Christchurch/North Gate - Grave of Capt John Nash
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This cache is in conjunction with Bandon Walled Town Festival. The first is the grave of Capt Nash located at the fascinating West Cork Heritage Centre on North Main Street (see next section for details of access to the Heritage Centre).
The second marks the great significance of Christchurch as part of the Medieval Church Trail, created for Bandon Walled Town Festival 2017.
PART OF THE BANDON CHURCHES SERIES.......
It was on October 31, 1517 that John Luther nailed his “95 Theses” to the door of the Wittendberg Castle Church with hammer strokes which echoed throughout all of Europe. A Benedictine monk, Luther’s 95 Theses were a list of corruptions that he determined Rome to be guilty of in deviating from scripture - primarily the practise of buying religious indulgence. Luther felt that personal redemption should be achieved by religious practice in daily life rather than by means of wealth. The changing climate of Europe was ripe for the Reformation and Luther’s actions are often seen as the spark. He developed new ideas opposed to the church hierarchy - he rejected the authority of the pope; he denied that priests had any power that laymen did not have, he rejected the celibacy of the clergy. Of the seven sacraments Luther kept only two--baptism and the Lord's Supper(Eucharist).
By 1533 Henry VIII, King of England had broke communion with Rome. The impetus? His wish to divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry his lover Anne Boleyn, who he hoped would bring him a male heir. However there were many other benefits. To establish the Church of England, he passed the Act of Supremacy, which meant that as head of the Church of England, he was acting on Gods behalf. The English people would donate money to him rather than Rome, and he could requisition the wealth of the catholic Monasteries and churches. In the map and shifting gradient of European sovereignties, this would give him more power and means to purchase ships and weaponry. His son Edward VI made Protestantism the State’s religion.
Ironically, while this was reversed by Henry’s daughter Mary I (with Catherine of Aragon), who was Catholic and re-imposed the Catholic orthodoxy and allegiance to Rome - it was during Mary I reign that the plantation of Ireland first began. Elizabeth I, (daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn) reinstated the Act of Supremacy, reverting to the Church of England as the state religion of the crown, more pertinently she used plantation wholesale to colonise Munster with subjects who were loyal to her. The Reformation were not placid times.
Before 1600 the town did not exist, the area was covered in ancient woodlands governed by the O’Mahony’s. Bandon town is the result of the confiscation of Gaelic lands after the failed Desmond Rebellion in 1588. The town itself was not established until 1604 when English planters arrived to create an urban hub for the new colonial lands.
What has this to do with Bandon?
It was against this background of the Reformation, to quell revolt in Ireland and to prevent the Spanish from gaining a foothold after the failed Armada, the dispossessed O’Mahonys castle and estates were ‘planted’ with English farmers and landlords. Elizabeth made only one condition - that Protestants alone could be accepted as tenants.
Many of the hundreds of English and Scottish families induced to come by Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, were Puritans. Of the English, the majority came from Somerset and many of the family names that appear on the role the Mayflower pilgrim ship to the Americas, are identical to the names of the new inhabitants of Bandon. The Puritans were a group of English and Scottish Reformed Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to "purify" the Church of England from its "Catholic" practices, maintaining that the Church of England was only partially reformed.
Puritans belief as the predetermined ‘select few’ who guaranteed salvation, fired their industry in building Bandon town as we know it. The vanquished Chieftains didn’t take tamely to the arrangements and there was urgent need to build protective walls around the town, a perimeter of around a mile.
Christchurch, now the West Cork Heritage Centre, was reputed to be built on a Danish Fort and was the first place of Protestant worship in Bandon. Built in 1625 by the new planters at the North Gate of the town walls, it was partly constructed from the stones of ruin of Knights Hospitaller chapel, St Michael the Archangel church in Kilbrogan.
From George Bennett;s History of Bandon:
"On Sunday morning it was usual to throw open the gates, in order to admit the numerous Protestant colonists to attend divine worship. The gate at the northern side-called North-gate-invited the stubborn Presbyterians, who had settled along the upper banks of ''the fair Bandon,'' to enter its friendly portals on their way to the plain, unpretending meeting-house, which at that time occupied the site of the present court-house.
The other gates were equally accommodating to the outsiders. West-gate led to Ballymodan Church, whilst East-gate, at the other end of the town, conducted the settlers on the Innoshannon side to the studiously unassuming place of worship belonging to the Society of Friends."
There are many splendid memorials within the church, the oldest of which is a brass plaque dated 1629 to Richard Croft, one of the first settlers and the initial contractor for building the town walls.
Part b) The headstone of Capt John Nash is on the immediate right of the entrance porch to Church.
HERE LIES THE BODY OF
CAP. JOHN NASH
WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE
FEBRUARY THE 18TH IN THE 75TH YEAR OF HIS AGE
IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD
1725
This plain inscription gives no indication of the notoriety of Mr. John Nash, a captain in the Bandon militia, who was provost of the town on many occasions. In 1691 the state of the country could not have been worse. Skirmishing between armed parties, attacks on military outposts, even sieges, were not uncommon. Bandon’s Town Council considered the town vulnerable within its ruined walls, and effected the re-enactment of Nuce’s by-law:- "No papist inhabitant be suffered to dwell within the town.” The following excerpt from George Bennet’s History of Bandon of 1869, is an illuminating insight to the times.
“To grapple with this desperate state of things, Captain Nash was armed with strong powers by Governor Cox. He was aware of what he was to do, and he was aware of how to do it. A desperate case he well knew required a desperate remedy. A rough customer could appreciate rough usage; but rose-water usage would be thrown away upon him. Treat him kindly, and he would persuade himself you were afraid of him. Show him mercy, and it was because you felt he was your superior. Captain Nash was one of those men whom the exigencies of those times created. A flaw in an indictment, a misnomer, hair-drawn distinctions, and other minutiæ which a microscopically-eyed lawyer may be able to discover, he pooh-poohed altogether….”
“Amongst the Irish, Capt Nash was known by a great many names. He was Ould Jack, Jack the Devil, Hanging Jack, and Ould Nash; but he was most familiarly known as Shane Dearg (pronounced Shawn Dhorrig), or Red Jack-red, as some say, in reference to all the blood he spilt; whilst others contend it was owing to the colour of his hair. He had even the temerity to hang a priest-Father Sheehan. So anxious was he lest he be denied his clerical prey, that he did not even wait until he would arrive at his favourite [hanging spot] North-gate, but hung him up at the very first cross-road he came to.”
(History of Bandon, George Bennert 1868- Chapt 16.)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Tngr (cyrnfr qb abg bcra vg vs vg'f pybfrq) OLBC