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AMass rock (Irish:Carraig an Aifrinn) was arock used as analtar by theCatholic Church in Ireland, during the 17th and 18th centuries, as a location for secret and illegal gatherings of faithful attending theMass offered by outlawedpriests. Similar altars, known asMass stones (Scottish Gaelic:Clachan Ìobairt), were used by theCatholic Church in Scotland, membership in which was similarly criminalised by theScottish Reformation Parliament in 1560.
During thereligious persecution of theCatholic Church in Ireland, isolated locations were sought to hold religious ceremonies, as observing the Catholic Mass was a matter of difficulty and danger at the time as a result of theReformation in Ireland,Cromwell's campaign against the Irish, and thePenal Laws of 1695. Bishops were banished and priests had to register to preach under theRegistration Act 1704.Priest hunters were also sometimes employed to arrestCatholic priests andnonjuring Vicars of theScottish Episcopal Church.[citation needed]
In modern Ireland, a number of Mass rocks remain places ofpilgrimage by local Catholic parishioners, with open air Masses offered at some sites. In response to restrictions on indoor gatherings during theCOVID-19 pandemic in Ireland, services were offered at several Mass rocks during 2020.[1][2]
In Scotland, Mass stones were used by theCatholic Church in Scotland, membership in which had been criminalised by theScottish Reformation Parliament in 1560 and which remained unlawful untilCatholic Emancipation in 1829.
On the isle ofEigg, in theInner Hebrides of Scotland, which was described in 1698 as almost entirely Roman Catholic,[3] the laity secretly and illegally attendedMass at a Mass stone inside a large high-roofed coastal cave, which could only be accessed duringlow tide and which is still known as the "cave of worship" (Scottish Gaelic:Uamh Chràbhaichd; in EnglishCathedral Cave).[4][5]
The island inLoch Morar known as Eilean Bàn was briefly the location first of a Mass stone and then of anillegal and clandestine Catholicminor seminary founded by BishopJames Gordon, until theJacobite rising of 1715 forced its closure and eventual reopening atScalan inGlenlivet.[6] Even long afterwards, Eilean Bàn remained a secret chapel and library for Bishop Gordon's successors.[7]
AfterCulloden much of the remaining Highland population converted toPresbyterianism. According to Marcus Tanner, "[the] Highlands, outside tiny Catholic enclaves like inSouth Uist andBarra, took on the contours they have since preserved - a region marked by a strong tradition ofsabbatarianism".[8]
Theoral tradition preserved the former locations of Mass stones and Mass houses in at least some regions. According to the autobiography dictated toJohn Lorne Campbell bySouth Uistseanchaidh andcrofter Angus Beag MacLellan (1869–1966), while working as a hired hand on Robert Menzies' farm nearAberfeldy, Perthshire in the 1880s, Menzies told him that a Mass stone had stood in the farm field. A nearbyhigh cross, marked the site of an important college of learning dating from the days of theCeltic Church. Though the local population had long since switched to Presbyterianism, former Catholic religious sites were still locally viewed with superstitious awe and were never tampered with. Menzies explained that the term for Mass stones, in the Perthshire dialect, wasClachan Ìobairt, lit. "offering stones".[9]
The 1467 ruins of St. Mahew's Chapel inCardross, which stand on the site of a 6th-centuryCeltic Churchmonastery, are also the former location of a Mass stone. Before St Patrick's Church was formally organized in 1830, the growing population of Irish and Highland Scots Catholics living in nearbyDumbarton would meet at the chapel ruins for prayers andMasses offered by a visiting priest fromGreenock.[10] For this and other reasons, ownership of the chapel ruins were acquired by theArchdiocese of Glasgow, who restored them in 1955 into a Catholic church which remains in use.[11]
At theChristian pilgrimage shrine to 'Our Lady of the Highlands', within the grounds ofImmaculate Conception Roman Catholic Church nearLoch Ness, a new outdoor Mass stone was consecrated by BishopHugh Gilbert of theRoman Catholic Diocese of Aberdeen in March 2017.[12]
The ruins of anIron Agehill fort and amediævalchapel, dedicated toSt. Michael, lie at the summit ofYsgyryd Fawr in theBlack Mountains.[13] During thereligious persecution of theCatholic Church in Wales, the mountaintop remained a regular site ofChristian pilgrimage. Furthermore, the illegal and undergroundJesuit mission based atCwm and led by future Catholic martyr St.David Lewis, regularly visited the ruined chapel atop Ysgyryd Fawr, which was the site of a Mass rock. In 1676,Pope Clement X promised aplenary indulgence to those who went up the mountain uponMichaelmas. In 1678, local magistrate andpriest hunterJohn Arnold alleged in theHouse of Commons that, "he hath seen a hundredPapists meet at the top of Skyrrid forMass."[14]
In Ireland, Mass rocks were in use from at least the mid-17th century.[1] Tony Nugent, in a book about the history and folklore of Mass rocks, traces their use even earlier, to the 1536Act of Supremacy and the 1540Suppression of the Monasteries byHenry VIII. Particularly following the latter, stones were taken from the ruins of Pre-Reformation churches or monasteries, and relocated to more isolated areas, often with a simple cross carved on their tops, to continue being used for religious purposes. In addition, "megalithictombs,ring-forts,stone circles,druidic altars, andwells - these monuments to a once proud race - were to be recycled by a persecuted people in order that they could practice their religion in secret".[15]
Nugent also states that "until the passing of theCatholic Emancipation Act in 1829",[15] the observation of Catholic ceremonies at Mass rocks was illegal and services were not regularly scheduled. Parishioners would therefore spread word of services at Mass rocks covertly. According to some sources, which were believed byIrish traditional musiciansSeamus Ennis andSeosamh Ó hÉanaí, such communication could occur through two coded sets ofIrish language lyrics to theSean Nós songAn raibh tú ag an gCarraig.[16][17] Other sources question this association.[16][18]
According to Irishhistorian andfolklorist (seanchaí),Seumas MacManus, "Throughout these dreadful centuries, too, the hunted priest -- who in his youth had been smuggled to the Continent of Europe to receive his training -- tended to the flame of faith. He lurked like a thief among the hills. On Sundays and Feast Days he celebrated Mass at a rock, on a remote mountainside, while the congregation knelt on the heather of the hillside, under the open heavens. While he said Mass, faithful sentries watched from all the nearby hilltops, to give timely warning of the approaching priest-hunter and his guard of British soldiers. But sometimes the troops came on them unawares, and the Mass Rock was bespattered with his blood, -- and men, women, and children caught in the crime of worshipping God among the rocks, were frequently slaughtered on the mountainside."[19]
For example, the Mass rock nearKinvara,County Galway, is known inConnaught Irish asPoll na gCeann ("chasm of the heads") and is said to have been the location of a massacre by the soldiers ofOliver Cromwell'sNew Model Army. Historian Tony Nugent states that, "According to local tradition, there was a college nearby and some of the student monks were killed there by Cromwellian soldiers while attending Mass and their heads were thrown into a nearby chasm".[20]
During theStuart Restoration, Catholic worship generally moved to thatched "Mass houses" (Irish:Cábán an Aifrinn, lit. ‘Mass Cabin’). Writing in 1668,Janvin de Rochefort commented, "Even in Dublin more than twenty houses where Mass is secretly said, and in about a thousand places, subterranean vaults and retired spots in the woods".[21]
Catholic worship, however, was soon to return to the Mass rocks due to theExclusion Crisis and theanti-Catholic show trials masterminded byLord Shaftesbury andTitus Oates.
According to a book on the history and folklore of Mass rocks by Tony Nugent, a Catholic priest named Fr. Mac Aidghalle was murderedc. 1681 while saying Mass at a mass rock still known inUlster Irish asCloch na hAltorach that stands atopSlieve Gullion,County Armagh. The perpetrators were a company ofredcoats under the command of apriest hunter named Turner.Redmond O'Hanlon, the outlawed butde factoChief of the Name ofClan O'Hanlon and leading localrapparee, is said in localoral tradition to have avenged the murdered priest and in so doing to have "sealed his own fate".[22]
The persecution and use of the Mass rocks escalated further following the1688 overthrow of theHouse of Stuart, and the passing of thePenal Laws.
While being interviewed by Tadhg Ó Murchú of theIrish Folklore Commission, Peig Minihane-O'Driscoll ofArdgroom, of theBeara Peninsula inCounty Cork said that the local Mass rock, known inMunster Irish asClochán a' tSagairt was located at acairn to the south. Minihane-O'Driscoll also stated that her husband had been born before Catholic Emancipation and that her in-laws had twice carried their baby son up into theSlieve Miskish Mountains, seeking to secretly make contact and request the baptism of their son from one of the two outlawed priest known to be in hiding locally, one near Ballycrovane Wood and another nearCastletownbere.[23]
After the successful 1780-1829 fight forCatholic Emancipation and, for example, the 1851Synod of Thurles, the use of Mass rocks in Ireland declined.[24] They continued to be used as places of worship in some regions, however, where "poverty and bigotry, rather than persecution, dictated their use".[15]
Partial data on Mass rock sites is maintained by theArchaeological Survey of Ireland (for pre-1700 sites),[25][26] and, to a lesser extent, theNational Inventory of Architectural Heritage (for post-1700 sites).[27] Some of the Mass rock places may also have been used forpatterns.[citation needed]
In 2020, because of the restrictions on indoor gatherings during theCOVID-19 pandemic in Ireland, there were proposals to hold services at some Mass rocks.[1][2]
"February 3, 1828
...There is a lonely path nearUisce Dun andMóinteán na Cisi which is called theMassBoreen. The name comes from the time when theCatholic Church was persecuted in Ireland, and Mass had to be said in woods and on moors, on wattled places in bogs, and in caves. But as theproverb says,It is better to look forward with one eye than to look backwards with two..."[28]
According to a book of history and folklore associated with Mass rocks by Tony Nugent, "There is a common story associated with quite a few which relates how the priest was shot or killed at the moment ofTransubstantiation. There is a common belief that at this point in the Mass the priest cannot stop for any reason. There are various stories of Protestant neighbours hiding or helping priests. There are stories of miracles, the story of the widow's hunger, happening at these sites, stories of cures and indeed a whole fabric of folklore which if lost would be a cultural tragedy".[29]
Though the name of Fr. John O'Neill does not appear on the 1992 list of Catholic priests known to have served locally,[30] a localoral tradition alleges that he was the last Catholic priest killed at a Mass rock, atInse an tSagairt, nearBonane,County Kerry, c.1829. The local "folk belief" suggests that a criminal gang, based inGlengarriff and consisting of a woman and five men, conspired to kill the priest and split a £45 bounty among themselves. According to the story, after capturing Fr. O'Neill, beheading him, and bringing his severed head toCork city, the six conspirators learned thatCatholic Emancipation had just been signed into law and that no reward would be given. The perpetrators then allegedly threw O'Neill's severed head into theRiver Lee in frustration. Other versions of the story hold that O'Neill's clerk was also taken prisoner and brought toDromore Castle, but later managed to escape by being carried to safety by the "two mastiff bloodhounds" that were sent to pursue him.[31][32][33][34][35] The site atInse an tSagairt was also associated with the reputed miraculous cure of the mother of Fr. Eugene Daly.[36] Both Fr. O'Neill's martyrdom and the cure of Mrs. Daly have been commemorated in locally composed poetry.[37] A hiking path was later built to the site in 1981, byCoillte, at the insistence of Fr. Daly (who died in 2001).[38][39]Inse an tSagairt is still sometimes used for open air commemorative Masses and there is a plaque next to the altar which names Fr. John O'Neill.[31][33][34][35] Other Mass rock locations in the same area werean Alhóir, near the summit of Mount Esker,An Seana-Shéipeil at Garrymore, andFaill-a Shéipéil at Gearha.[40]
During the same era in mainland Britain,Puritans, Presbyterians,Quakers,Anabaptists, and other non-Conformists held similarly outlawedconventicles in defiance of theRoyal Supremacy and then of theProtectorate of England underOliver Cromwell, although they were not religious ceremonies.
For the Lutheran minority during theCounter-Reformation in theAustrian Empire, a similar stone inPaternion was dubbed thehundskirche.
A Mass rock (Carraig an Aifrinn) was a rock used as an altar in mid-17th century Ireland as a location for Catholic Mass
Rev Eugene Daly [..] passed away in January 2001. Fr Daly had a great love for the Mass Rock at Inse an tSagairt [..] He was instrumental in negotiating with the forestry service to open it to the public