(From Bruodin’s Propugnaculum, p. 427)

FERGALL WARD, a native of Tyrconnell,[1] a member of the Seraphic Order of St. Francis, was a very eloquent preacher and most observant of poverty. 

He had laboured zealously for three years in the vineyard of the Lord, and was then promoted to be Guardian of the convent of Armagh about the year 1575.

At this time the plague of heresy, introduced by Elizabeth, was raging through-out Ulster.

Ward opposed it as a skilful physician. 

Wherefore he was seized by the Ministers of Elizabeth, and no regard being had for his great age or religious character, he was scourged cruelly and beaten. 

At length when the holy martyr, persevering in his good purpose, exhorted his executioners to return to a better life, by order of the ministers he was hanged with his own girdle on the 28th of April, 1575, as Father John Good[2] writes, or in 1565, as Wadding states in his work on the Martyrs of the Order.

See also Ward, Wadding, and Hueber.

[1] The present Co. Donegal
[2] He came to Ireland with F. Edmund McDonaough, S.J., of whom more later. The title of this work is Theatre of Catholic and Protestant Religion ; Douay, 1620. There is not a copy of it in this country, so far as I can find.
 

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