He was first imprisoned in 1560, and after a brief respite, was, in 1565,
"reconducted to his former prison; this was 'a subterraneous dungeon, damp and noisome—not a ray of light penetrated thither; and for thirteen years this was his unvarying abode.' During all that time his food was of the coarsest kind, and, with the exception of rare intervals, when the intercession of some influential friends obtained a momentary relaxation, he was allowed no occupation that could cheer the tedium of his imprisonment. In all this lengthened martyrdom, prayer was his resource, and, as he himself subsequently avowed, he often-times passed whole days and nights overwhelmed with heavenly consolations, so that his dungeon seemed transformed into a paradise of delights. To preclude the possibility of idleness, he procured a bed made of twisted cords, and whensoever his mind was fatigued with prayer, he applied himself to untie those cords, and often was he well wearied with the exertion before he could reunite them to compose himself to sleep.
"His persecutors, overcome by his constancy, and finding his fervor in spiritual contemplation a continual reproach to their own wickedness, at length, about Christmas, 1572, connived at his escape."
Reaching the continent, he died at Alcala, in 1577, bearing to the grave the marks of his thirteen years' imprisonment.
Next in importance among the sufferers for the faith was a most remarkable man, David Wolf, a native of Limerick, a priest of the Society of Jesus, whose labors, perils, sufferings of every kind, while acting as nuncio to the Pope in Ireland from 1560 to 1578, form the matter for a most interesting volume—not only from the personal interest attaching to a man of his ability, learning, and courage, but from the influence exercised by him in perpetuating the episcopacy, and, consequently, the priesthood and the faith in Ireland. The first martyr of whom we have any details is the Franciscan, Daniel O'Duillian, of the convent of Youghal, put to death in 1569. Indictment, trial, judge, or jury seem to have had no part in his cause. Father Mooney thus describes his death as he obtained authentic information within fifty years after its occurrence:
"When one Captain Dudal (probably Dowdall) with his troop were torturing him, by order of Lord Arthur Grey, the viceroy, first they took him to the gate which is called Trinity Gate, and tied his hands behind his back, and, having fastened heavy stones to his feet, thrice pulled him up with ropes from the earth to the top of the tower, and left him hanging there for a space. At length, after many insults and tortures, he was hung with his head down and his feet in the air, at the mill near the monastery; and, hanging there a long time, while he lived he never uttered an impatient word, but, like a good Christian, incessantly repeated prayers, now aloud, now in a low voice. At length the soldiers were ordered to shoot at him, as though he were a target; but yet, that his sufferings might be the longer and more cruel, they might not aim at his head or heart, but as much as they pleased at any other part of his body. After he had received many balls, one, with a cruel mercy, loaded his gun with two balls and shot him through the heart. Thus did he receive the glorious crown of martyrdom the 22d of April, in the year aforesaid."
Similar disregard of all law and forms of justice appears in the terrible martyrdom of the Franciscan Father O'Dowd, who died like Sir John Nepomucen, a martyr of the seal of confession.
With some other prisoners, he fell, in 1577, into the hands of the soldiers of Felton, then president of Connaught.
"They pressed a certain secular, who was one of their captives, to tell them something of the plots which they said he had made with others against the queen of England; but he protested he could tell nothing but the truth, and that there were no plots; so they determined to hang him. When they said this, he begged he might be allowed to make his confession to Father O'Dowd; this they granted the more readily that they thought the priest, if he were tortured, would reveal what might be told him. As soon as the confession was over, the secular was hung; and then they asked the priest, who was also to be hung, if he had learned aught of the business in confession. He answered in the negative, and, refusing to reveal anything of a confession, they offered him life and freedom if he would reveal, and threatened torture if he refused. He answered he could not, and they immediately knotted a cord round his forehead, and, thrusting a piece of wood through it, slowly twisted it so tightly that at length, after enduring this torment for a long time, his skull was broken in, and, the brain being crushed, he died, June 9th, 1577."