Patrick Tyrrell

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Patrick Tyrrell (also Tyrell), O.F.M., a Franciscan friar, was an Irish Catholic church leader who died in 1692. He served as Bishop of Clogher from 1676 to 1689, Vicar Apostolic of Kilmore from 1678 to 1689, and Bishop of Meath from 1689 to 1692. A devoted Jacobite, he was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1688–1689. Tyrrell was educated in Ireland and at the University of Alcalá in Spain, ordained in Rome around 1652–1653, and studied further in Rome before teaching theology in Naples. In 1665 he became vice-secretary-general of the Franciscans. He was appointed Bishop of Clogher by Pope Clement X in 1676 and consecrated that year. He was named Vicar Apostolic of Kilmore by Pope Innocent XI in 1678. During the Popish Plot crisis he went into hiding, was arrested and imprisoned but escaped with help from sympathetic gaolers, and was later arrested again in 1680 on a treason charge but acquitted. After James II became king, he went to London to pledge loyalty. He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland under the Earl of Tyrconnell from 1688 to 1689 and was transferred to the Diocese of Meath in 1689. It is said he celebrated Mass with Jacobite soldiers on the morning of the Battle of the Boyne, and he chose to stay in Ireland after the Williamite War, dying in office in 1692.