William Tirry

Blessed William Tirry (Irish: Liam Tuiridh) OSA
Martyr
Born	c. 1609 Cork, Ireland
Died	12 May 1654 (aged 44 - 45) Clonmel, Ireland
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Beatified	27 September 1992 by Pope John Paul II
Feast	12 May

William Tirry OSA (1609 – 12 May 1654) was an Irish Roman Catholic priest of the Order of Saint Augustine. He suffered martyrdom in Clonmel in the context of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1992.

Life

Tirry was born into a well-to-do merchant family in Cork, Ireland in 1608, the son of Robert and Joan Tirry. He was named after his uncle, the elder William Tirry, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne. Tirry was the grandson of Edmond Terry, or Tirry, Lord Mayor of Cork, and his wife Catherine Galway. His aunt Joan married Dominick Sarsfield, 1st Viscount Sarsfield, the Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas: their son William, the 2nd Viscount, played an important role in Tirry's life as his patron and protector.

Well-educated, he learned Latin and Greek, but spoke Gaelic. At the age of eighteen, he joined the Augustinian Order at St. Austin's Abbey in Cork, and studied in Valladolid, where he was ordained around 1634. He completed his studies in Paris, and then spent five years (1636–1641) in Brussels, Belgium.

Ministry

He returned to Ireland in 1641. Because community life was impossible at the time, he served as secretary to his uncle, the bishop. Then he found safe refuge with his Roman Catholic cousin William Sarsfield, 2nd Viscount Sarsfield, and acted as tutor to his sons. Tirry was elected Provincial Secretary in 1646. Lord Sarsfield's death in 1648 deprived Tirry of his chief protector. In 1649 he was chosen as prior of the Augustinian convent in Skreen but was unable to assume his duties there as this was the same year that marked the beginning of the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. A law was enacted on 6 January 1653 declaring that any Roman Catholic priest in Ireland was guilty of treason. Tirry was forced into hiding alongside other priests. Much of the time he found shelter with his distant cousins, the Everards of Fethard. He was captured the following March about to celebrate the Easter Vigil, when three men reported his whereabouts for the £5 bounty.

Imprisonment and Execution

William was imprisoned at Clonmel and refused to adopt the Protestant faith. He was executed by hanging on 12 May 1654. He asked absolution if there should be a priest disguised in the crowd, thinking that a fellow Augustinian, Fr. Dennis O'Driscoll, the former provincial whose secretary William had been, was present. An account told by a friar who had been tried with William supplies some details of the day: "William, wearing his Augustinian habit, was led to the gallows praying the rosary. He blessed the crowd which had gathered, pardoned his betrayers and affirmed his faith. It was a moving moment for Catholics and Protestants alike."

Tirry was buried on the grounds of the ruined Augustinian abbey in Fethard. William Tirry was beatified with 16 other Irish martyrs on 27 September 1993. The Augustinian order celebrates his feast on 12 May.

External links

• The Ballad of William Tirry
• "Ireland", Augnet - 4845