[2] Ireland was educated at the English College at St. Omer; admitted to the Society of Jesus at age 19 at Watten in 1655; studied theology in Liege and was ordained a priest in 1667.

The sworn testimony of Oates and Bedloe impressed the jury, despite their unsavoury reputation, and Chief Justice William Scroggs summed up against Ireland.

It has been said that this account, which was supported by several credible witnesses such as Mrs. Jane Harwell of Wolverhampton, in whose house he had stayed during the crucial period, gave the judges more trouble than any other single piece of evidence produced for the accused during the Plot Trials.

The King, who had already stated privately that they were innocent, as a special act of clemency ordered that they be allowed to hang until they were dead, thus sparing them the usual horrors of drawing and quartering.

This unusual step may reflect the strongly expressed private view of King Charles II (who died a few days before the trial started) that Ireland was innocent.

[7] The Crown may well have had an uneasy conscience about the decision to reject Ireland's cast-iron alibi, which had troubled them enough to have it debated twice before the Privy Council,[8] and which was conclusive at Oates's trial, when he failed to produce his crucial countervailing witness, the elusive servant girl Sarah Paine.