Blessed Dominic Collins SJ, Martyr


Dominic Collins was born 1566 in the seaport town of Youghal, in County Cork, Ireland. His family was well established and respected and both his father and brother were mayors of Youghal. It was in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and Anglicanism was the official religion. During her rule, Irish Catholics were subjected to persecution from time to time.

Although the situation was not yet critical in Youghal, Dominic felt that he did not have much of a future in the town. Like many others, he decided to leave Ireland and make a better life in Europe. So at the age of twenty, Collins arrived in France. He had dreams of joining the cavalry, but for that he needed a horse, so he work for some time in various hostelries in Brittany (north-west France). Eventually, he was enlisted in the army of the Duke of Mercoeus, who was a member of the Catholic League fighting against the Protestant Huguenots in Brittany. Dominic had a distinguished military career lasting nine years. He was promoted to captain of the cavalry and later military governor when he managed to recover land from the Huguenots.

Although he had a good pension following his service to the King of Spain, he began to realise that being a soldier was not the future he wanted. In the Lent of 1598, he met an Irish Jesuit, Thomas White, who introduced him to the Jesuit superiors in Salamanca, Spain, after learning of Dominic’s desire to do something better with his life. Although he was now 32 years old, the Jesuit provincial thought it was wise to delay his entrance, perhaps to test the strength of his vocation. There were doubts too as to whether he was sufficiently educated to become a priest, but Dominic was willing to be a Jesuit brother. He entered the Jesuit novitiate in Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain in December, 1598, and took his first vows in February, 1601.

Seven months later, Brother Dominic Collins was assigned as companion and assistant to Fr James Archer, an Irish Jesuit who was being sent by the king as chaplain to a Spanish expedition to assist Catholics in Ireland. The two Jesuits sailed in September, 1601, on different vessels which became separated during a storm. When Brother Collins finally reached Ireland in December, the English army had laid siege to the port town. The Irish attacked at dawn on Christmas Eve, but were defeated. Brother Collins was reunited with Fr Archer in February, 1602, and together the two Jesuits proceeded to Dunboy Castle, which the Irish had recently regained.

Some months later Brother Collins found himself besieged inside Dunboy Castle with 143 defenders (Fr Archer had left for Spain to persuade the king to send reinforcements). With the 6-June landing of a huge English force, Dunboy Castle fortifications began to crumble under the heavy bombardment. Many of the Irish defenders were killed and the Castle surrendered. With the exception of Dominic Collins and two others, all the remaining 77 defenders were executed in the castle yard.

Dominic was later imprisoned in Cork and, despite several offers to spare his life if he would divulge information about Catholics, and to renounce his vocation as a Jesuit and join the established Church, he flatly refused. He also rejected the offer of an honorable position in the English army and Protestant offers of ecclesiastical preferment if he would renounce his Catholic faith. Even his own relatives tried persuading him to renounce the faith publicly while inwardly remaining faithful to Catholicism—but this he would not do.

He was finally condemned to death and on 31 October, 1602, he was taken to Youghal, his hometown and hanged. Before climbing the scaffold, he spoke to the crowd in Irish and English, saying he was happy to die for his faith. He was so cheerful that an English officer remarked, “He is going to his death as eagerly as I would go to a banquet”. Brother Collins overheard him and replied, “For this cause I would be willing to die not one, but a thousand deaths.”

Brother Dominic Collins, together with sixteen other martyrs of Ireland (who died between 1579 and 1654), was beatified by Pope John Paul II on September 27, 1992.

Blessed Dominic is remembered for his constancy in the faith. Though freedom and advancement were set before him, he:

…endured the cross, disregarding its shame… (Heb 12:2)

Dominic’s martyrdom is commemorated in a carving at St Colman’s Cathedral in Cobh, County Cork.

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