles, indeed, by their refusal to bring their children up with the new religious practices and by the pressure they put on their husbands by refusing to attend Protestant services, the resistance of married women was crucial to the survival of the faith at this time. Following the suppression of religious houses nuns were forced to join communities in exile abroad, yet there were other women continuing to live as consecrated virgins in Ireland, but not formally within a religious order. In the 1560s Limerick, for example, had a group known as the Mena Bocht (Poor Women) who had taken vows of chastity and who ministered to the poor. Similar groups have been documented in Dublin and Drogheda. The Jesuits in particular supported this type of female apostolate and prominent priests such as Limerick's Father David Wolfe and Dublin's Father Henry Fitzsimon provided spiritual direction and leadership to them. It was another Irish Jesuit, Father John Howlin (d.1599) who recorded the story of Marjorie Barnewall in his pioneering catalogue of Irish martyrs, Perbreve compendium, which listed forty-six Irish people who had suffered for the faith in the decade between 1578 and 1588. She was one of two women included, the other being Blessed Margaret Bermingham (Ball), whom Father Howlin knew personally. He described Margery as having 'dedicated her virginity from her earliest years to God' who at the age of thirty 'was conferred with a blessed veil by a certain Catholic bishop according to an ancient tradition of Ireland', after which she 'joined a company of chaste honest women, and devout virgins'. Father Howlin met Margery in Rome in 1583 and received the account of her experiences directly from her own lips. Father Howlin's work in turn was expanded by Bishop David Rothe (Roothe, d.1650) in his 1619 catalogue the De Processu Martyriali which reached a wider audience in Europe. Introducing Father Howlin's two heroines he wrote:
"As I have thus given a few examples of constancy, taken from every rank of the male sex, both ecclesiastical and secular, primates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, deans, archdeacons, and other priests of different orders, of whom I spoke in my catalogue; and, as I there made mention of illustrious women, if now I give two examples, one of a married woman and the other of a virgin. I shall not seem wholly to have omitted the sex. I shall, therefore, here briefly gives a few particulars, first of a married woman, that is a widow, and then of a virgin." [2]
And so below is Bishop Rothe's account of the virgin, Margery Barnewall, as translated by Myles O'Reilly in his 1869 collection Memorials of those who Suffered for the Catholic Faith in Ireland in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries. Among the standard martyrological tropes there are many vivid and fascinating details contained within it. Following her arrest in 1580 Margery faced interrogation from the Protestant Archbishop of Dublin Adam Loftus (d.1605), who was less than impressed by her chosen way of life. Her courage at resisting this ordeal is further demonstrated in the account of her flight to Saint Malo where she is forced to fend off both the threat of fierce dogs and of sexual assault. There is a particularly interesting mention of a citizen who is able to act as an interpreter for Margery. Mary O'Dowd, who features Margery Barnewall in her 2014 book on the history of women in Ireland, says of this man:
The citizen of St. Malo who acted as interpreter for Margery Barnewall before the local bishop in about 1580 had by coincidence learned English and Irish in the Barnewall household twenty years previously. He was, according to John Howlin, one of many Frenchmen of that area who had been sent to Ireland for language-learning reasons, exchanging with the sons of Dubliners and Palesmen who came to study French. [3]
We do not know the date of Margery Barnewall's death but on International Women's Day she can deservedly take a place in the ranks of courageous women who bravely withstood hardship to defend what she believed.
DAME MARGERY BARNEWALL.
I GIVE her life from Dr. Roothe :
This virgin was born of noble parents, and when she attained a marriageable age determined to dedicate her virginity to God, and in her thirtieth year received the holy veil from the Catholic bishop. The name of virgin, says St. Ambrose, is a title of modesty, and the one of whom I write did not disappoint the omen of the name; for she ever delighted in purity and the conversation of other devout and modest virgins. She dwelt, for the most part, in the city, or at least diocese, of Dublin; nor could her profession and mode of life be long concealed from the pretended bishop of the place, for information of it was given to him by a spy, not for misliking of the life of the holy virgin, but for hope of lucre from the archbishop. On receiving the information, he sent an apparitor to arrest the lady and bring her before him. She was first thrown into prison, and then brought out for a public examination. Many questions were put to her regarding her name, parentage, age, residence, and profession, to all of which she answered prudently and categorically. Her age was then thirty-three, her condition that of a virgin. 'How,' said the pseudobishop, 'can I believe that one so noble born, so well brought up, and so fair, could remain in this wicked world to that age a virgin?" This he took from the ideas of Luther, who, himself given up to concupiscence, remembered not those classes of eunuchs of whom our Lord speaks, of whom those who voluntarily renounce carnal pleasures for the kingdom of heaven obtain the reward; and though this work is difficult and beyond the ordinary strength of man, yet it is not impossible to Him whom all things obey and whose power is equal to his will. But our Sunamitess, who by the grace of God had observed that which she had promised, modestly blushing, answered that she marvelled her questioner should think it strange that God should give strength to observe the vow he had himself inspired, and which so many men and women in all ages had observed. Thus repulsed with regard to her vow of virginity, the bishop attacked her faith, using many artifices to induce her to swerve from the orthodox faith; but she boldly and plainly answered that she had hitherto lived in the bosom of the mother church Catholic and Roman, and was resolved in the same to die, nor was there aught in life which could shake this her resolution. Irritated by this answer, the bishop at once ordered her to be taken back into prison. After she had been there detained for some time, she escaped by the aid of her noble relatives, who bribed the jailer, and, having found a British ship in the port of Dublin, agreed with the master to take her to St. Malo. This is a city in the lesser Britain, called also Armorica, surrounded with walls and towers, yet for greater safety, when the gates are shut at night, large, fierce dogs are loosed to strengthen the guard. They roam outside the walls and ferociously attack any man or beast whom they may meet. The sailors spoke much among themselves before they arrived at the port; this inspired Dame Margery and her handmaiden with some fear, and she determined not rashly to expose herself to them.
"When the ship reached the port and had dropped her anchor, the captain and his men landed, leaving only two sailors to guard the women till morning, for it was late when they arrived in the bay, and they had to go some distance in a boat to land. The women feared the dogs on land, but the dogs on sea proved even more dangerous; for the two unprincipled sailors, finding themselves left alone with the two women, broke into the place where they were sleeping, and tried, first by offers and promises, and then by violence, to make them consent to their impure desires; but the holy virgins, calling God and our Blessed Lady to their aid, resisted alike their solicitations and their violence, and, strengthened by him who is the strength of those that call upon him, were enabled to defeat their unholy violence. At length, wearied with their obstinate resistance, the sailors left them, and, retiring to their own berths, slept heavily.
"All thought of sleep had fled from the terrified women, and, trembling lest they should again be attacked by these vile men, they thought of flying from that den of wild beasts. Tying their clothes tightly around them, they threw themselves into the sea, and, supported by their clothes, which floated on the water, were borne to the shore. But as they reached the land, having thus escaped two successive dangers, a third awaited them-the dread of the ferocious dogs who roamed round the walls at night and spared neither man nor beast. The maid was particularly terrified, but her mistress encouraged her, reminding her of the divine providence and goodness, and saying that it were better for them that their bodies should be devoured by dogs than their souls destroyed by vicious Thus they mutually encouraged each other, arming themselves with the sign of the cross, and imploring the divine assistance and the protection of the Blessed Virgin as they approached the shore. On their landing, the ferocious watch-dogs rushed at them, and the largest and fiercest placed his paws on the shoulders of the virgin, as if about to tear her; her maid, following behind, trembled, but the mistress, repeating the verse of the psalm, 'Many dogs surrounded me,' and speaking some words of her native Irish to the dog, gently stroked his head, and the dog, suddenly becoming gentle, with all his fellows, led them to the gate of the city, and guarded them there safely until the gates were opened, which, according to custom, was not until the sun had arisen.
"When those who had the charge of the keys of the gates, and of the dogs, opened them in the morning, they were astonished to see two women alive and unhurt in the midst of the savage dogs, and, after a few questions, they led them to the bishop of the place, who was then celebrating the divine mysteries in the church. The news of the strange event spread through the city, and a crowd assembled at the church to see the two women who, contrary to all example, had escaped safe from the dogs.
"The bishop, when he had finished Mass, examined them by means of an interpreter, for he did not understand Irish, nor they French or English. But by good fortune there was present a noble of Maclon, who had been brought up in Ireland, and who knew the parents of our Margery, perhaps even herself, having resided in the neighborhood, as there is a constant intercourse between the inhabitants of Maclon and Ireland, the young people of each country being entertained in the other to learn the language and custom of the people, as is still the custom in some parts of Ireland.
" In order more certainly to learn all the affair, the bishop sent for the captain, and asked him what he knew of the women. He frankly told the whole tale, how they had been recommended to him in Dublin, and had come in his ship, and how he had left them in it the preceding evening to await for day in order to land. Finally, the two sailors who had assaulted them were brought up, and, on their confessing their guilt, the two women whom they had sought to injure begged that they might be forgiven.
"All having thus come to light, the bishop, lest the recollection of these events should perish, ordered the whole examination and the result to be enrolled in the public registers of the town, and most hospitably entertained, during their stay, the two women thus preserved by the divine providence; nor when they departed did he allow them to leave empty-handed. They had made a vow to God, who had freed them from such great danger, to visit the shrine of St. James of Compostella. On their arrival there, the servant fell ill, and departed to the Lord. The stronger constitution of the mistress enabled her to continue her pilgrimage to Rome, and to visit the tombs of the apostles. There she related to her confessor the whole of this narrative of her imprisonment in Ireland and her escape, her voyage to Brittany, the assaults of the two sailors and her escape from their power, the unusual gentleness of the watch-dogs, and how the waves and the wild beasts had spared their innocence.
"Afterward, by her counsel and example, many pious women and religious maidens in Ireland dedicated their chastity to God, and, to use the words of St. Jerome, (Epist. 8, Ad Demetr.,) 'by the solemn words of the priest covered their consecrated heads with the virginal veil;' and many more would have done so had those who ruled the country allowed them to lead a cenobitical life. But since, according to the proverb, women require the protection either of a man or a wall, to guard them 'from the attacks of the noonday devil, from the arrow that flieth by day, and the thing that walketh in the night,' prudent men were cautious in exhorting the weaker sex to take on them the veil and vow of celibacy, lest the purity of that virginal garment should become tarnished in the heat of the worldly sun, since it is more easily guarded in the shade of the cloister than in the throng of the world. Yet there still remain in that land scattered shoots of that virginal tree, whose light shines the brighter for the surrounding darkness, and by whom the world, the flesh, and the devil are overcome."Our Margery was taken prisoner by the Protestants in Dublin, in the year 1580, and in the third following year, that is, 1583, in the month of October, reached Rome, and there gave an account of all these her wanderings to her confessor, from whom we learned them, and for the edification of our readers have here written them." -De Processu Martyriali.
Dr. Roothe does not mention, nor have I been able to find, the date or place of Dame Margery Barnewall's death. As he says himself, he collected, from time to time, what authentic accounts he could of the sufferings of those persecuted for the faith; and thus probably her confessor, who was his informant, could only tell him the events of her life up to her arrival in Rome and departure thence.
Anno 1584.M. O'Reilly, Memorials of those who Suffered for the Catholic Faith in Ireland in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, (New York 1869), 75-81.
Father Denis Murphy, the nineteenth-century postulator of the cause of
the Irish martyrs, did not include Margery Barnewall in his catalogue Our Martyrs and her name is not included on the Official List of The Irish Martyrs (1918) submitted to Rome for consideration of her cause.
Notes
[1] Bronagh Anne McShane, Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700 (Boydell Press, 2022), 72, 80- 84.
[2] M. O'Reilly, Memorials of those who Suffered for the Catholic Faith in Ireland in the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, (New York 1869), 115, fn2.
[3] Mary O'Dowd, A History of Women in Ireland, 1500-1800 (Routledge, 2014), 157.
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