Peter (Valesius) Walsh (c. 1618 – March 15, 1688), Irish politician and controversialist, was born at Mooretown, County Kildare, and studied at Leuven, where he joined the Franciscans and acquired Jansenist sympathies.
In 1646 he went to Kilkenny, then in the hands of the rebel "confederate Catholics," and, in opposition to the papal nuncio Rinuccini, urged, and in 1649 helped to secure, peace with the viceroy Ormonde on behalf of King Charles I. Walsh was arrested by the militant Irish Confederate Catholic faction in 1646, along with other "peace party" advocates like Richard Bellings in 1646, after the Treaty they had negotiated with Ormonde and the English Royalists was rejected in the Confederate General Assembly. Those opposed to the Treaty included militant Catholic clergy led by the Papal Nuncio Rinuccini) who wanted Roman Catholicism established as the state religion in Ireland and Irish lords, such as Owen Roe O'Neill, who wanted to recover the lands and power their families had lost after the Plantations of Ireland. Walsh returned to favour in 1649, when military defeat made the Confederates accept a new Peace Treaty with Ormonde and Charles I. However, the new Royalist/Confederate alliance was crushed after Cromwell's conquest of Ireland in 1649-53. All Catholic clergy captured by the Cromwellians were executed and Walsh, in danger of death, fled Ireland. He subsequently lived obscurely in London and abroad.
On the restoration he urged his patron Ormonde to support the Irish Roman Catholics as the natural friends of Royalty against the Protestant sectaries, who had supported the Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Walsh endeavoured to mitigate their lot and efface the impression made by their successive rebellions by a loyal remonstrance to Charles II, boldly repudiating papal infallibility and interference in public affairs, and affirming undivided allegiance to the crown. For eight years he canvassed for signatures to this address, but in spite of considerable support the strenuous opposition of the Jesuits and Dominicans deterred the clergy and nearly wrecked the scheme. (See also: Act of Settlement 1662 for Irish politics at the time).
From 1669 until his death he lived in London, much respected for his honesty, loyalty and learning. Excommunicated by the Franciscan chapter-general in 1670, he remained a devout adherent of his church, although he maintained friendly relations with the Anglicans, accepting their orders and attending their churches. He made a full submission to Rome before his death, though the fact has been questioned.
He wrote (1672-1684) a series of controversial letters against Pope Gregory VII's doctrine of papal supremacy over princes; a voluminous History of the Remonstrance (1674); Hibernica (1682), a history of Ireland; in 1686 a reply to the Popery of Thomas Barlow (1607-1691), Barlow being the bishop of Lincoln; and other works. In these writings he consistently upheld the doctrine of civil liberty against the pretensions of the papacy.
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A Compendium of Irish Biography article Peter Walsh |
See SR Gardiner, History of the Great Civil War; Gilbert Burnet, History of his own Times, i. 195; Thomas Carte, Life of Ormonde (new ed. 1851); Dictionary of National Biography lix.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.