PATRICK O’HELY, BISHOP OF MAYO, AND CON O’ROURKE, O.S.F.
(From Bouchier’s Hist. De Martyrio FE Ordinis S.F.)
DR. O’HELY was a native of Connaught & from his early youth he was devoted to the practice of virtue. He entered the Franciscans, and 5 years after his profession he was sent to Spain, by order of his superiors, that he might pursue his studies at the famous University of AIcalã.
In 1575 he was called to Rome by the General of the Order, F. Christopher à Capite Fontis. While there, he resided in the Convent of Ara Coeli.
He frequently petitioned to be allowed to return in order to aid the Irish people then resisting the attacks of heresy. The report of his learning and virtues, and especially of his zeal for souls, reached the ears of Pope Gregory XIII., and in 1576 he was appointed to the See of Mayo,[1] then vacant.
He set off from Brittany, accompanied by Cornelius O’Rourke,[2] the eldest son of the Prince of Brefny[3], who had abandoned the pleasures and enticements of the world in order to pass his life in humility and poverty in the Order of St Francis.
They landed at Dingle, Co. Kerry. They were immediately recognized by spies, stationed along the southern coast. The sheriff seized them, and took them before the Countess of Desmond.[4]
The Earl, who was then absent, ruled over the southern part of the kingdom almost as a sovereign.[5] She received them with great kindness, the Geraldines being at all times the chief patrons and protectors of the Franciscan Order.
But not wishing to run any risk of losing the Queen’s favour, she sent a company of soldiers with O’Hely and his companion to Limerick, and bade them to be handed over to Goulden, who held some official position there, and was at all times most zealous in carrying out the Queen’s wicked purposes. He put them immediately into the common jail.
A few days after they were taken to Kilmallock, 12 miles from Limerick, Where Drury, the President of Munster, a fierce persecutor of the Catholics,[6]then was.
He ordered the prisoners to be chained still more securely and to be beaten with sticks. He then examined them.
O’Hely replied for himself and his companion.
‘By God’s grace we are both priests and religious of the Order of St. Francis. Moreover, I am the Bishop of Mayo, having been appointed to that office and consecrated by the Supreme Head of the Church on earth, Gregory XIII., and I have been sent by him to Ireland to visit, and gather together, and feed with the word of Life the Catholic people confided to my care, and now scattered by the fury of the heretics. This is my calling and the cause of my return to my native country.’
‘do you dare,’ asked Drury, ‘to assert, like a rebel, that the Pope is the Supreme Head of the Church in Ireland, notwithstanding the lawful decrees made by the Queen and parliament to the contrary?’
‘If these laws were just,’ replied the Bishop, ‘they would not contradict what I say; and to prove the truth of my assertion, I am ready to suffer any torments you please and to lay down my life, if necessary.’
His companion answered in the same strain. Promises of wealth and honours were held out to them to induce them to change their resolution. They were threatened with torture and death, but to no avail.
Drury, enraged at their answers, condemned them by martial law, without any legal formality, to be first put to the torture, and then to be hanged from a tree that was near.His orders were executed faithfully.
The two athletes of Christ were stripped; beaten with rods; then placed on the rack; sharp points and needles were thrust between the nails and the flesh, their fingers were cut off, their arms and feet beaten with hammers, and their thigh-bones broken.
In the midst of these cruel tortures they exhorted each other to be patient and firm, they urged the Catholics who were present to perseverance, and they preached repentance to the heretics.
Drury, at heart a Catholic, moved by their exhortations, thought of a plan by which he would save them from death.
He sent an attendant, who knew the Irish language, to the Bishop, and asked him whether he would conform, at least outwardly, and obey the laws of the Queen.
The Bishop sent him back word by the same messenger that he had now reached the time when he could not dissemble in matters of faith, and that he would be willing to endure a thousand deaths rather than deny publicly or privately what had been defined as true by the Church or subscribe to what was condemned.
Drury again offered them rich benefices and positions of honour. As they paid no heed to his offer, he ordered the sentence to be carried out.
They were taken from the rack and hanged with the girdles which they wore as a part of their religious habit, on the 22 of August, 1578.[7]
When the Bishop reached the top of the ladder, just before he was taken hold of by the executioner and thrown off, he called out to Drury, and warned him that within a very few days he should appear before the judgment-seat of God.
Three days after he was seized by a disease which baffled all the skill of the physicians.
When the malady was at its height he admitted that he had done wrong, and he declared openly that he was punished by God for the unjust sentence which he had pronounced against the Bishop.
The bodies of the martyrs were kept hanging in chains.
They were lowered so that their feet almost touched the ground, so that they might be devoured by wolves and wild dogs. Yet, to everyone's wonder they were not touched, even by the birds of the air.
Every day, however, they were made targets of by the heretical soldiers, one crying out, ‘I will hit the Pope’s Bishop in the head,’ and another, ‘I will strike his hand.’
During the whole 14 days they were hanging in this way, it was remarked that the expression of their features remained unchanged ; it was calm and joyful as during life.
Moreover, a fragrant odour issued from them.
The people of the neighbourhood came in great numbers to the place, and took away with them pieces of their clothing.
The Earl of Desmond ordered the bodies to be removed and buried with great honour at Clonmel, in order to atone in some measure for what the Countess, his wife, had done.
Seventy years after, they were transferred, and deposited, together with the instruments of their torture, in the monastery of their Order at Askeaton.[8]
In F. Holing’s manuscript, Magna Supplicia, the following passage occurs in reference to Drury :-
Anno 1577. William Drury, an Englishman, Viceroy of Ireland, was summoned by the Most Rev. Patrick Hely, of the Order of St. Francis, bishop (whom with his brother in religion he had condemned to death solely on account of his faith), before the judgment-seat of God to give an account of his deed.
He was seized with a very violent disease, and died soon after mad and uttering blasphemies.
On the day he was buried, there was such darkness, thunder, and lightning as Ireland never saw before or since.’[9]
In the book entitled Thetarum Crudelitatum Haereticorum, published at Antwerp in 1592, there's a print representing O’HeIy and his companion hanging from a cross beam.[10]
There is uncertainty as to the precise year of his death. Some say 1577, others 1578, others 1579. The date given above is that most commonly accepted.
See also the Annals of Loch Ce, Gonzaga, Harpsfield, Sander, Bozius, Verstegan, Bridgewater, Fitzsimon, Rothe, O’Sullevan, Molanus, Ward, Wadding, O’DaIy, Bruodin, Lynch, Porter, and Hueber.
[1] See Bede’s Hist. Ecci. Ang., v.4, and Lanigan’s Eccl.Hist of Ireland, iN.79, for an account of its foundation. Its last Bishop was Adam Magauran, appointed in 1585. It is now united toTuam,
[2] The Annals of Loch Cé say he was the son of Brian, son of Eoghan O’Ruairc, ii. 427.
[3] Now Co .Leitrim.
[4] Daughter of Edmund, Lord Dunboyne. After the death of the Earl of Oesmond, she married O’Conor Sligo. There is a mural monument erected to her and O’Conor Sligo in the Dominican priory of Sligo.
[5] Earl Gerald
[6] He was appointed President of Munster in 1576, and held that office for three years. In the second year of his office he hanged 400 persons by justice and martial law.’ Webb’s Irish Biography.
[7] O’Rourke was visited in prison the night before his execution by the famous F.James Archer, S.J., who afterwards described him ‘as being comely of feature, kindly in his address, young in years ; he had hardly reached his thirtieth year.’ See Triumphalia S. Crucis. p. 257
[8] Founded in 1420 by James 61h Earl of Desmond. See Meehan’s Franc. Mon., p.96
[9] 2 Spic. Ossor., iii.25.
[10] See the print facing the title-page. The two hanging from the same beam are O’Hely and O’Rourke
Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.
