It was a lovely spring morning, the daffodils were dancing in a light breeze and the temperature was slowly rising. A walk into town was the order of the day.

Down Irishtown Road, turn left past the Credit Union and as I walked, on my left an avenue of fifteen beautiful cottage-type houses caught my eye– Dermot O’Hurley Avenue.

My thoughts flew back to an Ireland under the Tudors and to the many martyrs of the Penal Laws. In the reign of Elizabeth, the fear of the English power and the desire to placate it increased over Ireland.

When bishops and priests were executed, the officials emphasised that they died not for their faith but for treason against the Queen’s Majesty. I wondered how many of the residents of this Avenue and indeed the people of Irishtown and Ringsend knew about this man.

Dermot O’Hurley was born near Emly, Co. Tipperary around 1530. His family were well-off by the standards of the time. His father was an agent for the Earl of Desmond and his mother Honora O’Brien descended from the Royal House of Thomond.

In 1551 he graduated with an MA in Louvain University, then a doctorate of Law and was appointed Professor of Philosophy in one of Louvain’s greater colleges where he remained for 15 years.

In 1574 he was appointed Professor of Canon and Civil law at Rheims, where he spent 4 years. On 11th September 1581, while still a layman, Pope Gregory XIII appointed him Archbishop of Cashel. He was ordained and consecrated and in 1583 set out on his mission.

He was aware that his appointment would mean a life as a fugitive, ministering where possible in dangerous conditions. He arrived at Skerries near Drogheda, the same spot where St. Patrick landed in Ireland in 432. Dermot came ashore in the autumn of 1583. St. Patrick sowed the seeds of Christianity. Dermot came to make sure these seeds did not wither.

Through its elaborate spy system, the government in Dublin had knowledge of Dermot’s appointment to the See of Cashel and Elizabeth’s spies were soon on his tracks. He never reached Cashel. While sheltering at Slane Castle he was recognised. By October he was arrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle.

Believing that he was actively participating in a plot to overthrow the English rule in Ireland, Dermot was repeatedly interrogated and tortured. This included the stocks, the medieval cross for common malefactors.

Head, arms, legs were thrust through the openings and the legs up to the knees were immersed in a mixture of oil and tallow in raw leather boots. A red hot fire was brought to bear on the legs. The heated oil penetrated the soles, legs and other parts. Pieces of the skin dropped from the flesh and portions of the flesh from the bare bones.

Throughout this torture, Dermot protested that his mission was one of peace and he had no information to give his captors. The Lord Justices got permission from London to have the sentence of death passed on him by martial law.

Dr. Hurley, having neither lands nor goods, could not appeal against martial law. Before dawn on the Saturday before Trinity Sunday, June 30th 1584 Dermot was drawn in a cart by soldiers to the usual place of the gallows in the fields where Fitzwilliam Street and Baggot Street now intersect, that is between Fitzwilliam Street and Pembroke Street.

He was strangled with twisted twigs and his body was buried by his executioners in the field of the gallows. A Dublin man, William Fitzsimmon, unearthed it and placed it in a wooden box and when evening had fallen the body was buried in the ruinous church of St. Kevin in Camden Row.
Today, the great modern Kevin Street Technical School looks down on the ruined church of St. Kevin in Camden Row where Dermot is buried. This old church and graveyard is now a beautiful inner city park.

The design and landscaping is in keeping with the atmosphere, tranquillity and character of what was once an old church and graveyard, retaining the appearance of high antiquity and treating with the utmost respect the memory of all who are buried here.

Dr. O’Hurley was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1992 and his feast day is June 20th. It took me many years to convince the City Council to erect a memorial to Blessed Dermot in St. Kevin’s in Camden Row.

Dermot O’Hurley drank the chalice of Christ’s passion, willing to endure anything for his sake. May his cause have a happy and speedy ending. May he rest in peace.