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During the civil war which commenced in 1641, Waterford experienced its full share of calamity. At the commencement of that year the city was, without any effort for its defence, surrendered to the son of Lord Mountgarret; and the country around was laid waste by the insurgents, to whose cause the inhabitants were so attached, that the confederate Catholics had their printing-press here, under the conduct of a man named Bourke. In 1646, the pope's nuncio, with a view of setting aside the peace which had been con-cluded between the contending parties, summoned all the Roman Catholic clergy to Waterford, on the ground of an apostolic visitation, and for the purpose of hold-ing a national synod, but so opposed to the measure were the inhabitants, fearing it might compromise the interests of their religion, that when the heralds came from Dublin to proclaim it, no one would shew them the mayor's house; nor could they, after three days stay, obtain from the proper functionaries any other answer than that the peace ought first to have been proclaimed in Kilkenny.
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