[1][2] Although the exact date of his birth remains unknown, Muiris Mac Ionrachtaigh, was born at Kilmallock (Irish: Cill Mocheallóg), which was "a prosperous walled town in the Desmond lands in County Limerick".
[3] Mac Ionrachtaigh embraced the ecclesiastical state and is believed to have studied abroad in Catholic Europe and to have graduated bachelor in theology.
During the uprising, Mac Ionrachtaigh continued his priestly ministry to the best of his ability and is said to have suffered immensely during the Earl of Ormond's retaliatory campaign of scorched earth and total war that triggered a State-imposed famine which killed an estimated third of Munster's population.
[4] On 17 September 1583, while a fugitive with the Earl, Mac Ionrachtaigh was surprised on Sliabh Luachra by Maurice Roche, 6th Viscount Fermoy's gallowglass.
[6] According to the Tipperary Museum of Hidden History, the earliest records of a Clonmel city gaol date from 1650 and refer to a small building located around what is now O'Connell Street.
Despite White's pleas that he preferred to lose his own life rather than have Mac Ionrachtaigh come to harm, the priest insisted upon giving himself up and was again thrown into Clonmel Gaol.
Mac Ionrachtaigh, however, resolutely maintained the Roman Catholic faith and the Petrine Primacy and was according condemned by Sir John Norris, "after much invective", to death for high treason.
After passing sentence, however, Norris offered Mac Ionrachtaigh a full pardon in return for taking the Oath of Supremacy and naming those local Catholics who had attended his Mass or secretly received the Sacraments from him.
According to Bishop David Rothe, "When he came to the place of execution, he turned to the people and addressed them some pious words as far as time allowed; in the end he asked all Catholics to pray for him and he gave them his blessing.
Burke alleged, without citing his source, that Mac Ionrachtaigh's body had been re-exhumed in 1647 and reburied alongside the tombs of the FitzGerald dynasty at Askeaton Friary in County Limerick.
[9] According to historian James Coombes, the former location of Victor White's house near Lough Street in Clonmel continued to be nicknamed "Martyr Lane" until well into Cromwellian times.