habemus viros eos quos pietate atque integritate praestare intelligimus, sic cupimus eos nostris in Christo fratribus ac filiis esse summopere commendatos, huncque animum cum omnibus pietate et virtute praeditis tum vero venerabilibus fratribus Episcopis ut ordine ipso sic charitate Nobis conjunctissimis Nos debere cognoscimus. In his est venerabilis frater Edmundus Episcopus Corcagiensis qui a Nobis discedit ut in patriam revertatur. Erit igitur Nobis gratissimum, si eum in hac peregrinatione quam commendatissimum habebitis, vestroque ubi opus esse intelligetis favore complectemini: Datum Romae apud S. Petrum sub annulo Piscatoris die 12 Maii 1575, Pontif. Nostri an. tertio". (Theiner, Annals, ii. 133).

This worthy bishop, during four years, endured the toils and sufferings of his perilous ministry. The Vatican list of 1579 represents the see "Corchagiensis et Clonensis" as still presided over by a canonically appointed bishop; and another list of the clergy who were then engaged in the exercise of their sacred ministry in Ireland presents first of all the name "Reverendissimus Edmundus Epus. Corchagiensis, pulsus tamen Episcopatu". In this last named list we also find commemorated: "Thomas Moreanus Decanus Corchagiensis": and again, "P. Carolus Lens et P. Robertus Rishfordus, ambo Societatis Jesu, qui in variis locis docent litteras sub cura et mandato Reverendissimi Corchagiensis". Soon after, however, on the 4th of June, 1579, Dr. Tanner was summoned to receive the reward of his zeal and labours.

His successor was Dermitius Graith, who was proposed for the first time in the consistory of 7th October, 1580, and whose election was definitely confirmed on the 11th of the same month. The following is the consistorial entry:

"Die 11º Octobris, 1580, Cardinalis Ursinus praenunciavit Ecclesias Corkagien. et Cloinen. invicem unitas in Provincia cuidam principi Catholico subjecta, pro Hyberno scholari Collegii Germanici".

In the list of the Irish clergy above referred to, under the heading "qui sunt extra Hiberniam", is mentioned Darmisius Craticus, who is described as studying in Rome, and in his thirtieth year. He is subsequently again mentioned among those who might be destined for the Irish mission, and it is there added that he was a native of Munster, and though he was skilled in both the English and Irish languages, he was more conversant with the Irish: "melius loquitur Hibernice". From the consistorial acts we further learn that he applied himself to sacred studies in the illustrious college which had been founded a few years before for the purpose of supplying missioners to Germany and other countries suffering from the oppression of heresy, and among his companions in its hallowed halls was Nicholas Skerrett, who was destined to be sharer of his missionary toils and perils as Archbishop of Tuam.

Dr. Graith was one of the most illustrious missioners who laboured in our Irish Church during the sixteenth century; and, as Peter Lombard informs us, was at one time the only bishop in the province of Munster. Soon after his arrival in our island, the agents of heresy mainly directed their efforts towards his apprehension, and so chagrined were they at his escape that they even accused Sir John Perrot of having secretly favoured him and thus baffled their designs. In a memorial presented to government in 1592, "Doctor Creagh, Bishop of Cloyne and Cork", appears first on the list of those who in Munster were enemies of the Elizabethan rule, having lived "in the country these eleven or twelve years past, without pardon or protection, consecrating churches, making priests", etc.; and it is further added that "he did more evil", that is, he was more zealous in propagating our holy faith, even "than Dr. Sanders in his time" (see Essays, etc., by Rev. Dr. M'Carthy, pag. 424). Another State Paper, being a letter from the Lord Deputy to Lord Burghley, in England, dated 17th May, 1593, gives us the following particulars:—

"We have laboured with all possible endeavours with the Earl of Tirone, as well by private conference as by our sending letters, for the apprehension of the titular bishops remaining in these parts; yet can we by no means prevail, though it is very well known to us that the earl might have done great and acceptable service therein, on account of the friendship between him, O'Donell, and Maguire—Maguire being cousin-germain, and altogether at his service, and, as report goeth, either hath or is to marry the earl's daughter. And as in this I made bold, I humbly pray your lordship's pardon, to state what little success hath followed of the great shams of service made by the Archbishop of Cashel and Richard Power, rather in regard for their own benefit and to serve their own turns, than for any performance of actions at all. Upon the Archbishop's coming over they pretended a plot, both for the getting of great sums of money for her Majesty and for the apprehension of Dr. Creaghe, to the second of which we rather first hearkened, but in the end nothing was done more than to spend so much time, and an open show, as it were, made to the world how that traitor was sought and laid for, whereby the other traitorous titular bishops might take warning to be the more wary upon their keeping" (S. P. O.).

The accusation which is here made against the unfortunate Miler MacGrath, Protestant Archbishop of Cashel, had probably more foundation than the Lord Deputy imagined; and whilst much noise was made for the arrest of our Bishop Dermitius, intelligence of all such schemes was communicated to him by Miler himself. One letter of MacGrath to his "loving wife Any" is preserved in the S. P. O., dated from Greenwich, the 26th of June, 1592, in which he writes: "I have already resolved you in my mind touching my cousin Darby Creagh, and I desire you now to cause his friends to send him out of the whole country if they can, or if not to send (to him) my orders, for that there is such search to be made for him that unless he be wise he shall be taken".

On the 31st of October, 1595, a brief was addressed to "Dermitio Episcopo Corcagiensi", commissioning him to grant some ecclesiastical livings to Owen MacEgan, who a few years later became illustrious in the annals of our church as Vicar Apostolic of Ross.—(See Irish Ecclesiastical Record, vol. i., p. 110). In 1599 Dr. Graith was visited by the Franciscan Father Mooney, who in his History of the Order, commemorating this visit, describes the bishop as "vir valde prudens et in rebus agendis versatus". This must have been a period of harrowing anxiety for the worthy bishop. His diocese was laid waste by fire and sword, the Irish chieftains driven to arms by the iniquitous policy of the agents of Elizabeth, having made the southern districts of Ireland the theatre of their struggle. Dr. Graith shared the perils of their camp, ministering to them the comforts of religion. One of his hair-breadth escapes is thus described in the Hibernia Pacata, pag. 190:

"The Earl of Thomond, Sir George Thornton, and Captain Roger Harvey, with their companies, following the direction of their guide, were conducted to Lisbarry, a parcel of Drumfinnin woods. No sooner were they entered into the fastness, than presently the sentinels who were placed in the outskirts of the wood, raised the cry which it would seem roused the Earl of Desmond and Dermod MacCraghe, the Pope's Bishop of Cork, who were lodged there in a poor ragged cabin. Desmond fled away barefoot, having no leisure to pull on his shoes, and was not discovered; but MacCraghe was met by some of the soldiers clothed in a simple mantle, and with torn trousers like an aged churl, and they neglecting so poor a creature, not able to carry a weapon, suffered him to pass unregarded".

This happened in the month of