He reached Ireland in safety, soon reconciled himself with his Church, and was ordained a priest; in the priestly office he acquitted himself in a way very satisfactory, upon the whole, to his superiors, having, as he frequently said, learned wisdom abroad.

The Popish Church never fails to turn to account any particular gift which its servants may possess; and discovering soon that Murtagh was endowed with considerable manual dexterity--proof of which he frequently gave at cards, and at a singular game which he occasionally played with thimbles--it selected him as a very fit person to play the part of exorcist; and accordingly he travelled through a great part of Ireland, casting out devils from people possessed, which he afterwards exhibited, sometimes in the shape of rabbits, and occasionally birds and fish.

There is a holy island in a lake in Ireland, to which the people resort at a particular season of the year.

Here Murtagh frequently attended, and it was here that he performed a cure which will cause his name long to be remembered in Ireland, delivering a possessed woman of two demons, which he brandished aloft in his hands, in the shape of two large eels, and subsequently hurled into the lake, amidst the shouts of an enthusiastic multitude.

Besides playing the part of an exorcist, he acted that of a politician with considerable success; he attached himself to the party of the sire of agitation--"the man of paunch," and preached and hallooed for repeal with the loudest and best, as long as repeal was the cry; as soon, however, as the Whigs attained the helm of Government, and the greater part of the loaves and fishes--more politely termed the patronage of Ireland--was placed at the disposition of the priesthood, the tone of Murtagh, like that of the rest of his brother saggarts, was considerably softened; he even went so far as to declare that politics were not altogether consistent with sacerdotal duty; and resuming his exorcisms, which he had for some time abandoned, he went to the Isle of Holiness, and delivered a possessed woman of six demons in the shape of white mice.
He, however, again resumed the political mantle in the year 1848, during the short period of the rebellion of the so-called Young Irelanders.