O'HU
he waa appointed by Gregory XITI. to the see of Cashel. With considerable diffi- culty he procured passage in a ship from Cherbourg, landed at Skerries, and pro- ceeded to Waterford. For two years go- vernment spies sought opportunities to seize him, but their plans were frustrated by the fidelity of his co-religionists. To avoid observation he was obliged, in com- mon with other bishops and priests, to wear a secular dress, and for a considerable time he lay concealed in a secret chamber at Slane Castle. At length he was arrested and brought before the Privy Council for examination. He was horribly tortured. "The executioners placed the Archbishop's feet and calves in tin boots fiUed with oil ; they then fastened his feet in wooden shackles or stocks, and placed fire imder them. The boiling oil so penetrated the feet and legs that morsels of the skin, and even flesh, fell oflf and left the bone bare." The Archbishop resolutely refused to pur- chase a cessation of his torments by ac- knowledging the Queen's supremacy in matters of religion. An end was put to his sufferings by his being hanged on a tree outside Dublin, 19th June 1 584. The above particulars as to his treatment are said to be incontestibly proved by docu- ments in the public records. He was buried in St. Kevin's, Dublin. ^4 i^st
O'Kussey, last hereditary bard of the great sept of the Maguires of Fermanagh, flourished about 1630. When quite a youth he celebrated in verse the escape of Hugh Eoe O'Donnell from Dublin Castle. The noble ode which O'Hussey addressed to Hugh Maguire, when that chief went on a dangerous expedition, has been trans- lated by Mangan. Samuel Ferguson says " there is a vivid vigour in these descrip- tions, and a savage power . . which claim a character almost approaching to sublimity. '^
O'Eeefe, John, a popular dramatic writer, was born in Dublin, 24th June 1747. In youth he studied art at the schools of the Dublin Society ; but develop- ing a decided taste for the stage, and writing a comedy displaying considerable taste, he obtained an engagement with Mossop in Dublin, and acted for twelve years with considerable success. When but twenty-three years of age an accident brought on weakness of the eyes, which after some years resulted in almost total blindness, and he removed to London, where he devoted himself entirely to composition. During the next twenty years he wrote upwards of fifty comedies and farces, a collection of which was pub- lished in four volumes in 1798. Keduced
O'LE
to a state of great embarrassment in 1800, he was accorded a benefit at Covent Gar- den, and after the performance was led on to the stage, and delivered a touching address. He published his Recollections in 1826, and died at Southampton, 4th Febru- ary 1833, aged 85. Some among his numer- ous pieces still keep their hold on the stage , A writer in Representative Actors says: " His inventive powers in the construc- tion of odd phrases and quaint burdens for songs, his extraordinary combinations of strange fancies, and the contrivance of a sort of significant gibberish, without mean- ing in itself, but fashioned so as to convey the most accurate and vivid ideas of what he himself meant to express, are matters beyond the power of analysis ; yet his fancies are obsolete, and, with the dramas of the King of Leinster, . . lost to the stage and the public." 3 « ^ "6(43) .ast
Olaf Cuaran (Olaf the Red, Amlav, Sitricson) was Norse King of Dublin in the loth century. After the death of his father Sitric, he went to Scotland, and married a daughter of Constantino III. In 939, we read of his arrival at York, his siege of Northampton, and sack of Tamworth, and a few years later the cession to him by King Edmund of the northern part of his kingdom. In 945 he rebuUt Dublin, after its destruction by the Irish. In 952 he was expelled from England, and retired to Ireland. Four years after- wards he defeated and slew Congalach, King of Ireland. In 964 he was himself defeated at Innistiogue by the men of Ossory ; in 970, in conjunction with the Leinster Irish, he plundered Kells ; and in the same year defeated Domhnall O'Neill, King of Ireland. He again defeated the Irish in 978 and 979, on the former occa- sion slaying the heirs to the throne of Ire- land in the two royal lines of the northern and southern O'Neills. The last scene in Olaf's life as a warrior was his total defeat at the battle of Tara, fought in 980, against King Malachy. Dublin was occupied by the Irish, and, according to the Four Mas- ters, the country was released from the " Babylonian captivity " of the Northmen — " next to the captivity of hell." Olaf's son Eaguall was slain, and he retired broken-hearted to lona, where he died in 981. He was thrice married — to a daugh- ter of Constantine III., to Gormlaith, sister widow of Domhnall, King of Ireland, and mother of King Malachy. ^^
O'Leary, Arthtir, D.D., a prominent politician and writer, was born in 1729, at Acres, near Dunmanway, County of Cork. He was educated at St. Malo, in France, where he spent twenty-four years as prison
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