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Blessed Richard Creagh

14 October
20 June as one of the Irish Martyrs

Profile

Son of a wealthy merchant; as a young man Richard worked in his father‘s business. However, feeling a call to the priesthood, he studied at the University of Leuven, Belgium where he was an excellent student, and was ordained in 1555. He returned to Limerick, Ireland in 1556 and opened a school in an abandoned Dominican friary there. Chosen archbishop of Armagh, Ireland on Low Sunday in 1564. Arrested in December 1564 for the crime of acknowleding the authority of the Pope over the Church. After several months in prison, and multiple interrogations, Creagh escaped from the Tower of London on 29 April 1565 and fled to Leuven. He went from there to Spain and then back to Ireland in July 1566, resuming his ministry and preaching peace between the Irish and English. Arrested on 30 April 1567 in Kinelea, Ireland. A Dublin jury refused to convict Richard of anything, and his jailer helped him to escape, but in October 1567 Richard was arrested yet again, and again imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was kept chained, periodically interrogated, and systematically abused for years; he lost all his teeth and the use of one leg. Richard was released on bail in March 1570, and returned to Ireland where he resumed his ministry. Arrested again in May 1574, he was imprisoned in Dublin until February 1575 at which point he was returned to the Tower of London where he stayed until his death. While there, the periods when he was unchained, he ministered to other prisoners. Martyr.