He was born on 18 April 1768 at Sheepwalk, near Arklow,
County Wicklow, the son of Thomas and Judith Murray. His parents were farmers. At the age of eight he went to
Thomas Betagh's school at Saul's Court, near
Christchurch Cathedral. At sixteen,
Archbishop John Carpenter sent him to the
Irish College at Salamanca, completing his studies at the
University of Salamanca. He was ordained priest in 1792 at the age of twenty-four. After some years as
curate at
St. Paul's Church in Dublin he was transferred to Arklow, and was there in 1798 when the
rebellion broke out. The yeomanry shot the parish priest in bed and Murray, to escape a similar fate, fled to the city where for two years he served as curate at St. Andrew's Chapel on Hawkins Street. As a preacher, Murray is said to have been particularly effective, especially in appeals for charitable causes, such as the schools. He was then assigned to the Chapel of St. Mary in
Liffey Street Upper where Archbishop
John Troy was the Parish Priest. Murray became Archbishop of Dublin in 1825 and on 14 November 1825 celebrated the completion of
St Mary's Pro-Cathedral. He enjoyed the confidence of successive popes and was held in high respect by the British government. His life was mainly devoted to ecclesiastical affairs, and the establishment and organisation of religious associations for the education and relief of the poor. With the outbreak of cholera in the 1830s, in 1834 he and Mother Aikenhead founded
St. Vincent's Hospital. Murray persuaded
Edmund Rice to send members of the
Christian Brothers to Dublin to start a school for boys. The first was opened in a lumber yard on the City Quay. He assisted
Catherine McAuley in founding the
Sisters of Mercy, and in 1831 professed the first three members.
Edward Bouverie Pusey had an interview with him in 1841, and bore testimony to his moderation, and
John Henry Newman had some correspondence with him prior to Newman's conversion from the Anglican Church to the Roman Catholic Church in 1845. A seat in the privy council at Dublin, officially offered to him in 1846, was not accepted. Murray took part in the synod of the Roman Catholic clergy at
Thurles in 1850. Towards the end of his life, Murray's eyesight was impaired, and he read and wrote with difficulty. Among his last priestly functions was a funeral service for
Richard Lalor Sheil who had died in Italy, and whose body had been brought back to Ireland for burial. Daniel Murray died in Dublin on 26 February 1852, at the age of eighty-four. He was interred in the pro-cathedral, Dublin, where a marble statue of him has been erected in connection with a monument to his memory, executed by James Farrell, president of the Royal Hibernian Academy of Fine Arts. ==Views==