Luke Wadding (1628 - 1687) was a Roman Catholic priest, Bishop, and author of Christian poetry during the Stuart Restoration.
Luke Wadding was born at Ballycogley Castle in County Wexford into a wealthy Recusant mercantile family and was descended from Ireland's Old English nobility. Following the slaying of his father during the Sack of Wexford by Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army and the confiscation of the family's property by the Commonwealth of England, Wadding fled to France and was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest after attending the Irish College in Paris and the Sorbonne.
After 17 years of living in exile, Fr. Wadding returned to Ireland with orders to rebuild the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns following the devastation of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. He continued to do so covertly despite the renewed religious persecution caused by the anti-Catholic witch hunt masterminded by Titus Oates and Lord Shaftesbury. He died shortly before the 1688 overthrow of the House of Stuart and was buried beneath the Chapel of the Franciscan Friary in Wexford Town.
Bishop Wadding also remains well known as one of the later Metaphysical poets. Two of his works of Christian poetry, heavily influenced by the works of Richard Crashaw, are still sung as part of the Wexford Carols cycle during the Twelve Days of Christmas and have also been recorded commercially. Yet another Christmas carol was collected in England by Cecil Sharp in Buckland, Gloucestershire and by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Horsham, Sussex; it is also sung to Luke Wadding's lyrics and is commonly known as the Sussex Carol.[1][2]