Theobald Stapleton, alias Teabóid Gálldubh (1589 – 13 September 1647), was an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

priest born in

County Tipperary County Tipperary ( ga, Contae Thiobraid Árann) is a county in Ireland. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. The county is named after the town of Tipperary, and was established in the early 13th century, shortly after th ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. Little is known of his career, except that he was a priest living in

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...

. Stapleton was responsible for the establishment of the

Irish College Irish Colleges is the collective name used for approximately 34 centres of education for Irish Catholic clergy and lay people opened on continental Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. History The Colleges were set up to educate Roma ...

in Seville in 1612 and the Irish College in Madrid in 1629 In 1639, he published a

catechism A catechism (; from grc, κατηχέω, "to teach orally") is a summary or exposition of doctrine and serves as a learning introduction to the Sacraments traditionally used in catechesis, or Christian religious teaching of children and adult c ...

Early Modern Irish Early Modern Irish ( ga, Gaeilge Chlasaiceach, , Classical Irish) represented a transition between Middle Irish and Modern Irish. Its literary form, Classical Gaelic, was used in Ireland and Scotland from the 13th to the 18th century. External ...

to promote the use of the language in religious literature. It was the first Roman Catholic book in which the

Irish language Irish ( Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...

was printed in antiqua type. The book, published in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, was called or, in Irish, . Stapleton's catechism was also the first notable attempt to simplify

Irish spelling Irish orthography is very etymological which allows the same written form to represent all dialects of Irish and remain regular. For example, ("head") may be read in Mayo and Ulster, in Galway, or in Munster. A spelling reform in the mid-2 ...

. He advocated and used a simplified spelling of Irish to encourage literacy among less educated people. In Stapleton's system, silent letters in certain words were replaced, e.g., in the word ('sitting') was replaced by in (as in modern Irish). He also brought the spelling closer to the pronunciation, e.g. by replacing as in ('terror') by , giving ''uafás'' as in modern Irish. However, only authors of devotional literature adopted his spelling system; the classical spelling system remained in place until the 20th century. On 27 September 1647, in the

Sack of Cashel The Sack of Cashel, also known as the massacre of Cashel, took place on 15 September 1647 during the Irish Confederate Wars, when Cashel Castle in County Tipperary was taken by an Protestant Parliamentarian army commanded by the Earl o ...

, during the

Irish Confederate Wars The Irish Confederate Wars, also called the Eleven Years' War (from ga, Cogadh na hAon-déag mBliana), took place in Ireland between 1641 and 1653. It was the Irish theatre of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, a series of civil wars in the kin ...

Stapleton was captured in the cathedral at Cashel by Parliamentarian soldiers under the command of

Murrough O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin Murrough MacDermod O'Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin (September 1614 – 9 September 1673), was an Irish nobleman and soldier, who came from one of the most powerful families in Munster. Known as "''Murchadh na dTóiteán''" ("Murrough the Burner" ...

, and put to death on the spot. Due to his martyrdom in Pope John Paul II venerated him in 1991 and in 1992 beatified him, making him Blessed Theobald Stapleton.Blessed Thomas Stapleton
CatholicSaints.info

References

Sources and external links

*Ryan-Hackett, Rita. 1995. ''The Stapletons of Drom, alias Font-Forte, Co. Tipperary''. Killiney: Thornvale.
St. John D. Seymour: The Storming of the Rock of Cashel by Lord Inchiquin in 1647.English Historical Review, Vol. 32, No. 127 (July, 1917)Araltas.comSimplified Spelling System''The Spiritual Rose'' ed. Malachy McKenna
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stapleton, Theobald 1589 births 1647 deaths Irish-language writers 17th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests People from County Kilkenny People of Elizabethan Ireland 17th-century Roman Catholic martyrs