Rothe’s Analecta, p423

He was appointed Archbishop of Cashel by Gregory XIll.

He landed in Skerries and went to Slane, was given a secret room by the Baron’s wife. Later he began to sit at table, not afraid to speak with any guests. 

Robert Dillon, the Chief Justice came to the house. While at table, some words fell from the Archbishop’s lips; and made the cunning Chief Justice ask who he was, and more. 

He fled. The Baron was brought before the judges. He should get a heavy fine and imprisonment, or bring them the Archbishop. The Baron, in great terror, immediately went in search of him.

The Baron overtook him and conducted him to Dublin. Some Catholics visited him. The conversation turned on the Bishop of Ferns, who abandoned the faith. 

‘There are many,’ said he, ‘who are lions before the fight, yet are found to be timid as deer in the fight. I humbly implore our good Lord that the like may not happen to me; for he who thinks he stands, let him take care lest he fall.’ 

In Dublin, he was accused of many crimes, but could not be convicted by open trial. 

It was resolved to use military law. 

But first torture. 

They placed the Archbishop’s feet and legs in boots filled with oil, they fastened his feet in stocks, and they put fire under them. The oil, heated by the flames, penetrated the soles, legs, and other parts, torturing them in an intolerable way, so that pieces of the skin dropped from the flesh, portions of the flesh from the bared bones. He who was presiding over this torture, not being used to such strange cruelty, rushed hurriedly out of the room, that he might not look further at such savage conduct or hear the cries of the innocent Archbishop. 

The executioners wished to gratify their minds for a while with these strange cruelties, but they did not mean to be satiated thereby, for after an interval of a few days they hurried the Prelate, who had been racked and was almost expiring from the continued tortures, and had no thought then that he should be put to death so suddenly, to a field not far from Dublin Castle, at the break of day, lest the citizens should crowd to witness such cruelty, and there they hanged the innocent man from the gallows with a halter roughly made of twigs, that his sufferings might be all the greater.

Not only his feet and legs were penetrated by the hot oil and salt, not only did the skin and flesh fall from the joints, not only were the muscles and nerves, the veins and arteries, saturated with the fiery mixture, not only were the limbs and sinews and bones pierced by this fierce fluid, but his whole body was devoured by the heat, and at the same time bathed in a cold sweat.

With a loud voice he used to cry out: ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me.’ 

These words he uttered aloud he repeated and pronounced sweetly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me’. 

He seemed to be exhausted by the extent of his sufferings; he lay on the ground dumb and almost lifeless; he could not move his eyes or tongue, his hands or feet, or any member of his body. 

He who was superintending the execution began to dread that while ordered only to inflict torture, he had exceeded his orders and brought about the Archbishop’s death. 

As Perrott was about to receive the sword of office on Trinity Sunday, the preceding Friday, he was put on a hurdle and taken out by the garden gate to the place where he was hanged, while he prayed to God and forgave his tormentors. 

His body was buried later buried in the ruinous chapel of St. Kevin. Many miracles are said to have been wrought at this tomb.

Please pray for final perseverance for all of us!
May the martyrs of old inspire us all.