Irish Catholic Martyrs
Irish Catholic Martyrs | |
|---|---|
Irish Catholic Martyrs formally recognized | |
| Born | Ireland |
| Died | between 1535 (Venerable John Travers) – 1 July 1681 (Saint Oliver Plunkett), Ireland, England, Wales |
| Martyred by | Monarchy of England Commonwealth of England, Protectorate of England, First French Republic |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 3 were beatified on 15 December 1929 by Pope Pius XI 1 was beatified on 22 November 1987 by Pope John Paul II 18 were beatified on 27 September 1992 by Pope John Paul II |
| Canonized | 1 (Oliver Plunkett) was canonized on 12 October 1975 by Pope Paul VI |
| Feast | 20 June, various for individual martyrs |
Irish Catholic Martyrs (Irish: Mairtírigh Chaitliceacha na hÉireann) were 24 Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for both a life of heroic virtue and for dying for their Catholic faith between the reign of King Henry VIII and Catholic Emancipation in 1829.
The more than three century-long religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland came in waves, caused by an overreaction by the State to certain incidents and interspersed with intervals of comparative respite.
The 1975 canonization of Archbishop Oliver Plunkett, who was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 1 July 1681, as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales raised considerable public interest in other Irishmen and Irishwomen who had similarly died for their Catholic faith in the 16th and 17th centuries. On 22 September 1992 Pope John Paul II beatified an additional 17 martyrs and assigned June 20, the anniversary of the 1584 martyrdom of Archbishop Dermot O'Hurley, as their feast day.