The collective title given to the 260 or more persons who are credited with dying for the faith in Ireland between 1537,1714. Pope Benedict XV signed the Commission of Introduction for their beatification in March 1915. The long delay in the start of their Cause was occasioned by the scarcity of official records and by the evident reprisals which any such virtual declaration of the injustice of laws still in effect would naturally have brought from the English ascendancy. The latter objection was removed in 1829 by Catholic Emancipation; the former was gradually overcome as conscientious investigators published the results of their researches. A series of publications begun in 1861 by Dr Moran (then Vice-Rector of the Irish College, Rome, later cardinal, and Archbishop of Sydney) was followed in 1868 by a collection of memorials made with great discrimination by Major Myles O'Reilly; the labors of these two men greatly facilitated the task of investigation finally entrusted by the ecclesiastical authorities to Father Denis Murphy, S.J., whose materials were published in 1896, thus completing the work started in Portugal between 1588,1599 by Father John Houling, S.J. Either the records of the various martyrdoms during the reign of King Henry VIII were all destroyed, or it was too dangerous to attempt to keep them, and for that reason the evidence for this time is so scanty that only two names of martyrs belonging to this period have been submitted in the appeal for beatification. Neither have any names been submitted from the earliest narrative, i.e.,the histories given to an Irish professor at the University of Alcala by an old Trinitarian friar, for discredit has been thrown on it because it was worked up by the fanciful Spanish writer Lopez. Nevertheless, in spite of the most careful investigation of their claims to martyrdom, and with the elimination of most of those who died in prison rather than by actual martyrdom, the following list has been retained and their names presented for beatification. Many were beatified on September 27, 1992 by Pope John Paul II.
Archbishops
Bishops
Secular Priests
Order of Premonstratensians
Order of Cistercians
Order of Preachers
Order of Saint Francis
Order of Saint Augustine
Carmelite Order
Order of the Blessed Trinity
Society of Jesus
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