Loftus and Wallop, accordingly, on the 19th of June, 1584, gave warrant to the knight-marshal in her majesty's name to do execution upon him." (Letter July 9th, 1584.)
Accordingly, on Friday before Trinity-Sunday, Hurley—whose wounds had been so skilfully treated by a Jesuit who was enabled to reach him, as to enable the holy sufferer to regain sufficient strength to sit up and even rest on his feet—was ordered to prepare for execution. He was taken out at early dawn, amid the cries of his fellow Catholic prisoners, proclaiming his innocence, one bishop, who was expiating in fetters a guilty pusillanimity, exclaiming that he himself, for the scandal he had given, deserved to die, but that the archbishop was an innocent and holy man. He was drawn on a hurdle through the garden gate to a wood near the city, and "there he was hanged on a withey, calling on God, and forgiving his torturers with all his heart." At evening his body was buried in the half-ruined church of St. Kevin. So great was the veneration felt for this holy man, that the church was restored to satisfy the devotion of those who flocked to the spot to recommend themselves to his prayers, and many of whom averred that miracles were wrought there.
Elizabeth and the ministers of her godless tyranny, in thus trampling on law and justice, had gained nothing toward the advancement of the new doctrines in Ireland. The death of Dr. Hurley but confirmed the Irish Catholics more immovably in the faith.
In another case, Dr. Richard Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, who escaped from the Tower of London in 1565, but, after two years' labors in Ireland, was seized in Connaught in 1567, the government ventured on a trial at law; but the jury acquitted him. Little did this avail: he was kept a prisoner, but at last effected his escape, and, for a short time, labored to console the afflicted Catholics. Falling again into the hands of the persecutors, he was sent to England, and died of poison in the Tower of London, (Oct. 14th, 1585,) leaving one of the most venerated names in the annals of the Irish church. Another prelate, Murlagh O'Brien, Bishop of Emly, died the same year in prison, at Dublin, after undergoing tortures.
The interesting biography of another martyr, Rev. Maurice Kinrechtin, gives a picture of a Catholic Easter during these dark ages in Ireland that is too touching to omit. It is in a letter from Father Robert Rochfort:
'I send you an account of the glorious martyrdom of a friend of mine, Maurice Kinrechtin, a pious priest, chaplain to the Earl of Desmond, whom you know. He was for this cause taken prisoner by the English, and taken to your native town of Clonmel, where he lay in prison for more than a year. On the eve of Easter, 1585, Victor White, one of the principal citizens of Clonmel and a pious Catholic, obtained from the head jailer permission for the priest to pass the night in his house; this the jailer agreed to, but secretly informed the President of Munster, an English heretic, who chanced to be in the town, that, if he wished, he might easily seize all the principal citizens while hearing mass in the house of Mr. White at daybreak; at the same time he bargained to be paid for his perfidy. At the hour agreed on, the soldiers rushed into the house and seized on Victor; but all the others, hearing the noise, tried to escape by the back-doors and windows; a certain matron, trying to escape, fell and broke her arm. The soldiers found the chalice and other things for mass; they sought everywhere for the priest, (who had not yet begun the mass,) and came at length to a heap of straw, under which he lay hid, and, thrusting their swords through it, wounded him in the thigh; but he preserved silence, and, through fear of worse, concealed his suffering, and soon after escaped from the town into the country. But the intrepid Victor (who, although he had for this reason suffered much, could never be induced to attend the conventicles of the heretics) was thrown into prison because he would not give up the priest, and would, no doubt, have been put to death, had not Maurice, hearing of the danger of his friend, voluntarily surrendered himself to the president, showing a friendship truly Christian. The president upbraided him much, and, having sentenced him to death, offered him his life if he would abjure our Catholic faith and profess the queen to be head of the church. There came to him also a preacher, and strove long, but in vain, to seduce the martyr; nor would he on any account betray any of those who had heard his mass, or to whom he had at any time administered the sacraments. At length he was dragged at the tail of a horse to the place of execution as a traitor. Being come there, he devoutly and learnedly exhorted the people to constancy in the faith. The executioner cut him down from the gallows when yet half alive, and cut off his sacred head, and the minister struck it in the face. Then the Catholics by prayers and bribes obtained of the executioners that they should not lacerate his body any further, and they buried it as honorably as they could. Farewell, and peace in the Lord, and be ye imitators—if occasion offers—of the courageous Maurice Kinrechtin, and till then prepare your souls for the trial. Your devoted servant, dated from the College of St. Anthony, 1586, 20th March, Robert Rochfort."
Thus it went on during the reign of Elizabeth. The year 1588 witnessed many hanged, drawn, and quartered—the Rev. Peter Miller, at Wexford; Peter Meyler, at Galway, and Maurice Eustace—both candidates for the priesthood, the Franciscan fathers, O'Molloy, Dogherty, and Ferrall, at Abbeyleix. The next year another of the same order at Clonmel.
Curry, in his Civil Wars in Ireland, thus sums up other examples: