born 1629, Loughcrew, County Meath, Ire.
died July 1, 1681, London, Eng.; canonized 1975; feast day July 11
Irish prelate, the last man to suffer martyrdom for the Catholic faith in England.
He was ordained in Rome, where he taught theology and represented the Irish bishops at the Holy See. In 1669 he was appointed archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, and he worked to restore the disorganized church in Ireland. Renewed persecution forced him into hiding in 1673. In the anti-Catholic hysteria caused by the Titus Oates plot (1678), he was betrayed and imprisoned in Dublin in 1679. After a farcical trial in London, he was convicted of treason and was hanged, drawn, and quartered. His head, originally sent to Rome, is preserved at Drogheda, and his body is at Downside Abbey, near Bath.