A.D. 1578. place. Then proceeding to Rome in 1577, " in obedience ecuted for to the command of the Minister General of his order, treason. he was consecrated in the following year bishop of the diocese of Mayo by Pope Gregory XIII." Soon after he returned to Ireland, and landed at Dingle in Kerry; but was ere long recognised, apprehended, and imprisoned at Limerick; where he remained until August, 1578; when, according to the writers above referred to, sentence was pronounced on him of torture and strangulation-a sentence carried in into effect, as they say, with horrid barbarity. which surgents The application of torture in such a case no friend of A caution justice, humanity, or civilization, will attempt to justify against the or palliate-if indeed any can suppose it credible.- It imposture is however but right to remind those readers who may be would me in any danger of being so far misled as to regard the above tamorphose individuals as martyrs of the Catholic faith, that they political incame to this country as the professed subjects, and prin- into religicipal agents, of a foreign power then at open deadly ous marwar with their own sovereign:-and that the visit of tyrs; Patrick O'Hely, for instance, to Rome, and the receipt of his Commission to the episcopate there, occurred at the very period when the rebel chieftain James Fitz Maurice was concerting his measures with the head of the Roman Church, for exciting the Irish to insurrection and civil war ;-when the Romish ecclesiastics ALLEN and SANDERS were lending their active services to the furthering of his military expedition, in which they had embarked their hopes and their persons, and when the robbers of the Appennines were preparing to become the champions of " Catholicity" in Ireland, under the sanction and benediction of the same sovereign Pontiff GREGORY XIII. Yes, when the claims of these men to martyrdom are to which is pressed on the reader by their advocates, let it be always appended remembered that their principles and prepossessions had an Apologue after the manner of D. Rothe. The plan for the exorcising of Italy. led them to become the brethren and fellow-labourers of Italian highwaymen. What Christian will degrade the noble army of the martyrs to the necessity of being replenished by recruits from among the associates of murdering banditti:-of men possessed with devils, abiding in the mountains, exceeding fierce, so that no man might pass in safety by their way. Until the pontiff, reflecting, perhaps, how the miracles of Moses the man of God, and of our Lord and His Apostles, had often been successfully reproduced, at least in the imitation of the presumptuous and the imagination of the credulous, by men of religious name, or at least by their biographers, contrived a plan for exorcising the fair hills of beautiful Italy, and securing peace for the lonely passes of her sunny mountains. But where could there be found, a good way off, an herd of many swine feeding, among whom an habitation might be appointed for those dread spirits of darkness? Alas for Ireland! Alas for the leaders and the led, of her hapless children! In her, it was agreed upon between Gregory and Fitz Maurice, that such beings might be employed in appropriate work, and with companions of congenial souls. And the order was accordingly given: and the fiends of Italy obeyed--and lost but little time in pursuing their gloomy course o'er the Mediterranean waters. The original intention was not however fully carried out; the leader had other work prepared for the ruin of those doomed Spirits on the African shore-and a portion only of the legion was permitted to arrive on the soil of Ireland, to diffuse the exhalations of its deadly venom among the children of the Gael. And then the whole herd of those who had imbibed that spirit, and allowed themselves to be led by the arts of the insurgent leader, were found rushing in a little time, down the precipice of the Geraldine commotions, to perish in the waters of that miserable and unhappy rebellion :leaving above them, where they sunk to rise no more, no monument to mark their fate, save the widening eddies of the silent barren tide of rancorous and unkindly passions, diversified with fitful ebullitions of more noisy and active character, like bubbles gurgling up from the depths of the abyss, in the form of plots, and assassinations, and occasional outbursts of inflamed fury, and associations of men animated by like spirit, and longing for the return of times when Gregories, Desmonds, and banditti, may struggle in arms to rule the destinies of Ireland once more. RICHARD CREAGH, concerning whom we have already Notice of R. given full information, is the individual placed next by Creagh, tiMr. Brennan in his list of martyrs. tular of Ar- REDMOND O'GALLAGHER, papal bishop of Derry, has also been already noticed on a preceding page; he was, R. O'Galaccording to Rothe, in the 70th year of his age, when lagher, Derhe was put to death by a band of soldiers; "after having ry, 1601. been literally mangled," says Mr. Brennan. EDMUND MAGAURAN, titular primate, has been al- E. Magauready noticed at p. 1236 sup. Mr. Brennan will have it ran, Arthat it was near Armagh he was killed, in 1598, while in magh, 1594. the act of hearing the confession of a dying man. cir. 1598. CORNELIUS O'DUANE, "bp. of Down and Connor," C. O'Dusuffered, we are told, about the same time: he died, ane, Down, after having been put on the rack," says the same author, during the administration of Arthur Chichester.* After notices of the above, Mr. Brennan pursues his account of the other prelates who belonged to the same company, in the following terms, (p. 123.) "To these might be added a lengthened catalogue of * See Rothe, in Proc. Martyr. Catalogus. account of certain the same age. Summary prelates, who escaped the sword, but were still more grievously persecuted or driven into exile. Among these other titular sufferers are named EDMUND TANNER, Bishop of Cork prelates of and Cloyne; THOMAS O'HERLIHY, Bishop of Ross; THADDEUS O'FERRALL, Bishop of Clonfert; and HUGH LACY, Bishop of Limerick. These Prelates lay concealed amidst the caverns of the mountains, and thus escaped the fury of their pursuers. MAURICE FITZGIBBON, the predecessor of DERMOT O'HURLEY in the see of Cashel, became an exile and died in Spain about the year 1580. NICHOLAS SKERRET Archbishop of Tuam, after having been flogged and incarcerated, withdrew to the kingdom of Portugal, and died at Lisbon in 1583. PETER POWER Bishop of Ferns, became a suffragan to the Archbishop of Compostella, and died an exile in Spain in 1587. THOMAS STRONG Bishop of Ossory, became also a suffragan to the same archbishop, and died at Compostella in 1601. MORIARTH O'BRIEN Bishop of Emly, died in the prison of Dublin in 1586. RICHARD BRADY of the order of St. Francis and Bishop of Kilmore, after having been incarcerated for a length of time, maimed and tortured, died at a very advanced age near Multifernam in the County of Westmeath." [Then are enumerated certain priests alleged to have suffered similar hardships.] Notices of and D. Rothe. Pursuing our subject into the early part of F. Conroy the 17th century, the only titular prelates of Ireland belonging to this period who require to be specially noticed here, as men of eminence for their character and attainments, are FLORENCE CONRY, named Archbishop of Tuam, and DAVID ROTHE, called Bishop of Ossory, with the names of both of whom the reader of this work must be supposed already in some little degree familiar.* the Spanish Armada. FLORENCE CONRY was born in Connaught about A.D. F. Conroy's 1560, and retired at an early age into Spain, with a view early histo studying for holy orders. Here he became a member tory. of the Franciscan convent in Madrid, where he is said to have gained by his disposition and abilities a high reputation. On the fitting out of the Spanish armada by His connecPHILIP II. in 1588, CONROY embarked in that expedi- tion with tion with a view to returning into Ireland ;† but if he secured an entrance into the island, he could not have remained long here, as he was again living in Spain in 1593. His appointment as titular of the see of Tuam appears to have taken place about A.D. 1610; and was not therefore an act of CLEMENT VIII. (pope from Feb. 7, 1592, to Mar. 5, 1605,) but more probably of Pope PAUL V. After having been the means of originating, with the aid of PHILIP III., the Irish Franciscan College of Louvain, (A.D. 1616,) and having been the authoof sundry works of learning, devotion, and controversy, he died at the Franciscan College of Madrid, on the 18th of November, 1629.‡ ment to the titular episHis appoint copate, &c. His death, A.D. 1629. DAVID ROTHE, titular bishop of Ossory, and author of D. Rothe the famous Analecta, was born, according to Mr. Bren- born, nan, in Kilkenny, in 1573, and educated in the Irish se- A.D. 1573. cular College of Douay. He returned to Ireland about the close of Elizabeth's reign, and officiated for some time as a priest in the diocese of Ossory, with such ability and zeal as attracted the attention of his foreign su Vid. pp. 910, 1349, 1354, &c., sup. Having been commanded by P. Clement VIII. to assist by his |