Blessed Dominic Collins

Dominic Collins, SJ (Irish: Doiminic Ó Coileáin; 1566 – 31 October 1602) was an Irish Jesuit lay brother, an ex-soldier, who died for his Catholic faith. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II, along with 16 other Irish Catholic Martyrs, on 27 September 1993. Dominic Collins was born in 1566 into a prominent Hiberno-Norman merchant family in Youghal, County Cork, in the Kingdom of Ireland, John Collins, his father, and one of his brothers both served as Lord Mayors of the town. His mother, Felicity O'Dril, or O'Dula, was descended from a family of Gaels. Around 1586, Collins sailed to France, landed at Les Sables d'Olonne, and traveled overland to Nantes, where he worked for three years as a inn servant. His years as an inn servant enabled Collins to acquire both the money for a horse and a working knowledge of both the French and Breton languages. In 1586, Collins joined a cavalry unit during the Brittany Campaign of the French Wars of Religion; namely, the Catholic League led by Philippe Emmanuel, Duke of Mercœur. As such, Collins was at war against both Breton Huguenots and the English and German troops who were sent to assist them. Collins' other enemy was the House of Bourbon, as the Duke de Mercoeur also sought, with both Spanish and Vatican backing, to restore the political independence of the Duchy of Brittany from the Kingdom of France. Collins was known to be an effective soldier and was promoted to the rank of Captain (and was known to the French under the nom de guerre of Capitaine de La Branche). After personally retaking the district and chateau of Lapena from the Huguenots, Collins was appointed military governor of the territory by the Duke de Mercoeur. Henri of Navarre, the French throne's still Calvinist heir presumptive, offered Collins a bribe of 2,000 ducats to surrender the chateau and surrounding district, but was refused.