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Augustine, to Ossory, while John Quinn of Limerick, who had been forced to resign the See of Limerick during the reign of Edward VI., was apparently restored. The selection of Curwen to fill the archiepiscopal See of Dublin was particularly unfortunate. However learned he might have been, or however distinguished his ancestry, he was not remarkable for the fixity of his religious principles. During the reign of Henry VIII. he had acquired notoriety by his public defence of the royal divorce, as well as by his attacks on papal supremacy, though, like Henry, he was a strong upholder of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and of Transubstantiation. Like a true courtier he changed his opinions immediately on the accession of Queen Mary, and he was rewarded by being promoted to Dublin and appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland (1555). The Cathedral Chapter of St. Patrick's that had been suppressed was restored to "its pristine state;" new dignitaries and canons were appointed, and much of the possessions that had been seized were returned.[4]

The Mass and Catholic ceremonies were restored without any opposition in those churches in Dublin and Leinster into which the English service had been introduced. A provincial synod was held in Dublin by the new archbishop (1556) to wipe out all traces of heresy and schism.

Primate Dowdall had convoked previously a synod of the Northern Provinces at Drogheda to undertake a similar work. In this assembly it was laid down that all priests who had attempted to marry during the troubles of the previous reign should be deprived of their benefices and suspended; that the clergy who had adopted the heretical rites in the religious celebrations and in the administration of the Sacraments should be admitted to pardon in case they repented of their crimes and could prove that their fall was due to fear rather than conviction;that all the ancient rites and ceremonies of the Church in regard to crosses, images, candles, thuribles, canonical hours, Mass, the administration of the sacraments, fast days, holidays, holy water, and blessed bread should be restored; that the Book of Common Prayer, etc., should be burned, and that the Primate and the bishops of the province should appoint inquisitors in each diocese, to whom the clergy should denounce those who refused to follow the Catholic worship and ceremonies. Arrangements were also made to put an end to abuses in connexion with the bestowal of benefices on laymen and children, with the appointment of clerics to parishes and dignities by the Holy See on the untrustworthy recommendation of local noblemen, with the excessive fees charged by some of the clergy, with the neglect of those whose duty it was to contribute to the repairs of the parish churches, and with the failure of some priests to wear a becoming clerical dress.[5]

In July 1556 Lord Fitzwalter was sent to Ireland as Deputy. "Our said Deputy and Council," according to the royal instructions, "shall by their own good example and all other good means to them possible, advance the honour of Almighty God, the true Catholic faith and religion, now by God's great goodness and special grace recovered in our realms of England and Ireland, and namely they shall set forth the honour and dignity of the Pope's Holiness and Apostolic See of Rome, and from time to time be ready with our aid and secular force, at the request of all spiritual ministers and ordinaries there, to punish and repress all heretics and Lollards, and their damnable sects, opinions, and errors." They were commanded, too, to assist the commissioners and officials whom Cardinal Pole as papal legate intended to send shortly to make a visitation of the clergy and people of Ireland.[6] On the arrival of the new Deputy in Dublin he went in state to Christ's Church to assist at Mass, after the celebration of which he received the sword of state from his predecessor before the altar, and took the oath in presence of the archbishop. "That done, the trumpets sounded and drums beat, and then the Lord Deputy kneeled down before the altar until the /Te Deum/ was ended."[7]

The new Deputy was instructed to take measures for summoning a meeting of Parliament in the following year to give legal sanction to the restoration of the Catholic religion, and to deal with the ecclesiastical property that had been seized. Possibly in the hope of securing some of these again for the Church a commission was issued to the Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishop of Kildare, and a number of clerics and laymen "to inquire concerning the chalices, crosses, ornaments, bells, and other property belonging to the parish churches or chapels in the county of the city and county of Dublin and of sales made thereof to any person or persons, the price, in whose hands they then remained, and also in whose possession were the houses, lands, and tenements, belonging to those churches." Similar commissions were issued to others for the counties of Drogheda and Louth, Kildare, Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny, Meath, Westmeath, Waterford, Tipperary, Limerick, Cork, and "for the county of Connaught."[8]