absent or the see of Armagh vacant, the senior bishop of the province has the title of Vice-Primate, on the martyrdom of Dr. Edmund Gauran, who was primate, Dr. Redmond, Bishop of Derry, held the office of vice-primate ; and at his martyrdom it passed to Dr. Richard, of whom I am now speaking, as the senior bishop of the province; and after his death, passed to the holy martyr Cornelius, Bishop of Down and Connor. These things I thought it well to mention, lest this custom, by oblivion, might become obsolete.

He

"Dr. Richard was old when he was made bishop; throughout his life he was most religious, and never, except when the duties of his episcopal administration required it, lived anywhere save in some convent of his order, and generally in the convent of Multifarnham. never had any garments but such as the brethren commonly wore, and always took his meals at the table of the community, unless when the coming of strangers required. him to remain in the guest-house. He was with difficulty. persuaded to give up the practice of attending chapter and publicly confessing his faults; he attended Matins and the other offices as though he were a simple monk. He had no attendants but his father-confessor, one sccular priest, and two monks. I saw him when very old, and he was such a lover of austerities that, though many prudent men, even monks, sought to persuade him, for his health's sake, to wear linen shirts, until his death he never would wear aught but the rough habit. He was much given to prayer, and strenuous and watchful in administering the episcopal office, as far as the time would allow. Thrice was he taken prisoner by the heretics; the first and second times he was ransomed, and gave great edification in his imprisonment; the last time, as I have already told, being old and infirm, he was despised, stripped of his clothes, thrown among nettles, and left there. He lived for many

years after he had resigned his episcopal charge, helpless and childish, but gracious and amiable. He slept in the Lord, in the year 1607, in the month of September, in the convent of Multifarnham, and his body is interred, where he himself had long before directed, in the cloister, where all the brethren are buried, at the entrance of the door which leads into the church."-Mooney, p. 75.

Philadelphus narrates the martyrdom of Father Moriarty and the imprisonment of the bishop, but did not know the date: he says only "about 1596.”

REV. DONATUS O'MOLLONY

"WAS of a noble family, a theologian and priest, and vicar of the diocese of Killaloe. He was a truly apostolic pastor, and when the wild boars ravaged the vineyard of the Lord in the diocese of Killaloe, (of which Malachy O'Mollony was bishop,) he feared not to risk his life for his flock. He was taken in the district of Ormond, where he was visiting the parish priest, and, with his hands tied behind his back like a robber, was dragged to Dublin in the midst of the soldiers. The reader may imagine what he suffered in this long journey. (I have heard much of it from my mother, Margaret O'Mollony, a near relative of the martyr, and from other friends in my country, but for the sake of brevity I omit much.) Hardly was Donatus shut up in the Tower of Dublin, when the iron boots, the rack, the iron gauntlets, and the other instruments with which the executioners tortured the confessors of Christ were paraded before his eyes, and he was asked by the chief-judge whether he would subscribe to the queen's laws and decrees in matters of religion. Mollony, filled with the spirit of God, answered courageously he was ready to obey the queen's commands in all things not contrary to the laws of Jesus Christ,

the King of kings, and his vicar on earth. The judge, like Pilate, answered: 'The queen in her kingdom is the only vicar of Christ and head of the church; therefore you must either take the oath of supremacy or die.' Mollony answered, Either Paul, the doctor of the Gentiles, and Christ himself in his gospels, err, or the queen is not the vicar of Christ. 'Then you will not acknowledge the supreme authority, after Christ, of the queen in spirituals?" 'By no means,' said Mollony; 'a woman, who may not speak in the church, I cannot acknowledge as its head; nay, for the truth of the opposite I am ready, by God's help, to endure all torments, and death itself' 'Very good,' said the judge; ‘we shall see to-morrow if your deeds correspond with your words.'

"Next day, about nine o'clock, the executioners, by order of the judge, so squeezed Donatus's feet in iron boots, and his hands in like gauntlets, that blood came from all his ten fingers.

"But the torture failed to move him, and during it Donatus more than once returned thanks to God that by his grace he was able to bear the torture for his Son's name. He was then for two hours extended on the rack, so that he was stretched out a span in length. During the cruel torture Donatus continually either prayed or exhorted the Catholics who were near to constancy in the faith, which is the only road to salvation, and for which he was ready to shed his blood. The executioners were moved to tears by the patience and constancy of the sufferer, and, by order of the judge, carried him, half-dead, back to prison, where a few hours afterward he slept piously in the Lord, on the 24th April, anno 1601."-Bruodin, lib. iii. cap. xx.

REV. JOHN O'KELLY,

"A PRIEST of Connaught, of an illustrious race, endured many torments for the Catholic religion, and, worn out by sufferings and the squalor of prison, he yielded his soul to God, in prison, in Dublin, 15th May, 1601."—Bruodin, lib. iii. cap. xx.

RIGHT REV. MALACHY O'MOLLONY, BISHOP OF KILLALOE.

"MALACHY O'MOLLONY, of Thomond, Bishop of Killaloe, a pastor unwearied in labor, full of learning and apostolic zeal, did not escape the satellites of Elizabeth, who were roaming through all parts of Ireland. He was taken in the castle of the illustrious hero Gelasius O'Saghnashy, dynast of the Island of Guor and of Knaleo, and was led on foot through all Thomond to prison in Limerick. In that long journey he suffered unheard-of insults and injuries from the brutal soldiers. He spent eighteen months in a squalid prison, amidst thieves and robbers, and his constancy in the faith was firm as gold tried in the fire. As his constancy remained unshaken by his sufferings, he was brought before the tribunal and asked whether, as became a subject, he would subscribe to the queen's decrees in matters of faith. Malachy answered that it was not competent for Elizabeth to rule the church, and that therefore he recognized her authority in temporals, but not in spirituals. Then the chief-judge, without any further examination, sentenced him to be first tortured and then put to death. After sentence the good shepherd was taken back to prison, whence he escaped that very night by the care of his uncle, Gelasius O'Mollony, my grandfather, and, returning to his own people in Thomond, he changed his dress, and, disguised as a laborer, and hiding from the heretics for the most part in woods and morasses, he dis

charged the duties of a bishop for some years. At length, in great holiness, worn out with age and hardships, he slept in the Lord, in the house of an honorable man, Cornelius Bruodin, Lord of Moyne, (commonly called MacBruodin,) the 20th July, 1603."-Bruodin, lib. iii. cap. xx.

Anno 1602.

FORTY-TWO PRIESTS.

"It was intimated in many districts of the southern province, in 1602, that such of the clergy as presented themselves to the magistrates would be allowed to take their departure from the kingdom. Two Dominican fathers, and forty others,* for the most part Cistercians and secular priests, availed themselves of the government proposal. They were ordered to assemble at the Island of Inniscattery, in the vicinity of Limerick, and on the appointed day they were taken on board a vessel-of-war to sail for France. No sooner, however, had they put to sea than all were turown overboard. When the ship returned to port, the captain and all the soldiers and sailors in her were cast into prison, and all the officers were cashiered by the queen's order, that she might seem to the world innocent. of that atrocity; but at the same time they were privately admonished not to regard this, and after their pretended imprisonment were rewarded with a part of the goods of the abbey abandoned by those so sacrilegiously slain by them; and some of the descendants of these men yet live in Ireland."†-Hib. Dom. p. 595, who quotes O'Heyn, Epilogus Chronol. p. 18.

* De Burgo says: "Forty-two monks, under the name of Bernardins, two fathers of ours, seven clerics of ours also, came then from the convents of Limerick and Killmallock."

+ Incredible as this atrocity might appear, the reader who will look in this work to the year 1644 will see that in that year another captain received the thanks of Parliament for a simila

act.