The Prelate and his attendants embarked in the evening at Dames Gate, but owing, some say to adverse winds, and others to the design of the pilot, the little vessel stranded at Clontarf.
The Archbishop at once made his way to the house of his late friend, Thomas Hollywood, at Artane, whose hospitality he had commemorated in his “Repertorium Viride.”
At this time the wardship of the heir, Nicholas Hollywood, was in the hands of Richard Delahide and Thomas Howth.
It seems hardly possible that the Lord Thomas FitzGerald could have heard of the mishap so quickly unless treachery had been employed. Be that as it may, he and a band of armed followers arrived at Artane in the early morning, being the 28th of July, and surrounded the castle while the Archbishop still slept.
Among the party were the young Vice-Deputy’s uncles, Sir James and Oliver FitzGerald, James Delahide, and about forty men.
He sent two Dublin yeomen, John Teeling and Nicholas Wafer, into the house to bring out the Archbishop. They dragged him out of bed, and brought him before the Lord Thomas “feeble for age and sickness, kneeling in his shirt and mantle, bequeathing his soul to God, his body to the traitor’s mercy.” He “besought him not to remember former injuries, but to consider his present calamity, and whatever malice he might bear to his person to respect his calling.”
It seems that the “Silken Thomas” was touched by the appeal of his helpless foe, and turning his head aside, he said, “Beir naim an bodach,” meaning, “Take the churl away from me,” and, no doubt, as he afterwards said, he only intended them to imprison him. His followers, however, put a different interpretation upon his order, and immediately murdered the Archbishop, who was in the fifty-eighth year of his age.
Some say he was dragged within the castle hall, and there put to death, while others say that the spot on which he was slain was hedged in and shunned as an unholy place for many years.
Lord Thomas could not have been ignorant of what had occurred, as he sent Robert Reilly the same day to Maynooth with a casket which had belonged to the murdered prelate.
Lord Offaly was excommunicated for the crime in St. Patrick’s Cathedral with great solemnity.