Irish Catholic Martyrs
Irish Catholic Martyrs (Irish: Mairtírigh Chaitliceacha na hÉireann) were 24 Irish men and women who have been beatified or canonized for both a life of heroic virtue and for dying for their Catholic faith between the reign of King Henry VIII and Catholic Emancipation in 1829. The more than three century-long religious persecution of the Catholic Church in Ireland came in waves, caused by an overreaction by the State to certain incidents and interspersed with intervals of comparative respite.