The Relics of St Oliver Plunkett in Kingscourt
Council 112
5 July 2026
Members of CK112 with the relic at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, 5 July 2026.
Over the weekend of 5 July 2026, members of CK112 brought a relic of St Oliver Plunkett to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Kingscourt, County Cavan. The visit was timed to fall just after his feast, which is kept on the first of July.
A Meath man
Oliver Plunkett was born at Loughcrew, County Meath, on 1 November 1625. He became Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. It was the senior office in the Irish Church, and a dangerous one to hold.
It ended at Tyburn. In June 1681 he was convicted of high treason for promoting the Catholic faith, on evidence nobody has defended since, and on the first of July he was hanged, drawn and quartered. He was fifty-five. He was the last Catholic martyr to die in England.
His feast is kept on the day he died.
He was beatified by Pope Benedict XV in 1920 and canonised by Pope Paul VI on 12 October 1975.
Where he rests
His head has been at St Peter's in Drogheda since 1921, and most of the rest of him lies at Downside Abbey in England. What came to Kingscourt was a first-class relic: a fragment of bone, carried in a small golden reliquary made to be borne by hand.
The weekend
The relic was present at the parish Masses across the weekend. Brothers of the Order accompanied it in procession with the parish's altar servers, and stood with it at the altar.
The parish afterwards set down its own intention for the visit: that through the intercession of St Oliver Plunkett, all hatred and bitterness might be banished from our hearts, and peace given in their place.
A Meath man, martyred in London, carried through a Cavan parish by his own people three and a half centuries later.