16 Facts About Dermot O'Hurley

On 27 September 1992, Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley was beatified by Pope John Paul II and remains one of the most celebrated of the 24 formally recognized Irish Catholic Martyrs.

Dermot O'Hurley was born into the Gaelic nobility of Ireland, either in or near Emly, County Tipperary, around the year 1530.

Dermot O'Hurley's mother was Honora Ni Brien, a descendant of the O'Brien dynasty of Thomond.

Dermot O'Hurley had much younger brother named Andrew O'Hurley, whom, as of 1642, was over 80 years old, blind, paralyzed, and living in Portugal.

In 1581, Dermot O'Hurley acted as interpreter for Richard Eustace, the brother and official representative in Rome of the Old English Second Desmond Rebellion leader Viscount Baltinglass.

Dermot O'Hurley was first ordained and consecrated in Rome by the exiled Welsh Catholic Bishop of St Asaph, Thomas Goldwell, and set out on his mission in 1583.

Dermot O'Hurley's voyage was fraught with danger because of the state of war between the Pope and the Queen of England, but he accepted the risks involved and arranged for a sea captain from Drogheda to smuggle him from the French port of Le Croisic into Ireland.

Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley disembarked upon Holmpatrick Strand in what is Skerries, County Dublin in the autumn of 1583 and was met by a priest named John Dillon, who accompanied him to Drogheda, where they lodged in a hostelry.

Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley covertly travelled from Slane Castle to Cavan to visit with some fellow priests whom he had known while living in Catholic Europe.

The heretics, giving each his own opinion, freely proceeded to such extreme folly, that Dermot O'Hurley, who was present, and long kept silent lest he should betray himself, could not any longer stand their rashness, and so, to the great astonishment of all, he easily refuted the silly doctrines of the heretics, with an air of authority, and great eloquence and learning.

Dermot O'Hurley explained that he had chosen to leave those letters in France, as, "he would not meddle", in matters other than his religious mission, which, as he repeated insisted, was purely a peaceful one.

Dermot O'Hurley told them that he was bound and resolved never to desert the Church, Faith, or Vicar of Christ Jesus for any consideration.

Dermot O'Hurley, not relishing this, especially as he was not allowed to reply to their nonsense, bade them, stupid and ignorant men, not to offer ridiculous and false doctrines to him, an Archbishop, and Doctor of celebrated academies.

Dermot O'Hurley's body was secretly exhumed, placed in a wooden urn by London-born Recusant William Fitzsimon, and reburied under cover of darkness in consecrated ground at St Kevin's Church, Camden Row, Dublin.

Also following Catholic Emancipation in 1829, interest in Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley was rekindled by the republication of Bishop David Rothe's Analecta Sancta and Philip O'Sullivan Beare's Historiae Catholicae Iberniae Compendium.

On 27 September 1992, Dermot O'Hurley was beatified by Pope John Paul II, alongside 16 other Irish martyrs.