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. Only when Collins realized that both the Catholic League and the Breton nationalist armies of the Duke de Mercoeur were collapsing, did he surrender Lapena to Spanish General Don Juan del Águila, who dispatched Collins to Hapsburg Spain via San Sebastián in the Basque Country, with a letter of recommendation to King Philip II, by whom Collins was granted a pension of 25 escudos, which was received only, "for a twelvemonth or thereabouts." Collins then transferred to the Spanish Royal Navy and was stationed at the port of La Coruña in Galicia.

During Lent of 1598, Collins met Jesuit priest Fr. Thomas White, a native of Clonmel, who had arrived at A Coruña to hear the confessions of his fellow Irishmen serving there with the Spanish Navy. Collins was convinced that their meeting was providential and Fr. White, who had previously founded the Irish College at Salamanca, has left behind a biography of Dominic Collins, which relates in considerable detail the story of the former Captain's call to the religious life. Collins had so firm a desire to become a Jesuit, that Father White introduced him to Fr. Alfonso Ferrer, the Jesuit Provincial of Castile.

Although he was now 32 years old, the Provincial thought it was wise to delay his Jesuit formation, perhaps to test the strength of his vocation. There were doubts too about whether Collins was well-educated enough to become a priest, but the Provincial finally relented in the face of Collins' repeated requests, as he was received as a brother-novice on 8 December 1598. He began his novitiate in the Jesuit college at Santiago de Compostela, where the annals describe Collins as, "an Irishman of distinguished parentage, comely appearance and stature", who had just, "passed thirty-two years of age", and, "had been a Captain of Duke Philip's cavalry in Brittany."

When the Jesuit College was struck by a plague, Dominic tended the victims, nursing some of them back to health and comforting the others in their last hours. A report from that time describes him as a man of sound judgement and great physical strength; mature, prudent and sociable, though inclined to be hot-tempered and obstinate. He was allowed to profess his Solemn vows in February 1601.

Soon after his profession, a Spanish expedition was organised by King Philip III to assist the rising of the Irish clans led by Aodh Mór Ó Néill and Red Hugh O'Donnell during the Nine Years War against Queen Elizabeth I and in resistance to the Reformation in Ireland. Fr. James Archer, an Irish Jesuit priest assigned by the King as military chaplain to the Spanish Army, requested that Dominic Collins be assigned as his companion and assistant, due to his extensive military background. The fleet set sail on 3 September 1601 in two squadrons. The smaller part of the fleet, to which Collins was assigned, ran into bad weather and was delayed, eventually reaching Castlehaven in southwestern Cork on 1 December, the main squadron having reached Kinsale more than two months earlier.