O'Hurley, Dermot, Bl.
O'HURLEY, DERMOT, BL.
Archbishop, listed among Irish martyrs proposed for canonization; b. Lycadoon, Limerick, 1519; d. Dublin, June 30, 1584. After graduating at Louvain in 1551, he taught philosophy there and subsequently canon and civil law at Reims. He was consecrated in Rome in 1581, and appointed archbishop of Cashel September 11, receiving the pallium November 27. Landing near Dublin in September 1583, he escaped capture in Drogheda and Slane and proceeded to his own province. Because of the government's threats to his host in Slane, he surrendered at Carrick–on–Suir and was imprisoned in Dublin Castle October 7. He was examined repeatedly by lord justices Loftus and Wallop and, on instructions of Elizabeth's secretary Walsingham, was tortured. Denying charges of treason but refusing religious conformity, he was, on Elizabeth's mandate, hanged after being condemned by martial law, there being no evidence for conviction by civil courts. According to tradition, he was buried in St. Kevin's churchyard, Dublin. O'Hurley was beatified on Sept. 27, 1992.
Bibliography: s. Ó murthuile, A Martyred Archbishop of Cashel (Dublin 1935).
[j. hurley]