Blessed William Ireland

William Ireland (1636 – 24 January 1679) was an English Jesuit and martyr from Lincolnshire. He was falsely accused of conspiring to murder King Charles II during the Popish Plot hysteria, and was executed on 24 January 1679. He was beatified in 1929 by Pope Pius XI and his feast day is celebrated on 24 January, the day of his death. Ireland was the eldest son of William Ireland of Crofton Hall, Yorkshire, by Barbara, a daughter of Ralph Eure, 3rd Baron Eure of Washingborough, Lincolnshire, by his first wife Mary Dawnay. William was born in Lincolnshire in 1636. He had several sisters, to whom he remained close, and who worked tirelessly to prove his innocence during the Plot. Ireland was educated at the English College at St. Omer; admitted to the Society of Jesus at age 19 at Watten in 1655; studied theology in Liege and was ordained a priest in 1667. For several years he was a confessor to the Poor Clares at Gravelines. In 1677, Ireland was sent on the English Mission and appointed procurator of the province. On the night of 28 September 1678, he was arrested by constables led by Titus Oates, the inventor of the Plot and taken before the Privy Council. Among those who shared his fate was John Grove, a layman and the nominal occupier of that part of Wild House, London, occupied by the Jesuits and the Spanish Embassy; also Thomas Jenison and John Fenwick. Together with Thomas Pickering, Ireland and Grove were said to have planned on 19 August, in the rooms of the Jesuit William Harcourt, to assassinate King Charles II at Newmarket, and William Bedloe swore that Grove was to have £1500 for the job and Pickering 30,000 Masses. The sworn testimony of Oates and Bedloe impressed the jury, despite their unsavoury reputation, and Chief Justice William Scroggs summed up against Ireland. Despite Ireland's impressive alibi, which was later to gravely embarrass the Crown, and much evidence of his accusers' bad reputation, produced by his sisters, he was found guilty.