Portal:Saints/Selected biography/September 2006

Saint Oliver Plunkett

Oliver Plunkett (1 November 1629 – 1 July 1681) was Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. He maintained his duties in Ireland in the face of English persecution and was eventually arrested and tried for treason at a kangaroo court after lawful courts had failed to convict him. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on July 1, 1681, and became the last Catholic martyr to die in England. Oliver Plunkett was beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1975, the first new Irish saint for almost seven hundred years.