Life
?1519-1584; b. nr. Limerick; his mother an O'Brien; ed. Paris; doct. in literature, theol., canon & civil law, Lovain; professor of philosophy, Louvain c.1559 [and 25 yrs thereafter]; appt. prof. of canon law, Rheims, at request of Archbishop on founding the university, remaining there 4 years; [known by spies to have] plotted against English government at Rome; appointed Archbishop of Cashel following death of MacGibbon, in Oporto (1578); consec. in Rome, 11 Sept. 1581; returned to Ireland disguised as mariner; landed Skerries and proceeded to Drogheda;
his papers and seal, secretly conveyed to Waterford by the ship's captain, discovered; administered Confirmation at Cashel; captured at Carrick-on-suir and imprisoned in Dublin; admitted carrying letters from Cardinal Sens to Earl of Desmond, though ignorant of their contents; his correspondence with Baltinglas also discovered; tortured with tallow-filled iron boots in the Castle yard; refused to recant; treated with salves by MacMorris, a medical friend; remained in prison for nine months; hanged on Gallows Green, in Dublin under martial law, 20 June. ODNB
Criticism
There is a sympathetic account of O'Hurley in Alice Curtayne, The Irish Story: A Survey of Irish History and Culture (Dublin: Clonmore & Reynolds 1962), pp.80-83 [“A Martyr and a Soldier”].
[ top ]