(From Hartry’s Synopsis, p. 259

IN the Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Assaroe1 in the Co. Donegal, the Abbot, Eugene O’Gallagher and Bernard O’Trevir, his Prior, and the other monks to the number of thirty, lived according to their rule, undisturbed from the first erection of the abbey till some years after the suppression of nearly all the other monasteries,2 while the power of O’Neill and O’Donnell lasted. 

But when they fled across the sea the monks too were forced to fly, and when they died at Rome in 1609,3 the English took occasion to seize on their vast domains and possessions, threw down the monastery, and drove out the monks. 

The venerable Eugene O’Gallagher who happened to be away from his monastery, was slain by the aforesaid enemies through hatred of the faith. 

So too, Bernard O’Trevir, one of his monks, when flying from his persecutors, was slain near the monastery in the year 1606, in the same year and month as the Abbot, but not on the same day, and entered heaven wearing a martyr’s crown.

The author says he heard the account of the martyrdom of these two religious from a venerable priest, Richard Kelly, then in his seventy-sixth year.

See also Rothe, O’Sullevan Henriquez, and Bruodin.

1 The abbey is close to the town of Ballyshannon. It was founded in 1178 by O'Cannanan, chief of Tyrconnell.

2 See Introduction p.7

3 See Meehans Flight of the Earls

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.